Event

Rock 'n' Roll High School - New 35mm Print!!!

Monday, February 25 @ 7:00 PM / Music Box Theatre
ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL
Directed by Allan Arkush 1979
In a just world, the punk iconoclasts in the Ramones would have been offered as many starring vehicles as Elvis and the Beatles combined. Alas, were left with only a single, perfect example in Rock n Roll High School, the Roger Corman-produced youthsploitation effort pitched for Cheap Trick but gloriously retrofitted for the brothers from Queens. Riff Randell (erstwhile scream queen P.J. Soles, solidifying cult icon status) is the biggest Ramones fan at Vince Lombardi High School, but her plan to liberate her dance-crazy classmates with tickets to see the band is put in danger when the dictatorial new school principal Evelyn Togar (underground darling Mary Woronov) declares a moratorium on rock n roll. Like an issue of Mad Magazine come to life, Rock n Roll High School never relents in its wall-to-wall silliness, a cyclone of bad puns, dopey site gags, and exploding mice capable of pummeling even the stoniest audience member into caws of ecstatic laughter. By the time the film crescendos with the Ramones blasting through five full live numbers in the span of time most movies would devote to two, youll also be ready to declare yourself a teenage lobotomy. (CW)
93 min New World Pictures New 35mm from Academy Film Archive, permission Criterion Pictures, USA
Short: Total Control (Chris NyBy, 1979) 11 min 16mm from USC School of Cinematic Arts
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