Rock, Agito e Curtição

This TV movie comes from a series of remakes of budget 50's teen movies. It is a relatively simple tale of a battle between teenagers and their elders who think their offspring are being corrupted by rock 'n' roll. This version features some old tracks (generally remade) plus a couple of new tracks that try to mimic the old style. On screen these are performed by the then little known Renee Zellweger, although the vocal performance is by Julianna Raye. This is a must for any Zellweger fans as she lights up the small screen. Beyond that it could pass the time adequately for 'armchair rebels' or nostalgia seekers.

From the opening beat I fell in love with SR&R. A delightful little spoof on the teen years in the 50's complete with a Murray the K style announcer, a downtrodden teen queen and her garage band, 4 hysterical busybodies intent on saving the world from the evils of music [who were hysterically funny], a way too old motorcycle "Fonzie", and lots of singing and dancing. A fun movie not to be taken one bit seriously nor making a statement of any kind.

Renee Zellweger can only take a role so far. She is cute, the movie is very colorful, and the costumes are nice, but the story and the quality of the movie aren't enough to make it very good. This movie is reminiscent of "Hairspray" starring Ricki Lake. It is a low-budget film with an underdeveloped story. I wouldn't recommend it unless you love Renee Zellweger or Hairspray.

Though I have only seen this once, and frankly I wasn't impressed with the lead actress, It was great that the writer would choose to reference three characters from an earlier film about teenagers and rock and roll. P.J. Soles, Dey Young, and Mary Woranov are playing the mothers of their characters from 'Rock and Roll High School'. Forget Zellweger and go rent 'Rock and Roll High School' if you want teenage antics and a good soundtrack. By the way if John Lennon was the first "songwriter", then who wrote all those songs that came before him? And as for women playing instruments in the 50s, as an earlier review stated that they did not, apparently the reviewer has never heard of the hoards of female artists in the fifties that not only wrote their own music, but played instruments on the recordings, and live.

I did not see this cable movie when it originally played on Showtime in 1994. I just grabbed the video off the dollar rental rack at my local supermarket's video dept. the other night, and I was pleasantly surprised. Well, I did see Allan Arkush's name listed as director, and felt if it was anywhere close to his "Rock n' Roll High School" (1979) it would be worth a look. I enjoyed the fact that Arkush cast the heroine of his 1979 film, P.J. Soles, and the actress who played her best friend in that movie, Dey Young, as two of the mothers objecting to rock and roll's influence on their kids. Mary Woronov, who played the evil principal in RnR HS, and Dick Miller, who played a policeman or fire chief in the first film, also appear under the same character names. Fans of cult actor Miller will note that he uses the name Paisley, which he first used in the Roger Corman Beatnik spoof horror movie "Bucket of Blood" in 1959. Yes, this is not up to the level of John Water's "Hairspray," but it is a fun movie with generally good performances, including one by sixties soul singer Ruth Brown, who was also in the Water's film. I generally avoid Howie Mandell like the plague, but he was OK here as the fast talking hipster DJ. Zellweger, John Doe, Gerrit Graham, Max Perlich, and (especially) Jennifer Lewis all give good performances and seem to be having fun in roles familiar from dozens of old American International drive-in movies. Makes me hope Dimension will release more of the "Rebel Highway" Showtime series, which all took their titles from AIP "classics."