Hey folks Harry here... I'm a bit of a fan of the genre involving common folks rise to Rock Star fame... Actually the 'rock-n-roll' movie is an old standard here... But there has been something about this film that just has left me a little cold approaching it for a while now. Here ya go...
hey-
I read the site almost every day, and I've done a bit of posting, but every time I see a preview I'm too lazy to write in. I saw ROCK STAR last night and let's just say it was a tad of a letdown.
A few years back I had a friend at ICM who gave me a copy of the script. As a huge music fan, I was quite excited and from what I remembered, the script seemed good enough. The movie is about the singer of a midwestern "tribute" band of the phony band Steel Dragon. The Steel Dragon singer (a great peformance by Lock Stock/Snatch's Jason Flemying) bugs out, comes out, and gets kicked out. Then the tribute guy takes over. It's sort of the real story of Judas Priest -- if only this was a real story.
I read the NY Times article about Priest that the movie is based on, and let's just say that unlike the movie, it wasn't 60% a really bad love story. Why do all Hollywood movies HAVE to turn into romantic comedies no matter what they're about. Rock. War. Murder. High School pie buggering. Who cares!
"Rock Star" begins well enough with an amusing story of dueling Pittsburgh Steel Dragon tribute bands. Mark Whalberg does some of his best work here - and let's just say that I'm not a big fan of his. But once he gets picked to be in the band, the film spends less time focusing on the actual story and it's all about his relationship with Jennifer Anniston -- his nice girfriend from back home. Ech!
It's concert -- Anniston scene. Montage -- Anniston scene. And back again. The movie is more Good Will Hunting than Almost Famous, with "I gotta go see about a gihl" replaced by "I gotta take a piss." (btw, for a funny take on Affleck's "alcohol" problem check out the article "Getting drunk with Ben" at www.poomagazine.com).
Worst of all, the movie concludes with it's most (un?)intentionnally hilarious moment of Izzy fronting a Seattle heart-on-sleeve grunge band for a teary-eyed Anniston. Come on.
As one of the world's biggest proponents of Detroit Rock City, I was excited for another Metallic comedy. But the best part of DRC is how each character has their own fling with a lady -- and never discusses it. It's all about the Kiss show. Total guy thing. This movie should have been the ultimate male fantasy but becomes the 'WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING' romantic movie. Not that leaving a rock life for Jennifer Anniston is a bad thing, but please...NOBODY who wants to see a movie based on Judas Priest wants to see a lame romantic comedy.
I can't totally hate a movie that has Def Leppard's "Rock Rock ('til you drop)" in it, but Spice World was more rock n roll than Rock Star.
The God Of Roadies
