![]() ![]() I'd like to see filmmakers come up with better roles for her. (I'm trying to see if I can interest these people in a patch of swampland I've got in Florida, seeing as they already live in a fairy-tale world when it comes to the nature of sexual attraction.)Īniston has a fresh, bright, girl-next-door beauty - I find myself fascinated by the acorn-point of her chin - but she also has the timing and sass of a '30s comedienne. I've already heard some people complaining that Wahlberg's character couldn't possibly be tempted by groupies when he's got a girlfriend as beautiful as Aniston. But its two young leads feel like real people at the center of a storybook script (written by John Stockwell, who recently directed "crazy/beautiful"). There's no character development in "Rock Star," if you don't count Chris' realization that he really does belong "back on the farm." I suspect many moviegoers will find the movie's simplicity wearying. His gradual acclimation to the rock 'n' roll lifestyle (yes, Virginia, it does include drink and drugs, televisions thrown out of windows and as many girls - and people who look like girls - as you could possibly want) is presented as a comic-strip panel of the fantasies of those millions of kids who ever played air guitar while jumping up and down on the bed in socks and BVDs. But how else do you play an already-archetypal late 20th century fantasy? (The movie was inspired by the true story of a tribute-band singer who was invited to join Judas Priest.) Wahlberg is charming in the way he can't resist grinning from ear to ear in his first promo pics, even though he's all dolled up in tough-guy mascara and motocross leather. Holland's Opus") captures the exhilaration of playing in a rock 'n' roll band, any rock 'n' roll band - he shows how at its essence, it's the same in small go-nowhere clubs as it is from the stage of an arena.Īnd Chris' dream-come-true induction into Steel Dragon is played like an adolescent boy's wet dream. But for its first half at least, "Rock Star" is patently ridiculous fun: In the early scenes, director Stephen Herek ("Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," "Mr. After the requisite jitters and false starts, Chris is welcomed into the band.Īnd that's, of course, when all the trouble begins. ![]() Chris and Emily fly out to L.A., where they are met at the airport by a vampiric dolly named Tania, played by the lusciously named Dagmara Dominczyk. When Steel Dragon's front man, Bobby Beers - Chris' idol - suddenly and mysteriously leaves the band, Chris gets a call out of nowhere: The other members of Steel Dragon want him to try out for Beers' slot. It's a tale as old as creation itself, or at least as old as Bon Jovi.īut Chris' despondence doesn't last long. (Chris won't allow people to call Blood Pollution a cover band he corrects them with a sniff, asserting that it's a tribute band.) To his dismay and that of his longtime girlfriend Emily (Jennifer Aniston), his bandmates give him the boot. ![]() Chris Cole (Mark Wahlberg) is the front man of Blood Pollution, a cover band specializing in the oeuvre of a megapopular metal band called Steel Dragon. It was all posture! It was all bluster! It was mostly worthless! Or so we all said.īut enough time has elapsed, and so many things have happened (Kurt Cobain's taking his own life, for one) that heavy-metal looks different now, and "Rock Star" rides pleasingly on that nostalgia like a pasha on a flying cushion. Back then, lovers of "true" rock 'n' roll spent a great deal of time and energy lashing out at head-banger music and its devoted fans, all done up in eyeliner, black lipstick and spandex. "Rock Star" takes place in an era not long past, and yet for anyone who has kept even half an eye on rock 'n' roll in the past 20 years (let alone 50), it seems like ages ago: in the 1980s, the years of heavy-metal excess. Its spiritual equivalent is the mythical tale of the young small-town starlet, discovered in a coffee shop, who rises to fame only to realize that her roots are really back on the farm.īut a movie doesn't have to be surprising to have an enjoyable sheen. This is a rags-to-riches-to-flannel story, beginning with 1980s heavy-metal excess and ending with 1990s post-Nirvana plaid-shirt sincerity. "Rock Star" is so conventional it telegraphs its intentions in the first 20 minutes: By that time you'll be an expert in guessing the next chord in the progression, right up to the coda. ![]()
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