Better than Gandhi...

Rating: Null/10 (8 October 2003)

...not! Nearly 40% of voters give this thing a 10/10, putting this movie among the 150 best movies of all time. I get suspicious when looking at this and some other movies' ratings forming a consistent curve which is broken by an incongruous multiplicity of 10s.
This is a feel-good movie whose "loser earns redemption" theme is the oldest whore in the house. It handles itself decently, though, and rates a respectable inflation-adjusted 6.2.
Nowadays, there's some concern with lying in society, be it Enron, White House interns or WMD. Hollywood merits special consideration, because Hollywood is make-believe. The 10-year-old drummer is played by a 15-year-old actor and the 10-year-old guitarist with 3 years' experience is played by a 12-year-old actor with 9 years' experience, and the kids in the class are not a fortuitous assemblage of kids in some random class, but are selected by Hollywood to show what heartfelt rebellious pep-talking can do to actualize young children. Jack Black's pep talks are a little too frantic and wouldn't dupe most sub-10-year-olds I know. However, to appreciate the good side of this enjoyable story, one must accept these lies as artistic licence. I believe most movie-goers embed this "caveat emptor" into their appreciation of movies and now sometimes even into their ratings.