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• Features include: -MPAA Rating: PG -Format: DVD-Runtime: 111 minutes

A new kid in town assembles a fledgling rock band -- together, they achieve their dreams and compete against the best in the biggest event of the year, a battle of the bands.Not just another by-the-numbers teen-angst movie, Bandslam is a joyful expression of pop exuberance, with an unexpectedly thrilling (and retro) soundtrack and numerous moments of visual excitement. Actor-turned-director Todd Graff brings stylish imagination and heart to this story of a much-taunted and beleaguered kid named Will (Gaelan Connell), whose miserable life at a Cincinnati high school comes to an end when he and his single mom (Lisa Kudrow) move to New Jersey. At his new school, Will befriends two very different girls: the laconic Sa5m (High School Musical's Vanessa Hudgens; the "5" is silent), and the take-no-prisoners, former ch! eerleader Charlotte (Aly Michalka of the pop group Aly & AJ), who is trying to get her rock band off the ground. The latter sees in Will--a student of pop music history--a potential manager who can help her group take top prize at an inter-school competition called Bandslam.

Graff treats Bandslam's story like a disposable toy, an excuse to squeeze every ounce of pure ecstasy from such ordinary events as first kisses or bursts of artistic inspiration. Around every corner in this movie comes a surprising and stirring moment: when Will and Sa5m break into the padlocked, no-longer-in-business music club CBGB in New York--a shrine of punk rock--the vignette is reverential, actually moving. As a rare specimen of cinematic joy for its own sake, Bandslam is well worth seeing. --Tom Keogh