Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Worst rock films?

The headline says Jim DeRogatis Picks the Worst Rock Movies Ever but in fact he's really picking movies often claimed to be the best where he doesn't agree. Normally this would be a big "so what" but DeRogatis is a decent critic (I worked with him briefly years ago on a newspaper Elvis tribute) and also because I mostly agree with him. The Last Waltz always seemed far more boring than its rep suggests and mainly because it feels too staged. Woodstock as a movie isn't quite so tedious (or maybe it is but in a different way) but as he points out the myth is and while you'd think that punk would have punctured that, well I guess that too was a bit too much myth. DeRogatis nails the problem with Heavy Metal Parking Lot and if you've seen any of director Jeff Krulik's other films you'd know he's full of hipster scorn masquerading as an appreciation for trash culture. (Oddly enough I used to work with somebody who might have been in the film except for an accident - she had tickets and was ready to go but did something that resulted in her mother grounding her so she never made the show.) Now I'll admit HMPL does have a kind of mean, voyeuristic fun in watching rednecks be rednecks but then again have you ever been tailgating before a college football game? As DeRogatis points out, the vast majority of the people in either case are perfectly fine but it's the small percentage of jerks that are amusing or annoying.

As for Rock Star I'm not sure what he saw in it - this should have been almost the greatest film ever but mostly fell flat.