Rock 'n' Roll High School

They don’t make them like this anymore. Really, they don’t make anything like any of this anymore. Not just the music — the Ramones are sui generis vs today’s music—but all other aspects of this flick are of another time and place: the silliness, the look, the sense of liberation and rebellion, the sheer innocence of it all stands out like a punk rock riff against the world of computer generated noise we live in today. Sure, much of this story displays cardboard cutouts of characters and scenarios instead of anything realistic, but that was kind of the point here. This is almost a junior version of the Zucker-Abrahams style parody films—it was made in ‘79, right about the same time as Airplane and the Police Squad TV series—and while it is not as polished or (let’s face it) as funny as those works, this movie still provides a lot of nostalgic fun and good vibes. No lobotomy required to enjoy this field trip.