Rock School

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Don Argott, who visited STF last year with his film ART OF THE STEAL, returns with his brilliant earlier work also set in Philadelphia.

Reviewing the film for the New York Times review, Manohla Dargis wrote about ROCK SCHOOL:

There’s one thing you can say about Paul Green, the extravagantly voluble, relentlessly belligerent, sometimes wearisome center of the nonfiction film “Rock School” : He doesn’t worry about picking on someone not his own size. If anything, to judge from the evidence in Don Argott’s alternately hilarious and alarming documentary, Mr. Green’s pedagogic style appears predicated on the idea that if you spare the insults, derision and eardrum-piercing assaults, you spoil the child. Then again, perhaps Mr. Green is simply trying to prepare his young charges for the inevitable hearing loss that comes with a life hooked to squealing electric guitars and fully cranked amplifiers.

As Mr. Green eagerly explains in the film, Mr. Green is the founder and director of the Paul Green School of Rock Music. That’s P-A-U-L, space, new word, G-R-E-E-N. Founded in Philadelphia, Mr. Green’s establishment is essentially a music school with a Ray Davies kink: instead of sawing on violins, massacring classics out of the Suzuki method books, his students (ages 8 to 18) throttle electric guitars, bash drum kits and generally make like pint-size rockers. Forget Vivaldi; here, Ozzy rules, as do Zappa and Zeppelin.

Remarkably, he even makes Jack Black – who played a music teacher very much like Mr. Green in the Richard Linklater fictional film “School of Rock” – look positively unplugged.

• Country USA
• Language English
• Rating NR
• Year 2005
• Running Time 93 minutes
• Director Don Argott

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.