Rock 'n' Roll High School

This movie gets a 10 because it's the Ramone's movie... and Alan Arkush...

Writing a critical review of Rock & Roll High School is like writing a food review of your local McDonalds -- you know that it's crap but that's not really the point. So okay, it's crap, but it doesn't mean that there isn't any entertainment at all. Unfortunately, it's almost all in the music, which was also the point, I guess. Good points: There is a lot of energy in the movie, mostly provided by the Ramones and their music. It's odd that twenty-three years later, their music sounds so much more mainstream than it did in 1979, but you have to remember that disco ruled the (AM) airwaves and the Ramones' brand of roots-punk rock & roll was a harsh contrast to the dance music that prevailed at the time. Bad points: the acting, the dialogue, and the plot. The story line reads like a high-schooler's revenge fantasy, where everyone is a stereotype. If you look through the cast, you'll only recognize Mary Woronov, and Paul Bartel, and Clint Howard (who may have been the best thing about the movie after the music). Lead actress PJ Soles demonstrates why she never had much of a career after this and "Stripes", where she was actually not too bad. Everyone else in this film is straight outta their high-school drama departments. (Which irritates me, since in 1979 I *was* in high-school drama! How did I miss the tryouts??) The actors for the most part look too old to be in high school, a la Grease, without the talent that Grease had. You can actually see Clint Howard's hairline receding during the movie, for Pete's sake. If you dig the Ramones, you should give the movie a chance. There are better rock & roll movies; even Thank God It's Friday (the only decent disco movie made in the 70s) had better acting and plot than this. RRHS is only slightly better than its sequel, starring a delusional Corey Feldman as a heartthrob and Woronov again as the principal. The Ramones get a 5; the rest of the movie gets a 0.

Yet, another cult movie made by B-movie great Roger Corman. Unlike those ridiculous B-Movies he made prior to this one, Rock 'n Roll High School is actually cool! In this one, the protagonist is a teen girl who is a hard-core Ramones fan, and she and her fellow classmates are up against a dictator-like principal who wants to make the school a living hell. The girl, Riff wants to write music for her favorite band as well. Rock 'n Roll High School is a really fun, edgy, tongue-in-cheek, feel good kind of movie! It's a teen movie I actually enjoy! Even today's teens can like this movie, too! The soundtrack is really enjoyable, and full of songs from The Ramones, Brownsville Station, Alice Cooper, and all those greats from the 1970's! It was cool to see Joey Ramone and the others make an appearence. Sadly, last year we lost Joey to cancer. Want to see a real teen comedy? Then see Rock 'n Roll High School! This movie puts all those pathetically unfunny teen comedies of today (i.e. American Pie) to shame! I give this 5 stars!

Trailer—Rock 'n' Roll High School

Rock 'n' Roll High School

This movie gets a 10 because it's the Ramone's movie... and Alan Arkush...

P.J. Soles lights up the screen as Riff Randle - a fun loving teenager who just wants to listen to her Ramones albums without her evil school principal, Ms. Togar (a hilariously campy Mary Woronov), telling her that she's a bad person for it. Naturally, this pushes Riff to go to desperate lengths to share her love of The Ramones and even gets a hundred of her classmates tickets to their local concert...but will Ms. Togar try to put an end to their fun? Rock 'n Roll High School is absurdist comedy at its most bizarre. The music of The Ramones adds a nice underscore for the punk rock storyline and general sense of anarchy. All the actors are fun, including the adorable Dey Young and charmingly goofy Vincent Van Patten. Cult icons Paul Bartel, Dick Miller, and Clint Howard are also amusing in their smaller roles. Turn off your brain, crank up the volume, and have a blast.

This is a GREAT movie just for the Ramones alone, and I doubt there's much archival footage of them anywhere that's this good. The movie is lame and if anything is the kind of dumbness about America that the Ramones parodied in their songs so that makes it quite weird, but in a way, that's kind of a cool place to have them frozen in time if future generations or aliens ever want to look back on our past.

An extremely silly and overdone comedy, the film is nevertheless still reasonably entertaining, as the songs are good, the characters are relatively fun to watch, and there are some genuine laughs along the way. The film has a thing or two to say as a cultural study and an examination of teenage rebellion, but whatever messages may be there are weak, for the film does not take itself too seriously, presenting many events and ideas that are plain out ridiculous. Also, it would have been nice to get to know the characters a bit better, but then were the filmmakers really trying to do something better than a run-of-the-mill high school set film, or were they just out to have fun, like their characters are? This is not a bad film either way, and arguably it is worth checking out, but it would take a lot of guts to call this a good film.

I have to say that I was really surprised by this movie. It's a lot of fun, especially for fans of Eating Raoul....(Paul Bartel as an uptight music teacher who really loosens up to the Ramones and Mary Woronov as an insane principal with a real vendetta against rock n' roll, and the Ramones in particular). The movie is so high-spirited that I didn't mind its cheesy, ultra low budget look. The Ramones themselves looked pretty bewildered most of the time (especially Joey) but somehow they fit in to the high energy level of the other actors (especially P.J. Soles, who really should have made more movies) and the various shenanigans, many of which are pretty bizarre.