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<\/a>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong> <\/p>\nJonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em> <\/p>\n
Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant<\/a>. <\/p>\n
Rock Of Ages<\/strong><\/p>\n
I have fond memories of the music of the 80s, including the era of hair bands like Poison, Bon Jovi, and Night Ranger, as well as the hits of 1987, the year that the 80s rock comedy musical \u2018Rock of Ages\u2019 takes place in the fading glory of LA\u2019s Sunset Strip. Hair bands have been relegated to things of nostalgia, ridicule, and irony, but as \u2018Rock of Ages\u2019 is right to point out, when it comes to popular music, we have and did do a lot worse. <\/p>\n
The film revolves around a fictional club called the Bourbon Room, a once-legendary venue owned by aging rocker Dennis (played by Alec Baldwin) with help from his British sidekick Lonny (played by Russell Brand). With the Bourbon about to close due to unpaid taxes, Dennis\u2019 only hope is a big show by Stacee Jaxx, an overindulging, spaced-out rock god (played by Tom Cruise), whose band got their start at the Bourbon and is on the verge of breaking up at the urging of Stacee\u2019s sleazy manager (played by Paul Giamatti). <\/p>\n
Drew (played by Diego Boneta) is a bar back at the Bourbon with his own dreams of hair metal stardom, who finds his inspiration with Sherrie, a fresh-off-the-bus Oklahoma girl (played by Julianne Hough) with her own rock \u2018n\u2019 roll dreams who becomes a waitress at the Bourbon as well as Drew\u2019s girlfriend. Meanwhile, a moralizing conservative mom\u2019s group led by the mayor\u2019s crusading wife (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) is trying to get the Bourbon shut down in an effort to clean up and commercialize the Strip, though destroying Stacie Jaxx is her real obsession.<\/p>\n
Now there were some things in \u2018Rock of Ages\u2019 I really liked, but there were also things that were annoying or just plain weird. But what\u2019s weirdest is that what I liked and what I didn\u2019t like were often the same things.<\/p>\n
First, with a few exceptions, I generally don\u2019t like filmed musicals, especially when the music isn\u2019t original. That\u2019s because I\u2019d much rather hear the original songs than an actor, even a talented one, doing their karaoke version. Plus, I can\u2019t get over the fact that in filmed musicals, everything is lip-synced, and I have a really hard time with people earnestly and spontaneously bursting into song, which, let\u2019s face it, would be a nightmare in real life, and nothing would ever get done. That said, when Mary J. Blige shows up as the owner of the strip club who hires Sherrie, the music gets a burst of energy, which makes me wish there was a whole album of Blige belting out 80s tunes.<\/p>\n
Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx is, let\u2019s face it, just plain odd, since Cruise, despite being in great shape, just isn\u2019t sexy and is too old for the role. What\u2019s more, Jaxx \u2014 who seems like a mix of Jim Morrison and Scott Stapp of the 90s Christian poser rock band Creed \u2014 is out of place compared with the loudmouth bad boys of hair metal like Motley Crue\u2019s Vince Neil or Skid Row\u2019s Sebastian Bach. But Cruise\u2019s commitment to such a strange, uncharacteristic role is so absolute that he\u2019s impossible not to watch, especially in one ridiculously sexed-up number with Malin Ackeman as a Rolling Stone reporter, which briefly makes the film feel daring. I found the Sherrie\/Drew story to be mostly boring, and the fact that you never see Hough dance, which she did so masterfully on Dancing With the Stars and the remake of \u2018Footloose\u2019, is a real missed opportunity. However, Baldwin and Brand make such a hilarious odd couple that I wish the whole movie had been about them.<\/p>\n
Hopefully conservatives will get in a tizzy about how they\u2019re portrayed, especially as their own sexual hypocrisy is revealed, but it\u2019s important to laugh at what conservatives in the 80s were screeching about, since very little has changed and, as with issues like gay marriage, we\u2019ll soon be laughing at how backwards they are today. But while \u2018Rock of Ages\u2019 humorously identifies pop as the enemy of 80s rock, it was really bands like U2, R.E.M., and eventually grunge and alternative that slammed the door on hair bands, when the conspicuous indulgence of the 80s proved empty and unsustainable and we realized that there was more to life, and music, than just a good time.<\/p>\n
\u2018Rock of Ages\u2019 is rated PG-13 and opens today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rethink-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}