School of Rock
(Paramount Region 1 DVD)
(2003)
review by Billion$Baby

Jack Black secures his rightful place in the comedy hall of fame with an absolutely brilliant performance as a completely self centered wannabe rock star! After Dewey Finn is sacked by his band (who've had enough of his selfish stage behaviour and antics), he steals his roomie's substitute teacher persona and works at a private school in order to earn cash for the rent. Trouble is, Dewey only knows one thing - rock music. He cancels the unimportant lessons (ie, maths) and starts to teach the kids the basics of rockand in a few choice scenes, how to stick it to the man.

This has to be one of the funniest films that I've seen in ages. Jack Black gives a John Belushi in overdrive physical comedy performance, cramming as many amusing facial expressions, stances and gestures into each scene as humanly possible. If the guy never made you laugh with previous performances, then this is probably the film that'll win you over. Kids and most adults out there should be creasing up when they catch this feature. Especially if you're either a musician or a fan of rock music!!

What's especially impressive about School Of Rock is that whilst it features Black interacting with 10 year old kids, it certainly isn't an oversentimental schmaltzy film. The director and writer have been very careful to avoid a barf inducing Kindergarten Cop type experience. Whilst Black's selfish character is redeemed to a certain degree, and he does give the kids advice on some issues there's no irritating and painfully obvious BIG message to be pushed at ya. This film is good and simple fun and it's only goal is to make you laugh. It succeeds.

Oh yeah, and I love the imaginative way that the movie's intro credits are shown (on the back of jackets or on flyers and posters). Plus any passionate movie about rock music which finishes with my all-time favourite AC/DC tune is always likely to get the double thumbs up from me. :)

Once again, a big studio has done their very best to push up the already very healthy sales of multi-region dvd players in the UK by releasing this on region one dvd at virtually the same time as they released it at UK cinemas. Very clever, keep up the good work say the pleased multi-region dvd player manufacturers. And shock horror, this is a Paramount disc with some extras - wow! The anamorphic print quality is stunning, and along with the 5.1 audio, the obligatory trailer and some very cool animated menus, we get:

Two very entertaining commentary tracks, one with Black and Linklater, the other with some of the kids from the movie.

Jack Black's video pitch to Led Zeppelin, begging the surviving band members to let them use the Immigrant Song in the movie (3 mins).

A 25 min making of featurette, a video diary of the kids at a Toronto film festival screening (8 mins), and a very funny MTV produced diary of Jack Black (16 mins).

The disc also contains some dvd-rom extras for PC folks, and two preview trailers for a couple of awful looking films.

School Of Rock (and it's dvd) rocks...