Rock School (2004)
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 77
Fresh: 63 | Rotten: 14
Boasting an entertaining and eccentric cast of characters, Rock School lives up to its name.
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 27
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 4
Boasting an entertaining and eccentric cast of characters, Rock School lives up to its name.
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 14,856
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Movie Info
Paul Green is a man who declares himself born to teach kids, but he has nothing to do with the traditional educational system. Musician Green is the proprietor of the Paul Green School of Rock Music, an after-school facility in Philadelphia where kids from 9 to 17 learn how to play instruments and work together in a band. While Green outwardly seems like a loose cannon who yells at his students and acts only marginally more mature than a high schooler, the kids who attend his school love him and
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All Critics (85) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (66) | Rotten (14) | DVD (10)
So overpowering is Green's outsized, needy, arrested-adolescent personality (while you initially suspect he's playing for the camera, the blasé attitude of his students suggests he really is like this), it throws the movie off-balance.
Top CriticTheir playing is terrific, but there's little doubt the kids are fulfilling Green's fantasy rather than the other way around.
Green's heart, if not his head, seems in the right place. He's carrying the torch and holding it high, and his students seem to dig it.
I don't know what it means that rock 'n' roll has become a bona fide after-school activity, but Rock School definitely kept my attention.
Succeeds as a riveting movie because it doesn't try to lead us from verse to an obvious chorus about Green, or his uniquely abusive methods.
Rock fans will likely find the cast of characters and its 'überlord' founder compelling.
For all of his questionable methods, Paul Green gets results that are revealed when he takes a group of students to perform the difficult music of Frank Zappa at a Zappa festival in Bad Doberon, East Germany.
Engaging documentary rated R because of language.
Watching the students band together to rock -- and the faces of the audience and participants when they realize what these kids are capable of -- is a joy.
The documentary studies the different children at the school, some lazy, some brilliant, some sensitive. Argott traces their development.
The result isn't pretty -- but it does, on occasion, rock.
Where you'll find a bunch of raucous and talented kids, you'll find at least one glory-hungry grown-up intent on stealing the spotlight.
Engaging, ultimately uplifting documentary that is by turns hilarious and horrifying - but say what you like about Green's methods, he certainly gets results.
It's like Spinal Tap, only shorter.
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October 5, 2005:
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The biggest kid of all has to be Paul Green, himself. The man throws tantrums and objects at his students and seems to have the f-word permanently programmed to roll off his tongue. He's obnoxious, condescending and an egomaniac, but the kids keep coming back, even after he makes them cry. An accomplished guitarist, Green chose to teach, but confesses he's not so sure he ever wants his students to be better than he is. His goal is to get them to the point where they can play Frank Zappa. And not just any Zappa song, he wants them to learn Inca Roads, one of Zappa's most difficult and musically challenging arrangements. Green gets his moment in the spotlight, but the documentary shows that it's the kids who really shine.