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Bryan Cranston doesn't sing
Jun. 16th, 2012 04:35 pmReally, Rock of Ages? Really?
Okay, so this movie is so weird. First, there's my general side-eying of musicals that are wall-to-wall music--okay, so the conceit is that the characters are so filled with emotion that they just have to burst into song, right? How does that work if they sing every minute? That's not emotional, that's bipolar.
But this movie adds the conceit that there's a difference between the characters singing, like, to the audience and then them singing within the cinematic universe. So you'll have a character saying he's a talentless singer, then belting out a few verses; a character doing a musical number, then saying he has stage fright. Two characters doing a duet ("I've Been Waiting For A Girl Like You" does not work when only one of the characters is a girl), then her asking him to sing to her. It's odd.
By the way, they don't actually pay you for writing a jukebox musical, do you? There's like five minutes of dialogue, then the rest is all someone else's music. Especially when there are three romances, so you can just go "Falling in love song!" "Breaking up song!" "Get back together song!" That's not writing, that's making a playlist.
1. There's no mention of hard drugs. Rock stars just drank a lot and had bunches of consensual sex, maaaaaaaan.
2. They change the ending of the play so instead of Tom Cruise being charged with statutory rape, he... gets married and has a kid because rock and roll will never die, maaaaan. Very punk rock.
It just seems odd to make the villains a band of moral crusaders when you yourself are censoring the heck out of your subject matter. And they actually changed the villains from evil Germans to Tipper Gore, so it's not like "oh, well, ya know." I mean, some stuff just doesn't make sense now, like the church ladies singing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" because... it's... censor-y?
Likewise, there's a scene where the boy thinks the girl cheated on him (according to Wikipedia, she actually did in the play, but man, forgiving people isn't dramatic, clearing up dumb misunderstandings is where it's at!). So he gets on stage to sing and you'd think it would have something to do with the infidelity, be some kind of "that cheating bitch!" song. Instead, he just sings about how he wants to rock. Well, of course he wants to rock, it's a rock opera, everyone wants to rock at all times. But under the conceit, he can sing absolutely any song, just so long as it'd loud. Because he's mad, see?
Speaking of the boy and girl, they are just so... bland. You'd think the female lead of a rock opera would at least pay some tribute to Joan Jett, right, a female artist with something to say? Nope! She looks exactly like Britney Spears and has a bog-standard "I wanna be a big star, even though I'm from a small town!" story arc. And the boy looks like he just came from High School Musical. When he gets seduced to the Dark Side and joins a boy band, it looks like his natural habitat. Numbers!
1. Citation needed on boy bands being any less overproduced and commercialized than hair metal.
2. The big climax to this arc is the boy band getting thrown out so our heroes can show everyone the real power of rock. That's right... fucking Journey! Because when I think heavy metal, I think "Don't stop believing."
3. Guys, you know Glee kinda ate your shorts when it came to that song, right? You think you could... pick another big rock anthem to revitalize? Just, absolutely anything other than Glee's leitmotif?
It's a good thing a fusion of hair metal and Broadway musicals has a canon gay couple to act as a relief valve for all the gay, because holy shit, that thing could've gone full Alan Scott. On the one hand, they are played for laughs, but on the other, I don't think a pairing of Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand could be taken seriously.
At one point, our heroine is in her darkest hour, so she tries to get a job as a waitress, only to be disgusted by the owner fondling her. So disgusted by this objectification is she that she... gets a job at a strip club.
Okay, it's like a nice strip club, run by one of those Magical Negroes that apparently you can still get away with. However, the owner doesn't seem to strictly enforce the no-touching policy, since Britney--shit, Sherrie--gets grab-assed by a customer. I think that owner is neglecting her Magical Negro duties there. You don't see Morgan Freeman letting Bruce Wayne get goosed.
By the way, that Magic Mike movie coming out? That had better not have any nudity. For twenty years, we've had movies where all strip clubs have female dancers in bras and panties. You know, you have Sin City and Closer, people are ripping each other's genitals off and calling them cunts, go into a strip club, you'd find more nipples in an issue of National Geographic. So when that movie comes out, Channing Tatum had better be stripping down to boxers and an undershirt. Fair's fair.
On the plus side, Malin Akerman rocks the 1990s Michelle Phfeiffer look. Whatever happened to that look? That was a good look. Ladies, stop trying to make the short hair happen, go back to 90s Michelle Phfeiffer. Horn-rim glasses, curly blonde hair--it's like having the override code to the boner of anyone born pre-Pokemon. Just sayin'.
PS: This movie has singing hookers in it. I kinda thought that only happened in projects that were making fun of musicals.
Okay, so this movie is so weird. First, there's my general side-eying of musicals that are wall-to-wall music--okay, so the conceit is that the characters are so filled with emotion that they just have to burst into song, right? How does that work if they sing every minute? That's not emotional, that's bipolar.
But this movie adds the conceit that there's a difference between the characters singing, like, to the audience and then them singing within the cinematic universe. So you'll have a character saying he's a talentless singer, then belting out a few verses; a character doing a musical number, then saying he has stage fright. Two characters doing a duet ("I've Been Waiting For A Girl Like You" does not work when only one of the characters is a girl), then her asking him to sing to her. It's odd.
By the way, they don't actually pay you for writing a jukebox musical, do you? There's like five minutes of dialogue, then the rest is all someone else's music. Especially when there are three romances, so you can just go "Falling in love song!" "Breaking up song!" "Get back together song!" That's not writing, that's making a playlist.
1. There's no mention of hard drugs. Rock stars just drank a lot and had bunches of consensual sex, maaaaaaaan.
2. They change the ending of the play so instead of Tom Cruise being charged with statutory rape, he... gets married and has a kid because rock and roll will never die, maaaaan. Very punk rock.
It just seems odd to make the villains a band of moral crusaders when you yourself are censoring the heck out of your subject matter. And they actually changed the villains from evil Germans to Tipper Gore, so it's not like "oh, well, ya know." I mean, some stuff just doesn't make sense now, like the church ladies singing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" because... it's... censor-y?
Likewise, there's a scene where the boy thinks the girl cheated on him (according to Wikipedia, she actually did in the play, but man, forgiving people isn't dramatic, clearing up dumb misunderstandings is where it's at!). So he gets on stage to sing and you'd think it would have something to do with the infidelity, be some kind of "that cheating bitch!" song. Instead, he just sings about how he wants to rock. Well, of course he wants to rock, it's a rock opera, everyone wants to rock at all times. But under the conceit, he can sing absolutely any song, just so long as it'd loud. Because he's mad, see?
Speaking of the boy and girl, they are just so... bland. You'd think the female lead of a rock opera would at least pay some tribute to Joan Jett, right, a female artist with something to say? Nope! She looks exactly like Britney Spears and has a bog-standard "I wanna be a big star, even though I'm from a small town!" story arc. And the boy looks like he just came from High School Musical. When he gets seduced to the Dark Side and joins a boy band, it looks like his natural habitat. Numbers!
1. Citation needed on boy bands being any less overproduced and commercialized than hair metal.
2. The big climax to this arc is the boy band getting thrown out so our heroes can show everyone the real power of rock. That's right... fucking Journey! Because when I think heavy metal, I think "Don't stop believing."
3. Guys, you know Glee kinda ate your shorts when it came to that song, right? You think you could... pick another big rock anthem to revitalize? Just, absolutely anything other than Glee's leitmotif?
It's a good thing a fusion of hair metal and Broadway musicals has a canon gay couple to act as a relief valve for all the gay, because holy shit, that thing could've gone full Alan Scott. On the one hand, they are played for laughs, but on the other, I don't think a pairing of Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand could be taken seriously.
At one point, our heroine is in her darkest hour, so she tries to get a job as a waitress, only to be disgusted by the owner fondling her. So disgusted by this objectification is she that she... gets a job at a strip club.
Okay, it's like a nice strip club, run by one of those Magical Negroes that apparently you can still get away with. However, the owner doesn't seem to strictly enforce the no-touching policy, since Britney--shit, Sherrie--gets grab-assed by a customer. I think that owner is neglecting her Magical Negro duties there. You don't see Morgan Freeman letting Bruce Wayne get goosed.
By the way, that Magic Mike movie coming out? That had better not have any nudity. For twenty years, we've had movies where all strip clubs have female dancers in bras and panties. You know, you have Sin City and Closer, people are ripping each other's genitals off and calling them cunts, go into a strip club, you'd find more nipples in an issue of National Geographic. So when that movie comes out, Channing Tatum had better be stripping down to boxers and an undershirt. Fair's fair.
On the plus side, Malin Akerman rocks the 1990s Michelle Phfeiffer look. Whatever happened to that look? That was a good look. Ladies, stop trying to make the short hair happen, go back to 90s Michelle Phfeiffer. Horn-rim glasses, curly blonde hair--it's like having the override code to the boner of anyone born pre-Pokemon. Just sayin'.
PS: This movie has singing hookers in it. I kinda thought that only happened in projects that were making fun of musicals.
