Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)

Blow up your high school with the Ramones. It sure looks like fun. This is one of the great, ridiculous, froth-filled comedies of the 70s. It’s the film that makes like there’s no good reason to be anything other than a teenage girl who’s crazy about Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Marky in 1979. She’s the always charming P.J. Soles and she’s so charged up with the music she could burst at any moment. In this world, everything is over the top and whether or not someone is cool hinges purely on if “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” makes them dance. Director Allan Arkush, one of the better and funnier house directors of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, pays homage to 1950s rock ‘n’ roll movies, such as Rock Around the Clock, which treats Bill Haley and The Comets like they’re as exotic as Japanese Giant Hornets. The Ramones get similar reverence here, except this time everyone’s in on the joke. The music is the pure cane sugar syrup and the irony is the fizz in this cinematic soda pop. It tastes like trash, it tastes great. This film gets the Ramones. I’m glad they made it.