School of Rock

"Weird Science" isn't that bad, I guess.

I'm amazed how few people I know thought it was lame.

But it's the first out-of-your-seat cheerer since the original "Rocky" where the underdogs don't win at the end!

'Bring it On' excepted, of course.

(psst, Saturday Night Live)

It is a "comedy" about adults teaching kids what things were like WHEN THEY WERE GROWING UP.

-listen to this man, people, he speaks the truth. It is reactionary and lame. And Black lacks the common decency to stay out of the frame at the final rockout where you might expect the kids to finally take centre stage for themselves.

Alot of it actually isn't your standard idea of what constitutes a joke, in fact a great deal of it is just really basic rockist polemic, shoehorned into a classroom situation to make it seem as if this is something teachable or logical or that everyone should know, a given.

I mean I don't think I've ever seen a geekier film in my life, and I'd seldom use the word, but jesus! It was so lame!

(furthermore if the actual band existed every rock fan I know who likes the film would think they were shit)

I actually thought the reason this film worked was because the kids obviously had their shit together far far more than Dewey.

I read this as "Downey" and my mind had trouble grasping the greatness of an impossibly coked up Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role rather than Jack Black..

But now I have!

Ronan, what do you mean? Do you think this film was *actually* an indictment of kids today not knowing their rock history??

school of dance should have terry christian, shudder.

And that would be TERRIBLE because it's so obviously NOT THE CASE!!! ILX science has proven that DESPITE the fact that the charts are full of shit things are JUST AS GOOD NOW so SHADDUPYA FACE GRANDAD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyr__kGhUC0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsYeH3Md0VE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFBQpGubLb4

'Bring it On' excepted, of course.

the East Compton Clovers DO win at the end

As with Dazed and Confused, I stop on this every time I stumble over it on TV, and I like it more than I did when I came out. Jack Black should have absolutely been nominated for an Academy Award. Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that the "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" montage is one of the most moving two minutes of pop music in any film ever.

Should always check YouTube first--I may have posted this in a Ramones thread once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ4LJebvtB4

http://i.imgur.com/BhUBo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BhUBo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BhUBo.jpg

I like it more than I did when I came out.

I remember it well--it was a Tuesday. I came out, and my first thought was, "I was wrong, School of Rock is actually quite good."

I hope it doesn't seem too jerky/needy to repost what I wrote re: Paul Green's School of Rock on an ILM thread earlier today… yesterday, an I Love Film thread was updated re: an AirMail piece re: Green and I posted the following today … what I wrote has entirely to do with his school's terrible but probly negligible effect on music culture, and was going to ignored on a lonely ILF thread, and would benefit by anyone else's insight… the article concerns the very shitty behavior of Paul Green, whereas my interest is more that he is a basic rockist shithead…

https://airmail.news/issues/2025-5-3/the-real-school-of-rock?fbclid=IwY2xjawKFuRBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE4dXM3SnY5VTJmNGJyeEI2AR4cbxEuMTmyH37SUX6GObeBQGsbh3e_ojcN7sbI9grKYNvo8huE3czynloNCA_aem_DE6vpGxWrdPPMs0g21rYDQ

I have no insight as to the guy's behavior, but have friends who have instructed at the school, and I strongly dislike the rationale of what this guy has achieved— I mean, I suppose the schools are an achievement. And if anyone has some experience with yourself or your kids getting involved with the schools, I'd really like to hear about it.

It is fair to say that the activity anyone on this board cares about and is here for, but for the purposes of this discussion we will call rock and roll or pop music, was achieved by individuals not going to school and learning proper technique from, say, some mooks wearing Zildjain t shirts. Absolutely anyone discussed on this board figured out what to do on their own, or with their friends, either by rehearsing together, or developing their solo thing in solitude, honing whatever it is that will eventually make someone beyond their immediate circle notice, which would hopefully be followed by, shall we say, belief.

anyone in the category outlined above can apprentice with a mentor musician. And/or they can listen to what they respond to and identify with, and then forge their rendition. But to enroll in some Philly dipshit's school, premised around this dipshit's rockist views as to what constitutes proper rock music, which in my understanding is based on the most basic shithead's canon of chops rock, seems to be counter to any useful notion of what young people can contribute when attempting to make music that pushes shit forward, that is its own thing, that doesn't ape what their parents listened to when they were kids (although I guess Ween and Buttholes serve as slight progress from Zappa/Yes/Beatles/"this is real musicianship" in this guys' pantheon). What black music (beyond Hendrix) is part of this Philly dipshit's canon?

one cannot achieve in the western art music tradition without conservatory training, and it was ever thus. And in the past 60 years, if one wants to succeed in Jazz music, one must go to school —it could be argued that the moment the jazz tradition became acceptable for pedagogy was the moment it ceased to have genuine popular support. And it would seem in the past two decades, there has been an effort for higher eduction to present music industry schooling, including songwriting and production, particularly at my Alma Mater, NYU, which I largely dislike.

For many years, people I tend to dislike have lamented the end of "rock music," and I typically think that the demise of the one kind of music those people can only value on will be fine, or is at least inevitable. What I will lament is when kids are only going to succeed in music by doing what some industry hack at NYU says they should, likewise some creep who didn't make it in the 90s and instead harangues kids into learning "Siberian Khatru" by rote. When kids no longer figure it out for their goddamn selves, there will no renewal, and the experiment begun in the mid 50s commingling R&B and country, but also prioritizing amateurs rewriting the rules, will be over.