HLJ's Movie Blog

School of Rock

In honor of my son's first guitar lesson, we watched School of Rock. We also raised our goblets of rock in salute to the mighty Jack Black.

If you like Jack Black, you should like this movie. If you like Jack Black rockin' out, then you'll love this movie. It's quite fun. Forget for a moment that his character seems to be able to teach children much better than any trained professional. It's a movie after all and it's just make believe.

I really liked how this movie started and ended. Having the opening credits appear in the set on clothing, walls, etc. was pretty darn cool. The final scene of the Battle of the Bands is also pretty cool. If it only truly worked to skip school and join a rock band to impress your parents. I also really enjoyed the scene that runs while the credits roll at the end. I think those kids can actually play after seeing it. You also gotta love it when the little girl starts singing about the fact that people are still in the movie theater. I do appreciate the fact that this scene continues to run and doesn't break at some point and then return. I hate it when films do that and put some stupid scene after all the credits and after you have left. Except Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That was brilliant.

Something interesting about this film: an appeal was made to Led Zeppelin by the cast and crew to use the Immigrant Song in the movie. As we are all aware, Led Zeppelin isn't fond of letting their music be played in movies - although they don't seem to mind letting it be used to sell cars. I am of course referring to Wayne's World. The theatrical release had Wayne actually playing the intro to Stairway to Heaven. The home release has some weird substitute. In order to convince the band to let them use their song in School of Rock, they filmed an appeal to the band. It's on the special features of the DVD. It's quite interesting, and apparently effective in getting them the right to use the song. Wonder if Lincoln had their cars beg.