Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979)

I have been a Ramones fan since high school and somehow had never seen this movie. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this. It's just completely ridiculous. I don't understand Clint Howard's character at all. Is he a student? I think I might like it better the second time, if that ever happens. In my opinion the worst thing about the movie was all the music. They play the entire soundtrack and a dozen other songs. I would have preferred short clips of the songs.

Fmovies: 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.

And this is a great rock'n'roll movie in itself. No matter how it evolved (at point being a movie about disco), it ended up as one of the ultimate movies in which kids want to rock out, but the principal stands in their way. Think back to those rock'n'roll movies of the 50's in which the day is saved when Alan Freed comes to town with Chuck Berry to prove that Rock & Roll Music is really cool and safe for the kids, and Tuesday Weld gets a new sweater for the dance. Forward to the 1979, repeat the same plot, but throw in DA RAMONES, whom no one then realized would become one of the most influential bands of the next quarter century (and then for the obligatory DJ guest shot, "The Real" Don Steele). Throw in, too, all the elements of a Roger Corman-produced comedy-exploitation film, except for the two-day shooting schedule, some of the familiar Corman repertory players like Clint Howard, Mary Wournow and Dick Miller (there since "Bucket of Blood"), and you've got one of the great stoopid movies of the day. One of the few films that uses deliberate cheesiness and gets away with it. I showed the new DVD to a friend who could only remember seeing parts of it through a stoner- induced haze at the drive-in, and he agreed that this is one of the great movies to be watching drunk, not the least for the lovely leading ladies and the great Ramones footage.

Rock 'n' Roll High School fmovies. Rock 'n' Roll High School was one of the best movies ever made! I think the only reason it was so awesome was because of The Ramones! You couldn't have made the same movie and put something like the Sex Pistols, or The Clash in place of The Ramones, it just wouldn't have been the same. dey young, clint howard, Vincent Van Patten, Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, and the hall monters, just added to the movie. The whole entire movie is about The Ramones...especially Joey! So everybody showed see Rock 'n' Roll High School if your a huge fan of real PUNK. Not the sissy new crap...but the loud, and fast kind. The kind only The Ramones could do. R.I.P (Rest In Peace) Joey Ramone 1951-2001. Dee Dee Ramone 1952-2002!

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.

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!