The Rose

Year 2, Day 14 - 1/14/10 - Movie #379

BEFORE: Back to 1970's movies from my wife's video collection, this time with Bette Midler in the central role, loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin. All I really know about this film is the theme song, which they forced us to sing in junior high...you might know it from a famous scene in "Napoleon Dynamite", with students performing hand gestures illustrating the song lyrics.

THE PLOT: The story of the tragic life of a self destructive female rock star.

AFTER: It's a good illustration of the dichotomy of fame - someone will work so hard to get famous, then once they succeed, they want to be anonymous and just run away somewhere. Struggle hard to get everything they want, then spend their days in a haze of alcohol and drugs, so they can't even enjoy their own success. Singers without gigs wish they had them, and singers with full tour schedules wish they could just take some time off...

Mary Rose Foster (Midler) seems to have the talent, but she's incredibly self-destructive - in addition to the booze and the pills, she's got a touring schedule that's driving her off the deep end, plus she's tempermental and goes missing for days at a time. So she's got a love/hate working/non-working relationship with her manager (Alan Bates) and she picks up drifters and AWOL army men to join the tour and follow her around. But whenever she gets close to a man (or woman) she also does her best to drive them away.

So she bounces from gig to gig, and lover to lover, causing arguments and barfights wherever she goes...collectively it's a downward spiral, and we all know where that ends. Her dream is to give a performance in her old hometown, to show them how far she's come from the girl she used to be - but can she keep it together long enough to make it to the stadium in one piece?

Midler is great in the on-stage performances, adding extra lyrics to the end of "When a Man Loves a Woman" to turn it into a feminist anthem. Rose is strong on stage, with her voice improving after a few shots from her flask...

With David Keith (not Keith David) in a small role, and a cameo by Harry Dean Stanton.

RATING: 5 out of 10 drag queens

The Bodyguard

Year 2, Day 13 - 1/13/10 - Movie #378

BEFORE: With American Idol starting up again this week, let's call this "Pop Idol" week on the Movie Year, and move from Neil Diamond to Whitney Houston. This is another one of those films that it seems like everyone has seen, and assumes that I've seen, but I haven't, until now.

THE PLOT: A former Secret Service agent takes on the job of bodyguard to a pop singer.

AFTER: Very clever, wrapping a love-story in an action movie, in an attempt to create the ultimate "date movie". The men in the audience can enjoy Frank Farmer's (Kevin Costner) battle against crazy fans and stalkers, while the women in the audience can just enjoy Kevin Costner, I guess.

Though it's largely a vehicle to showcase Whitney Houston's singing talent, it's also a fine addition to my examination of fame, since it's about the dangers of being famous and interacting with their fans. "Fan", of course, is short for "fanatic", a point that celebrities would be well-advised to keep in mind.

Rachel Marron (Houston) is a singer and Oscar-nominated actress who is receiving death threats and explosive packages, and her staff calls in Farmer to beef up her security. However, she resists, refusing to alter her routines or admit that there's a problem with her visibility. The two egos clash, and that leads to a tumultuous affair. I won't say any more about the outcome, in case you're another one of the 5 people like myself who hasn't seen this before.

But for a technical definition of "character actor", check out the resumés of two of this movie's bit players - Bill Cobbs (last seen by me as Del Paxton in "That Thing You Do") and Mike Starr. Starr plays Tony, the security goon - it seems he's always playing a thug or a bartender or a not-so-bright guy - but the man WORKS, a lot. I know him best as "Kenny" the bowling-alley attendant from the TV show "Ed", but just peruse some of the movies that he's appeared in: "The Ice Harvest", "Jersey Girl", "Ed Wood", "Dumb & Dumber", "Blown Away", "Goodfellas", "Born on the Fourth of July", "Uncle Buck", "Lean On Me", "Radio Days", and "The Natural", plus many others. I envy a guy with that many credits to his name, who still remains relatively anonymous. Here's to you, Mike Starr...

Also cameos from Richard Schiff (last seen by me in "Ray"), Debbie Reynolds, and Robert Wuhl (hosting the Oscars? In his dreams...)

RATING: 6 out of 10 security cameras (again, I think I'm deducting for the presence of a really unbearable song, in this case it's "I Will Always Love You")

The Jazz Singer (1980)

Year 2, Day 12 - 1/12/10 - Movie #377

BEFORE: Last night's film about tribute bands made me think of the trip we took to Las Vegas a few years ago, where we attended a show by Jay White, America's premier Neil Diamond impersonator...sorry, tribute act. What a show it was! I'm actually dipping into my wife's VHS collection tonight, but an unwatched film is an unwatched film.

THE PLOT: The son of a Jewish Cantor must defy his father in order to pursue his dream of being a pop singer.

AFTER: This film shares its title with a 1927 movie that was one of the first "talkies", starring Al Jolson, who made his living putting on blackface makeup and singing Southern spirituals. It was a different time, and that sort of thing is now considered racially offensive. I haven't seen that film, so I didn't see much of a connection here, or why this film would be called "The Jazz Singer", when Neil Diamond clearly sings pop, not jazz.

But then, about 10 minutes into the movie, Jess Robin (Diamond) is approached by his African-American friends, who are a man short for their singing act at an all-black club - and so Neil Diamond slathers on a lot of 1970's instant tanning lotion or something and an afro wig, and pretends to be part of the act! Seriously, performing in blackface in the 1980's? What the heck was he thinking?

The character's full name is Yussel Rabinovitch, and he's an assistant cantor at the Jewish Temple of Bad Stereotypes, on the Lower East Side. He gets a chance to go to L.A. when a rock star wants to record his song "Love on the Rocks", and his wife and father (Laurence Olivier) let him go, provided he doesn't change his name, reject his faith, or fall in love with a shiksa. (uh-oh...)

After 2 weeks in L.A. "Jess Robin" has a demo tape, a manager/love interest, and a gig opening up for a famous comedian, Zany Grey (who we never see in the film...). And after his wife comes to L.A. to see the big concert, the marriage is pretty much over, because clearly there's no way two people can stay together if they have such different interests... So, the marriage gets shrugged off, and nobody seems to have much to say about it (not even the chair...)

But like Chris "Izzy" Cole in "Rock Star", Jess starts acting like a diva, wearing silk shirts and throwing tantrums, so he disappears on a road trip across America to find himself and his music again. And this was in the days before cell phones, so no one can find him, except another musician - because we all know that musicians have built-in tracking software, right?

Points off for unleashing the horrible anthem "Coming to America" upon an unsuspecting populace. But look for cameos from John Witherspoon and (future Ghostbuster) Ernie Hudson in the black club.

RATING: 5 out of 10 yamulkes

Rock Star

Year 2, Day 11 - 1/11/10 - Movie #376

BEFORE: Hah! HBO added this to their On Demand line-up, so I can move it up on the program. I'm not sure yet if that's good news or not, a co-worker basically challenged me to make it through this film...not usually a good sign.

THE PLOT: Lead singer of a tribute band becomes lead singer of the real band he idolizes.

AFTER: It's not as bad as I thought it would be - or maybe it just looked good, compared to "I'm Not There". Essentially, this film is the polar opposite to "The Rocker" - instead of a musician being kicked out of a band and becoming a nobody, this is the story of a nobody who gets a chance to replace the lead singer in his favorite band, and become a somebody.

Mark Wahlberg plays Chris Cole, frontman for a tribute band based on the fictional 80's hair band Steel Dragon. He dresses, sings and acts like his idol, Bobby Beers - and when Bobby gets booted from the band, they turn to Chris to fill his shoes and his leather pants.

Once on tour with the band, it's an all-too familiar parade of booze, drugs and groupies - the 80's were the age of excess, after all, as anyone who's watched "Behind the Music" on VH-1 knows. At first it seems like his relationship with girlfriend Emily (Jennifer Aniston) can survive, but we all know it's doomed to fail in the long run.

Eventually Cole wises up and realizes that he's a "hired-gun" lead singer, and he hand-picks a kid from the audience to finish a concert, and then disappears into the night. In reality, this would be called "breach of contract" and the band's lawyers would have a field day, but this is the movies... Cole decides to move to Seattle and invent brooding grunge music - a pretty genius move to make in the early 90's.

Actually the whole concept was just a few years ahead of its time - though it's set in the 80's, the movie came out in 2001, just before bands like Styx, Foreigner and Journey parted ways with their lead singers due to "creative differences", and found new frontmen thanks to MySpace and YouTube - some of which were pulled from tribute bands. And last year the band Boston went out on tour, and replaced late lead singer Brad Delp with a guy who was a credit manager at a Home Depot in Charlotte, NC.

My wife and I had a tradition of going to Jones Beach once a year for a classic rock concert, but after we saw Boston on tour in 1996, we managed to see Journey, Chicago, Foreigner and Styx with their new sound-alike lead singers. The real money is made on the road, so if a lead singer doesn't want to tour, they're easily replaced. So for me it rang true, but I could have done without the after-school special "One to Grow On" life lesson at the end of the film.

I recognized Dominic West as the band's guitarist and Timothy Spall as their road manager, but other than a cameo by Rachel Hunter, that was about it. Jason Bonham (son of Led Zeppelin's drummer) played the Steel Dragons' drummer - Jason himself has been a hired-gun in bands like Foreigner...

RATING: 5 out of 10 tour buses

I'm Not There

Year 2, Day 10 - 1/10/10 - Movie #375

BEFORE: The next logical movie choice would have been "Rock Star" - but I had a DVR conflict last week, and the next airing isn't until Thursday. Something different in a musical bio-pic tonight, with several actors playing Bob Dylan at different times in his life...

THE PLOT: Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where six characters embody a different aspect of the musician's life and work.

AFTER: This movie made about as much sense as the lyrics to Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues", which is to say, none at all. If you thought you knew a little about Dylan's life before watching this, well, you'll probably know a lot less after.

The movie's credits say that it's based on the LIVES of Bob Dylan - but in which life was he a poor black child named "Woody Guthrie", riding on freight trains with hoboes and expertly playing the blues? Dylan, the former Robert Zimmerman, might have been enigmatic about his upbringing, but that doesn't mean you can just make up random stuff for his biography!

The movie has 5 or 6 interwoven (yet not interlocking) tales that are semi-based on Dylan's life (sorry, LIVES) and music - the central one got the most attention, with Cate Blanchett doing a VERY passable impression, as a folk-music star named Jude Quinn, who dates starlets, butts heads with a BBC music critic (Bruce Greenwood) and alienates fans after playing electric guitar at a jazz festival. That's as close to "reality" as this movie gets - but if they had made a 2-hour movie that was all Cate Blanchett as Dylan, I would have enjoyed that - and think of the publicity that would have gotten! Maybe they tried this, and realized they didn't have enough material?

We also see Christian Bale as a folk-singer named Jack Rollins who becomes a Pentecostal preacher, and Heath Ledger as a movie-star named Robbie (who also played a character named Jack Rollins in a movie...I think) who's in the midst of separating from his French artist wife. And apparently in the future, Bob Dylan will find a way to travel back in time to Missouri in the early 1900's, and go by the name Billy McCarty (who might also be a retired Billy the Kid...I think), face off against Pat Garrett (Bruce Greenwood, again).

Yes, I know these are probably metaphors - but you can't just string a bunch of random film scenes together, and hope to create a coherent movie, any more than you can throw a bunch of jigsaw puzzle pieces up in the air and hope that they land as a completed image.

The one scene I liked had Blanchett/Quinn/Dylan hanging out with beat poet Allen Ginsberg (David Cross) and they were staring up at a statue of Jesus on the crucifix. Blanchett/Quinn yells up at Jesus, saying a phrase that audience members no doubt shouted at Dylan in the late 60's - "Play your early stuff!" That's my kind of humor.

However, I learned NOTHING about Bob Dylan from this movie that I didn't already see in the documentary "Don't Look Back", and I learned almost nothing about the nature of fame. It's very rare that I feel I've wasted time watching a movie, but this is one of those times.

RATING: 3 out of 10 guitar cases

The Rocker

Year 2, Day 9 - 1/9/10 - Movie #374

BEFORE: I've got a few more bio-pics on the way, but it's going to take me a couple days to get them off my DVR and onto DVD, so I'll continue with the comic rise-to-fame movies, and back-to-back movies starring actors from "The Office" - Jenna Fischer last night, and Rainn Wilson tonight.

THE PLOT: The story of Robert "Fish" Fishman, a failed drummer who is given a second chance at fame.

AFTER: Really, it's the Pete Best story, transplanted from the 60's to the 80's. People join and leave bands all the time, but the worst-case scenario has to be getting kicked out of a band JUST before they hit it big. You might think, well, why not just join another band? But it's not like Pete Best could have just joined the Rolling Stones, or Gerry and the Pacemakers, or the Animals, or any of the hundreds of bands that followed the Beatles. Come to think of it, why didn't he?

The sting of being kicked out of the hair-metal band Vesuvius hit Fishman (Rainn Wilson) so badly that he never got over it, and twenty years later has a soul-killing telemarketing job in Cleveland, living in the shadow of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, always wondering what could have been if his life had gone the way he wanted.

Eventually his nephew (Josh Gad) needs a drummer for his high-school band, A.D.D. in order to play at the prom, and Fishman is coaxed out of retirement - but he ruins the prom with a self-indulgent drum solo. So to make it up to the band, he gets them a gig, and then an improbable series of events propels them onto the national stage.

The band rehearses via non-time-delayed web-cam network (is that even possible?) and Fishman prefers to rehearse naked - his niece uploads the video to YouTube (which doesn't accept videos with nudity, by the way) and the band's viral success leads to a record contract and a tour.

Once out on tour, Fishman gets to lead the rock-star life that he missed out on the first time, getting wasted, trashing hotel rooms, getting arrested - he's the immature one and the high-school kids in the band are much more responsible. But he is a role model, if an unlikely one, since he knows which songs have to be up-tempo, and which lyrics have to be tweaked - the songwriter's teen-angst anthem "I'm So Bitter" gets changed to "I'm Not Bitter", and becomes a runaway hit. I liked the music of A.D.D., I could actually see some of those songs as hits, but what do I know about the music that the kids listen to these days?

I won't spoil the ending, except to say that Fish eventually has to grow up, get over it and face his old bandmates, and the result is a heartwarming surprise, and a life lesson.

Co-starring Christina Applegate, Jane Lynch (carrying over from last night's movie), Jeff Garlin, Jason Sudeikis (from SNL), Will Arnett, Fred Armisen (SNL), Bradley Cooper, Lonny Ross (30 Rock), Jane Krakowski (30 Rock), Howard Hesseman, Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recreation) and Demetri Martin (as an ambitious music-video director)

RATING: 6 out of 10 headbands