“A greater argument for music education in our secondary school curriculum can’t be made than Mark Landsman’s doc about a Texas high school funk band that tore up the music scene from 1968 to 1977.

The term “crowd pleaser” gets overused in the film reviewing profession and often as not, even when a critic uses the term approvingly, it forewarns of more than a little manipulation of an audience’s emotions. Mark Landsman’s documentary THUNDER SOUL earns that designation honestly. Hell, throw in “heart warming” and “tear jerker” as well. The film does all this simply by recording what happened when in February 2008 when 30-some former members of the stage band of Kashmere High School in Houston, gathered for a reunion concert to honor their former teacher, 92-year-old musician and composer Conrad O. Johnson.

As they say, you couldn’t write a story any better even if you made it up. It’s that good.” – Read the full review in The Hollywood Reporter.

7 September, 2011