School of Rock, 2003.
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, Sarah Silverman.
SYNOPSIS:
Paramount is celebrating the 20th anniversary of School of Rock by issuing it in a handsome SteelBook package. It’s the same Blu-ray they’ve put out before, but if you don’t have this movie in your collection yet, now is a great time to add it. A code for a digital copy is included.
I’ve written here before about the Great Films class at my high school, Cherry Hill West, taught by an English teacher named Mr. Truitt, but I don’t think I’ve talked about the Poetry of Popular Music class also taught at that school by another English teacher, Mr. Moore. He created his own textbooks, which consisted of typewritten lyrics that were photocopied and bound.
As the name of the class implies, the focus was on popular music, specifically of the rock variety. I took the class in the mid-80s, so the emphasis was on a lot of bands now called “classic rock,” including Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles, and many others. Mr. Moore played songs in class on an old reel-to-reel tape machine; I hope he eventually moved on with better technology after I graduated.
This was a public school, so there was no need for Mr. Moore and his students to sneak around the way Dewey Finn (Jack Black) and his class does in School of Rock, which takes place in a repressive private school. There was still a rebellious streak to Mr. Moore’s class, though, and I’m glad I had that experience.
But, yeah, I probably would have had a blast if Dewey had shown up one day, impersonating his roommate by pretending to be a substitute teacher. I played guitar badly back then, so he probably would have relegated me to a support role, but it would have been fun to go along with that ride. I was quite the concert-goer and music-listener back then.
For this film’s 20th anniversary, Paramount has reissued School of Rock on Blu-ray in a nice SteelBook package, complete with a code for a digital copy. My understanding is that this is the same disc that’s been available before, so there’s nothing new in terms of bonus content, and the audio-visual experience hasn’t been improved, but that was fine by me. This was my first time with the movie on home video, so I enjoyed going through everything. And it’s not like School of Rock is crying out for an improved transfer that will probably only be marginally better.
Here are the extras you’ll find:
• Audio commentary: Director Richard Linklater and Jack Black talk about all kinds of things in this wide-ranging track, with the latter often falling into a Dewey-esque tone that been his trademark for a couple decades now.
• Kids’ Kommentary: The seven kids who played the main student roles talk about the making of the film from their perspective, which was a great idea given how important those characters are in the story.
• Lessons Learned on School of Rock (25 minutes): Mike White, who also plays Dewey’s more responsible roommate, came up with the initial idea for the story, and this featurette takes a quick spin through the making of the film.
• Jack Black’s Pitch to Led Zeppelin (3.5 minutes): This is the actual video Jack Black shot to implore my favorite band to allow “Immigrant Song” to be used in the movie.
• School of Rock Music Video (3.5 minutes): See, kids, MTV used to play these things called music videos all day, before they became all about reality TV or whatever they’re doing now, and this is the song from the end of the movie presented as one of those.
• Kids’ Video Diary: Toronto Film Festival (8 minutes): All of the kids in the film are adorable, and I hope they all had as great an experience making it as their commentary track and this short piece demonstrate.
• MTV’s Diary of Jack Black (16.5 minutes): This is a fun, albeit a bit too long, extra showing Jack Black from the time he gets out of bed through his rehearsal that day, which was August 16, 2003.
• Dewey Finn’s History of Rock: Like Mr. Moore talking to us about rock music lyrics, Dewey gives us the lowdown on several bands featured prominently in the movie.
The theatrical trailer rounds out the platter.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★★★ / Movie: ★★★★
Brad Cook
