Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1196 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-07-12
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Turbo-charged comic Jack Black shakes School of Rock to its foundations, wailing with born-again metalhead passion as Dewey Finn, a guitarist who gets kicked out of a band because he grandstands too much--or, to put it another way, enjoys himself. Through an intercepted phone call, Finn gets a job as a substitute teacher for a fifth grade class at a private grade school. Neither students nor teacher quite know what to do with each other until Finn discovers that some of his young charges can play instruments; at once he starts turning them into a blistering rock & roll troupe that can crush his former band at an upcoming competition. School of Rock is silly and formulaic, but director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused), writer Mike White (The Good Girl), and especially Black and co-star Joan Cusack invest the formulas with such glee that the movie is irresistibly fun. --Bret Fetzer

On the DVD: Like the movie, the DVD extras are smarter and a lot more entertaining than your average flick. The making-of feature ("Lessons Learned") has the usual behind-the-scenes banter but Jack Black is in fine form--that is, something special--interviewing as much as being interviewed about the making of the film. His unique pitch to Led Zeppelin to use their song is alone worth the price of the DVD. Black is more his maniacal self and a bit more grating in MTV's Diary segment, but his commentary track with director Richard Linklater is as insightful as it is funny. Ok, it's a lot more funny, but entertaining throughout. The commentary track featuring just the kid actors is less so, but any preteen would love listening to it. To top it off, the DVD-ROM has Dewey Finn's instantly famous blackboard history of rock. You can drill down to the bands mentioned and get a brief history of each. --Doug Thomas

DVD Description
Jack Black plays unemployed slob and hell-raising guitarist Dewey Finn, who needs to make a few fast bucks after being kicked out of his rock band. Posing as his reformed rocker-come-substitute teacher flatmate, he falls into teaching a class of prepubescent stiffs. After over hearing the kids practice in their school orchestra, Finn decides to teach the kids "the power of rock", and fulfil his life long dream of entering the Battle of the Bands competition.

Special Features

• Audio commentary from star Jack Black and director Richard Linklater
  
• Audio commentary from the kids of the School Of Rock
  
• Lessons Learned In The School Of Rock featurette
  
• Jack Black's pitch to Led Zeppelin
  
• School Of Rock music video
  
• Video diary from the kids
  
• Jack Black's MTV diary
  
• Dewey Finn's History Of Rock interactive feature
  
• Web site archive
  
• Original theatrical trailer
  
• Interactive menu
  
• Scene access

DVD Technical Information:

• Aspect Ratio: Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic
  
• Soundtrack: English - Dolby Digital 5.1
  
• Running Time: 1 hour and 44 minutes (approx)
  
• Region Code: 2

Customer Reviews

One of life's guilty pleasures!
There's some things in life that you know you shouldn't like, and it goes against all good sense to like. Things like 'Meat Loaf' albums, and the 'Sister Act' and 'Ghostbusters' films, and the old 'Transformers' TV series. 'School of Rock' slides into this category effortlessly.

Jack Black plays a disenchanted musician who gets kicked out of his band for being a little too stage-greedy, and uses his friend's name to get himself a job as a substitute teacher for the fifth grade in a private prep school. When he learns that the kids have some musical ability, he forms a band with them, and takes them to the Battle of the Bands competition.

The storyline is far from serious, or realistic, but it never pretends to be anything it's not. Black is actually quite convincing as Dewey Finn, and some of his speeches are hysterical. Highlights include:

'I pledge allegiance... to the band... of Mr Schneebly... I will not fight him... for creative control...'

The terrible disease the children suffer from: 'stick-it-to-da-Man-niosis'!

Superb film - I was laughing all the way through!

Music, Comic and............. getting ticked off
This film rocks, i mean it actually rocks. Dewey Finn (Jack Black) is a lazy, rock insaniest but the people arnt insane about him. He's mental when it comes to rock and goes a bit over the top. His roomate Ned Schneebly is a substitute teacher at elementary schools. Dewey is in need of money to pay his rent and when Miss Mullins (Joan Custack), the principle of Horace Green elementary school phones their apartment looking for Ned, Dewey hear's that the pay is $650 each week and then pretends that he is Ned. He starts at the school and he discovers that the students can play music extremely well. He makes the class into a rock band so they can participate in 'Battle of the Bands' to compete for 20,000 dollars which Dewey is desperate for. Will Dewey and the children win? This is a good comedy and a good film to watch and listen too. I highly recommend this to you.............Get this!

Big hit with ten-year-olds, fun for parents and grandparents
Playing to every music-loving ten-year-old's fantasies, this Richard Linklater film pokes fun at school administrators, pushy parents, kids forced into adult molds too soon, an educational establishment which allows little room for fun in the classroom, and a kid's desire to live a life that's secret from his parents. Great fun to watch and often very funny, the film is full of clichés and stereotyped characters, but that's why it works so well for kids--they can see aspects of themselves in several characters, recognize their own insecurities, but see that life is fun.

Dewey Finn (Jack Black), a manic rock-and-roll wannabe who has lost his job, intercepts a phone call to his roommate, Ned Schneebly (Mike White), about a substitute teaching job at an elite urban prep school and, desperately needing cash, takes the job teaching uptight fifth graders with highly motivated parents. Pretending to be Ned and ostensibly teaching the fifth grade core curriculum, he quickly discovers the musical talents of his students, most of whom have been studying serious classical music. Believing they need to be loosened up, he abandons the curriculum and turns his class into a school of rock, hiding his efforts from the principal (neurotically played by Joan Cusack).

Black is off-the-wall with his manic energy, his mugging, and his free-wheeling heavy-metal style, and his good intentions are so obvious from the outset, that even adult viewers, firmly grounded in reality, get caught up in the fun. The kids are terrific as they break out of the molds into which they have been forced by their parents and school and, of course, they become better human beings in the process. Black is so outrageous--and so completely himself--that even the youngest viewer will see him as larger than life.

Written by Mike White, who plays the "real" Ned Schneebly in the film, the film offers Jack Black a chance to dominate the film and have fun both with his music and his mugging. The original music by Jack Black and Mike White, especially the songs like "Math is a Wonderful thing," created on the "spur of the moment," are hilarious, and the demonstration of how a rock song evolves is amusing to watch. Good, clean fun for the middle school set, parents, and grandparents, this is a film which appeals to that awkward age between childhood innocence and adolescence without being saccharine and condescending. Mary Whipple