When I heard there was a movie about a jazz drummer college student and an overbearing yet brilliant and even violent instructor who will stop at nothing to inspire greatness in their students... i just thought, "ok, wont be watching that."

I tend to steer clear of arsty films but good grief is this one a winner.

The story is about a first year music student Andrew Neiman(Miles Teller) who is attending a prestigious NYC college for music. He has a chance encounter with legendary conductor Terrance Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) and this leads to Andrew getting a chance to be in Fletcher's class.

At first this seems like a dream come true for Andrew, but he quickly finds out that Fletcher's methods of inspiring greatness in his students incorporates a zero-tolerance system and a great deal of getting shouted at.

J.K. Simmons truly shows how incredible he can be in this film. Prior to this I only really recalled him briefly from OZ and also from backup roles in things like Juno, where he did well, but wasn't really anything special. In Whiplash he made me excited about anything he takes on in the future. I mean honestly... he is that good and completely deserves the Academy Award that he won for his performance in this film.

He is not the only star in this movie but he certainly stands out from the pack. I seriously admire the fact that Miles Teller learned to play the drums as well as he did in order to be in this role (obviously a lot of the scenes were subbed by actual professional musicians, but in much of it Miles is actually playing.) I know from years of playing drums that this is not an easy task.

I don't want to say any more about it because ok, it is a music film but don't let that turn you away. It is not a musical (even though I like some of those too.) The movies takes zero time to start moving and it stays captivating the entire way through. This film is probably on my top 40 of all time