ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979)

The students of Vince Lombardi High School love rock music and (for whatever illogical movie logic reason) this love of rocking out keeps driving their principals insane.  Like literally.  So before the last principal can even be shipped off to the nuthouse, the school board brings in the new principal: Miss Togar.  Miss Togar (Mary Woronov) hates rock music, so it's only natural that on her first day as principal she butts heads with "Number 1 Ramones fan" Riff Randell (P.J. Soles).  And to make matters even worse: Riff has to miss three days of school in order to wait in line to buy everybody at school tickets to the upcoming Ramones concert.

That's about as deep as the story gets, but it fits the playful mood of the movie perfectly.  I've watched ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL dozens times since I was a teenager and watching it again just a few minutes ago I still got lost in the energy of the movie.  It's entertaining as hell right from the opening scene but then when the Ramones show up in person about halfway through...the excitement level goes right off the charts!  I loved the Ramones concert scenes so much that I watched them like four or five times.

Without even having a way to know it, the filmmakers captured the Ramones at the height of their post-Tommy Ramone power and because of that alone ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL is a one-of-a-kind treasure of American culture.  They couldn't act for shit, but goddamn their screen presence was amazing.

Human-sized rats, great cast (a few of them probably giving the best performances of their careers), the fakest-looking TV camera in movie history, The Real Don Steele, off-screen birds chirping out "cheap...cheap" when the New World Picture copyright shows up in the opening credits, lightening-fast pace that never lets up for a moment, the promise to give Mr. McGlup a visit, a van with a badass paint job, somebody looking for Carbona, awesome 70's hairstyles on the girls, uncredited Joe Dante direction when director Allan Arkush was hospitalized for exhaustion, tons of great quotable lines, Dee Dee smiling.

ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL is mandatory viewing for all lovers of stuff that was awesome in the late 1970's. Double-feature with A HARD DAY'S NIGHT.

If you need me, I'll be in my room tossing slices of pizza at my Mick Jagger poster.

Tommy

GREMLINS (1984)

While on a business trip, a struggling inventor purchases a small little creature for his teenage son, Billy.  The critter is called a Mogwai and they name this one, Gizmo.  It kinda looks like a little humanoid guinea pig with big ears.  It can also understand English and likes to hum.  The three main rules for taking care of this dude are 1) no bright lights, especially sunlight 2) no water ever and 3) never feed it after midnight (I'm guessing for the current time zone).

For the first day or two things go pretty well.  Billy and Gizmo have a lot of fun playing the keyboard and watching TV, but then things get all fucked up when Giz gets water on him and pops some more Mogwai's out of his friggin' back!  These dudes aren't as sweet as Gizmo and when they eat after midnight, all kinds of Hell breaks loose.  Soon, these new brand of critters have completely taken over the town and are hellbent on killing Billy.

I'm sure by this point in time about everybody has seen GREMLINS a few dozen times, but if you haven't...it's a great film.  It's a little dated, there's not enough Corey Feldman, Phoebe Cates never gets naked and there are some darker elements to the story (that might disturb younger, sensitive children) if you think about it too much, but overall it's a fun family film with that familiar 1980's Spielberg feel to it.  Pretty much mandatory viewing if you are at all interesting in good movies or influential films of the last few decades.

It would be awesome if they did make a full-on dark as fook remake!  Gore, nudity, ultra-violence, Stripe pulling someone's intestines out and eating it as the die watching...mmmmmm!!!  If you want to know more about Mogwai's, then check out the novelization by George Gipe.

Part 2 - Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Steven Spielberg cameo.

I think we all remember that building in the background.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1958)