I wasn’t planning on updating this review today, but I did just watch the movie, and I’d be nuts not to update the review below since I just read it and realised how much I’ve changed in a couple of years … that’s not to say I don’t still love the movie

As with a lot of my faves, and I’ve mentioned the phenomena before, I’m always worried when I put this movie on that I’m somehow gonna have the veil lifted from before my eyes and realise, omg, it’s not as great as I thought. When I first watched this movie it was an almost profound experience … like meeting a total stranger and connecting within seconds because the conversation just happens to enter the right area and suddenly they say something that makes so much sense but you always thought you were the only one who ever thought it.

As with Zoolander, which I watched after this but I’m writing the reviews together, there is a sense of “original and best” about this – though of course, again, it owes a lot to other previous creations. Not long after this, Richard Linklater directed a remake of “The Bad News Bears” which I haven’t yet seen but have heard is not anywhere near as smart as either this or the original movie; this year, the Tenacious D movie is coming, and again, I haven’t seen it, but I think Mark Kermode’s review, heavily comparing it to School of Rock, has told me everything I need to know.

School of Rock is great because it resides in its own world. It’s fortunate in that it manages to be balanced about what it’s saying and as a result didn’t truly offend anybody; it’s fortunate that it came out as a pretty formulaic and mainstream movie and thus appealed to a wide audience. But it’s really as out there and odd as anything Linklater has made, and everything about it, from the performances to the camera work, is flawless.

29th August 2004:

I can’t believe I didn’t write a review of this yet. I thought I had, but I guess it was one of the movies I wrote a short blog entry about instead.

Let’s see, it’s my third viewing…. It gets better every time I see it, I swear. You need to love music to get the most out of the movie, but some of the more recent IMDb comments (somebody remind me to delete/update that link if I don’t update this review before those comments disappear) kind of send me reeling, because even if you don’t love music, there’s a pile of great performances and moments to keep your attention. Somebody even commented that the idea of “a bunch of kids [who] could just play like the classic rock bands in two weeks….” was dumb – well, fair enough on the time scale but I guess that reviewer didn’t know the kids played their own instruments.

The point of the movie is, we’ve started to neglect music in a big way, and while it’s fine for our kids to listen to crap (okay, sometimes it’s good crap but for the purposes of this review, let’s just call it crap) like Christina Aguilera and American Idols, some parents really do think it a “waste of time,” etc, when their kid picks up an electric guitar and really rocks. This movie proves that some kids really have that talent in them − I myself was astonished when I found out they all played for real, and it’s the reason I love the movie all the more each time… the kids seriously do ROCK!

Let’s see what else…. Joan Cusack in yet another Oscar-worthy role (what the hell does she have to do to get one???); the kids!! (they’re worth repeating); the music references for us fans; the opening credits; the end credits, among the best ever, that jam is awesome, but I guess here is where I make my negative point in this review: maybe I’ve been reading the IMDb message boards too much, and Rebecca Brown was from the first viewing my favourite of the kids, but it’s a real shame (I think) that she didn’t get a bass solo. That’s like the only gripe I have with the movie, and it concerns the end credits… hardly a gripe.

I love music more than ever right now, and because of his Oscar song “You’re Boring”, that he sang with Will Ferrell, I love Jack Black too, and I’m also always a big fan of realistic child actors, so I have to confess that I am the most biased viewer of all time for this movie right now. But that’s what movies are all about, timing. Right now, I recommend it heartily.

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