School of Rock ROCKS!!! (spoilers included)

I saw School of Rock over the weekend and I thought it rocked. This movie can serve as a pro-funding for the arts in public schools propaganda--the DVD prefaced the movie with a Public Service Announcement for just that--and I couldn't agree more with this view. Puritanical frowning upon music and the arts aside, teaching arts in school helps raise well-rounded individuals. Mike White, the director and screen writer, chose an idealized setting for his film, an affluent school with an ethnically diverse classroom. Whites, Blacks, Asians, and ethnically obscure children are all represented. There's even an effeminate boy who serves as the children's class project stylist (take that, Puritans!).

I find Jack Black rather annoying, but he does an excellent job preforming with the children as Dewey Finn, their fraudulent substitute teacher. They had a rapport going that seemed very natural. The children were fantastic. Mike White assembled a group of very talented children, and all the characters were endearing, from the reticent boy with the domineering father, the overweight girl with the awesome voice and lack of self-esteem, to the "grade grubbing" little girl who Finn makes the project manager.

The climax depended on a contrivance.The children all get together and leave the school campus to preform at a battle-of-the-bands competition in a nightclub, and it occurs to not a single parent to call the police. Finn is discovered to be a fraud, yet charges aren't brought against him. So, all the parents get together to look for their children, track them down to the nightclub, pay the admission to get in, and finally discover how Finn has brought them all together to ROCK. Contrived ending, but the director made his point. This movie is very inspirational, and funding for the arts in school should not be cut.