Strength in Depth!!

Rating: 9/10 (9 February 2007)

Lots of folks have commented on Jack Black's and Joan Cusack's performances so I will say no more on them except that I agree totally! They are brilliant!!! A great strength of the film is the casting with some wonderful cameos adding to the overall enjoyment. I would like to give shout-outs to Lucas Papeilias as the dudey-sensitive bassist from No Vacancy (who did NOT suck!)and Lucas Babin (Spider) who stole the show whenever he appeared! Sarah Silverman and Tim Hopper were great as the bad guys (Patti and Zach's dad respectively). Tim Hopper carried the pushy parental theme at the core of the film to perfection and deserves especial praise. Even tiny parts like the Battle of the Bands security guard (Carlos da Silva) and the cop (Barry Shurchin) were played well.
There were also great performances among the "backstage" kids. Watch out for Cole Hawkins ("Ya mean we're not in the buuh-yand?"), Zachary Infante as geeky, but oh-so-temperamentally-artistic Gordon and Brian Falduto's hilarious portrayal as the Band stylist - constantly on the verge of flouncing off in disgust at Dewey's style-shortcomings.
Another strength is the camera work - with some great continuing shots: the long moving-in shot for the encore segueing into the credit sequence was superb as was the opening credits sequence. The tracking of Dewey's van was done very well especially the overtaking shot (when the Immigrant Song was used). This gave the film a great sense of dynamism.
The DVD extras make it very clear that there was a lot of fun, humour, respect (dare I say love?) between cast and crew, across the ages, and I'm sure this helped the fun factor in the movie come through. The kids commentary showed the strength of the ensemble with generous acknowledgements by the musicians of the talents of the other children who had smaller roles. This was a nice aspect.
All in all one of my top ten films!! It is so funny and so well done.