Say what you will about mercurial schoolmaster Paul Green’s unorthodox style, but one thing’s for sure: His kids are all right, and so is his lively documentary “Rock School.” Philadel-phia is a notorious hotbed for hotheads, and it’s hard to imagine a rumbling Krakatoa like Green operating anywhere else. Founded in 1999, his eponymous School of Rock Music is dedicated to teaching kids the ins-and-outs of rock and roll, and to that end Green — whose own dreams of Guitar Godliness have gone painfully unrealized — employs an approach that is part battering ram, part Romper Room. Alternately sensitive and abusive, Green doesn’t abide modern pop or Top 40, and instead offers his charges spirited, F-bomb-laden instruction on the intricate orchestral rock of Frank Zappa and the thunderous clap of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. His commitment to students and craft is beyond reproach, though his histrionic methods will make most modern educators and parents cringe.
First-time filmmaker Don Argott spent nine months at the School of Rock profiling five students of contrasting temperament and ability. There’s an electrifying 12-year-old prodigy, C.J., who’s mastered the complex guitar stylings of Santana and Eddie Van Halen and seems to inspire both pride and jealousy in his teacher; nine-year-old twins Asa and Tucker are the source of the film’s biggest laughs; while the introspective Quaker, Madi, and clinically depressed Will — who confesses “If it wasn’t for Rock School, I’d probably be dead” — provide emotional heft. At the center of it all is Green, a complex, vivid character sure to inspire admiration, pity, embarrassment, joy and, most of all, excitement.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 3, 2005. Read the original PDF.