Slums of Beverly Hills (1998)
After I watched The Savages and remembered that I had liked writer-director Tamara Jenkins' earlier picture, I thought I should watch it again to make sure. It wasn't as good as I remembered it, and I found myself kind of thrown by the young, thing Kevin Corrigan as Natasha Lyonne's neighbour/love interest. I did still like Lyonne and Marisa Tomei as her pregnant, drug-addled cousin, but there was a lot that didn't add up or go anywhere, e.g. an extended scene with David Krumholtz singing in his underwear. You know the family situation must be bad when, as 14 year old Vivian breaks up with her 18 year old drug dealing, Mason-obsessed boyfriend, I thought, "Dude, what are you doing? He has a car. He can take you away from these people!" Clearly not the message the movie intended. B-
Prey for Rock & Roll (2003)I've been meaning to get around to watching this movie since I first watched Rocked with Gina Gershon about four years ago, and Zip finally sent me the DVD. So here we are. Again, not really what I was expecting based on the trailer. The trailer's all, "Hot, sexy rock!," and the movie's all, "Sad, but cool." I've got a bit of a soft spot for Lori Petty, so it was nice to see her again. As punk rock girl bands go, the music and the actors behind it were great. A lot of the plot involved, for some reason, the drummer's (Shelly Cole) brother (Marc Blucas) getting out of jail and why he was in jail and a similar thing happening, and it's suddenly all strum und drang, and you start wondering where all the hot, sexy rock went. The similar thing involves Ivan Martin, who looks like the unholy love child of Mark Ruffalo and Kevin Corrigan. Props to director Alex Steyermark for smashing to black. It's an affecting performance from Gershon, but the heavy subplots keep the movie from going forward. B
No comments:
Post a Comment