CBGB

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Elevator Punk
Hilly Krystal Brief Biopic Pastiche

You have to hand it to director/co-writer Randall Miller for trying to take on the hornets' nest of the punk rock movement: CBGB’s, the grungy Lower East Side bar that gave punk a home base before anyone had an inkling of what punk rock was. Alas, trying isn’t good enough.

As with most things filmic, the problems are rooted in the script. Miller and his recurring script collaborator Jody Savin (Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School”) create a comic pastiche centered on Hilly Kristal, the visionary proprietor who opened up his Bowery dive bar to bands such as Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, and the Ramones.

Unfortunately, the film dips its toe into biopic territory too much for the ostensibly furious purpose it seeks to achieve — namely, representing a crash-course on some East Coast bands that set the world on fire.

Casting is a hurdle that no living filmmaker could solve. Here is a movie that should have been made in the 1980s so that the actual musicians could have played themselves. Watching Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins try to channel Iggy Pop is like watching a dog play a cat; it just doesn’t work. Likewise, a scene involving said singer being sexually propositioned by the Ramones’ manager hits the screen with a thud.

Doomed from its inception, “CBGB” leaves a bad taste in the viewer’s mouth for reasons obvious and clandestine. If you have even a passing knowledge of the bands on display — not the least of which is the Dead Boys — you’ll sink in your seat while you watch some half-assed copycat try to pass himself off as Stiv Bators. We are talking about Stiv—freaking—Bators—one of the most charismatic rock stars of all time, who was possessed of a prodigious ability to phrase teen angst in a hugely charismatic voice. Needless to say, Justin Bartha’s performance as Stiv Bators is an anemic thing lacking in the humor, sarcasm, and panache of its original creator.

To its credit the move captures a few glimpses of the magic that punk stars like Patti Smith conjured — if only for brief moments — on a crappy stage in a crappy bar covered with its owner’s dog’s prodigious crap.

If you’re a punk veteran then you’re — at youngest — on the dark side of your 40s. Nonetheless, you will be drawn to see “CBGB” for yourself. You will be disappointed, but you will also be reminded of a magical time when music meant something, and the bands that played poured every bit of their souls into every note.

Sad to say, that’s as good as it gets for punk fans who actually saw punk bands like The Cramps or Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. It's also as good as it’s ever going to get for this kind of movie.

Rated R. 101 mins.

ROCK OF AGES

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‘80s Hair Band Fiesta
Broadway Musical Adaptation Leaves a Wet Spot
By Cole Smithey

Based on Chris D’Arienzo’s campy Broadway musical, “Rock of Ages” is a gaudy, spirited exhumation of music that many would prefer to forget ever existed.

Famously described by Elvis Costello as the “decade that music forgot,” this version of the '80s are distilled into a collection of hard rock anthems by the likes of Bon Jovi, Foreigner, Journey, Twisted Sister, and Poison. Even within the realm of hair metal, tastes differ. D’Arienzo could have at least included a song or two from Hanoi Rocks or The Lords of the New Church for their accredited punk glam appeal.

A Sunset Strip-based musical (circa 1987) constructed around songs like “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “Any Way You Want It” isn’t a recipe for a great story. The movie version is left to inject a clumsy narrative with some much-needed kitsch via a litany of stunt casting choices. Contributing screenwriters Justin Theroux and Allan Loeb seem to have polished up the source material with a dose of witty throwaway lines in an attempt to juice up the humor.

Nonetheless, the overlong movie frequently stalls in mid-song as during Mary J. Blige’s set piece, which suffers the misfortune of arriving just when the movie should be wrapping up.

Most of the action is contained in a raucous Sunset Strip bar called The Bourbon Room (clearly modeled on LA’s Whiskey a Go Go). A less-paunchy-than-usual Alec Baldwin plays aging hippie club owner Dennis Dupree with a goofy twinkle in his eye. Baldwin earns some well-deserved chuckles during comical character-revealing scenes played opposite bar manager Lonny (exquisitely played by the suitably cast Russell Brand).

Dennis and Lonny share a special secret. Paul Giamatti does a deft turn as Paul Gill, the slimy music biz manager to Tom Cruise’s slothful heavy metal rock-god Stacee Jaxx. Cruise is easily ten years too old for the part. You can see his once youthful looks cracking around the edges of his face as he goes defiantly over the hill right before your eyes.

Catherine Zeta-Jones turns up the heat in her fired-up role as Patricia Whitmore, a Bible-thumping wife to LA’s newly elected mayor (played by an underused Bryan Cranston). Patricia has personal reasons for wanting to take Stacee Jaxx down a few rungs from his towering ladder of fame and sex appeal. As the site of Stacee’s last band appearance on his way to going solo, the Bourbon Room is Patricia’s prime target for immediate closure.

Vapid romance ensues between Detroit transplant/Bourbon Room barback Drew Boley (charmingly played by teen heartthrob Diego Boneta) and Kansas-escapee Sherie Christian (Julianne Hough). Both are aspiring singers, and Drew is the songwriter of the couple. An acoustic version of the first bars of “Don’t Stop Believin,’” that Drew sings to Sherie under LA’s iconic HOLLYWOOD sign, segues into a joke as he explains that the song goes “on and on and on and on.” Boneta and Hough don’t share enough screen chemistry to raise audience expectations. The fickle condition could be chalked up to the structure of a musical theatrical piece unfriendly to filmic adaptation.

Choreographer-turned-director Adam Shankman (“Hairspray)” is unable to prevent the film’s domino-cascade of two dozen musical set pieces from turning into a visual and aural drone. Still, “Rock of Ages” has enough panache and chutzpah from its well-oiled cast to make for an entertaining good time. Sure, the structure is off and the music is bland, but a centerpiece pool-table sex scene between Stacee Jaxx and Malin Akerman’s sultry Rolling Stone reporter Constance Sack leaves a wet spot.

Rated PG-13. 123 mins.

THE RUNAWAYS

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Hello Daddy, Hello Mom
Girl Rock Band Comes Alive, Again
By Cole Smithey

Based on Cherrie Currie's poorly written memoir "Neon Angel: The Cherrie Currie Story," about her crash-and-burn experiences with producer Kim Fowley's manufactured all-girl rock band, "The Runaways" is a textbook guilty pleasure. Dakota Fanning does her best work to date as Cherrie, the band's bi-sexual lead singer to Kristen Stewart's tomboy-channeling of guitarist Joan Jett.

Jett's overshadowing solo career after the Runaways 1979 break-up makes you want the movie to be more about her.

Michael Shannon steals the show as the famously eccentric and foul-mouthed rock 'n' roll impresario Kim Fowley. Scenes of Fowley taunting the girls by throwing dog-poo, insults, and dirty names to extract the in-your-face performance the band became famous for, are riveting. Sadly, Shannon's mascara-heavy characterization gets swept under the carpet when the newly-formed band goes on tour, ostensibly because Fowley never wanted to leave his Los Angeles hometown to play chaperone to "dog meat."

Debut filmmaker Floria Sigismondi is keen on telescoping meta meaning from the micro details of the band's '70s era rock lifestyle. It's a hit-or-miss technique that works well enough. Deep lesbian kisses, avid drug abuse, and irresponsible parents play into the Dionysian hand dealt by androgynous rock gods like David Bowie and Iggy Pop, whose music figures prominently in the film's glam-heavy soundtrack.

The Runaways veers into biopic territory on more than a few occasions. Cherrie Currie's screwed up suburban home life, with an alcoholic father and adoring twin sister, is portrayed for the soul-crushing effect such an atmosphere brings. The film works better as a coming-of-age reverie about a group of tomboys who were tutored by a punk rock Pygmalion to write songs that would outrage parents and pique the testosterone of teenaged boys who didn't believe girls could rock.

"Hello Daddy, Hello Mom
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I'm your wild girl
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb"

Watching Michael Shannon prod his underage girls into writing those still-explosive lyrics for the band's most famous song "Cherry Bomb," in an abandoned trailer home, speaks volumes about punk's do-it-yourself ethos. It's an objective that's gone missing from society for so long that the scene is shocking for the integrity it exemplifies.

Fowley's down-and-dirty rock 'n' roll boot camp embodies the band's musical growth with the singular goal of packaging them into a product. Where the film comes off the rails is exactly where the band hit the skids.

Jealously and laziness take their toll just when the Runaways are enjoying a career that any girl with a guitar would kill for. The irony here is that it was Cherrie Currie who threw the monkey wrench after killing at big stage shows for rabid fans in Japan on a 1977 whirlwind tour. Dressed in a naughty Brigitte Bardot-inspired corset teddy, Cherrie kicks out the jams like any parent's worst nightmare. Dakota Fanning lip-syncs while doing a perfect recreation of Cherrie's deep-squatting performance that you can dial up on YouTube. For the first time in Fanning's overrated career, the actress identifies with her character in an entirely believable way.

Yet, by default, the story falls back on Joan Jett's shoulders as the girl who memorably pees on a guitar belonging to a hairy-faced guitarist in a rival band. Rock was never about taking prisoners, and in the end, Kim Fowley — now 70 and still making music — and Joan Jett are the characters we want to spend more time with.

Joan Jett's influence in the making of the film is evidenced in her executive producer credit. Floria Sigismondi's next film should be a Joan Jett biopic that picks up where The Runaways leaves off. The show must go on. It's one lesson that Kim Fowley didn't teach well enough. 

Rated R. 105 mins.