Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

6 October 2003

The School of Rock

2003, U.S.

director: Richard Linklater

Watching this silly, formulaic movie may be the most fun I've had in a theater this year. Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, a variation of the character he played in High Fidelity — or, if you prefer, a cleaner version of the character he plays in his band, Tenacious D. — a guy whose unnatural desire to rock drives everything else he does. To pay his overdue rent, he poses as his roommate, a substitute teacher, and takes a long-term assignment at Horace Green Elementary. When he discovers that the kids in his class can play instruments, or at least classical music, he decides to toss the curriculum and transform the class into his backup band for the local Battle of the Bands, unbeknownst to anyone outside the classroom.

Yes, it sounds ridiculous, but despite the predictability of the plot and the softness of the satire, the movie is alive and funny, all the way through. It stays fresh where most movies like this have at least a few moments of tedium. The trick is the attention to character detail: the teachers are appropriately skeptical of Finn's claims, the kids have distinct personalities, and Finn speaks to them as if they're adults, or at least teens, which says more about him than it does the kids. Jack Black's energy is boundless — he's more like Yosemite Sam than John Belushi — and Joan Cusack is funny in a role that could be annoying, the uptight principal. An egalitarian spirit takes over the class, and I found myself rooting for each of the kids to shine. There's a scene in which a girl, at the last minute, won't perform because she's afraid she'll be laughed at, and the teacher tries to convince her that her voice will win everyone over. It's a necessary complication in the plot, but a key to the movie's success is that I really believe what these two people are saying. By taking such moments seriously, director Richard Linklater and screenwriter Mike White (who also plays Finn's roommate) honor a genre that you'd think would be spent by now, just as Finn idolizes the monsters of rock. Rather than dampening the humor, such attention enhances it because the audience isn't asked to care about cardboard cutouts. My one regret is that Sarah Silverman is underutilized as the roommate's domineering girlfriend, but a movie about stickin' it to the Man needs a few straw men to set ablaze, even if some of them are women.

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