If you want to experience a movie where you’ll begin to think you accidentally slipped some acid, “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School Forever” is that movie. A very loose sequel to the 1979 original movie, rather than the follow up being a tribute to an iconic punk band, it’s another dated teen comedy about high schoolers committing pranks because they can. There just isn’t much about this movie that makes a lot of sense. And the fact that nothing here makes the slightest bit of sense is a distraction from the notion that the movie has no narrative behind it. Nothing happens here, but the movie does attempt to continue perpetuating the idea that Corey Feldman is still some kind of rebel who works to his own tune.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)
If there’s any band out there that deserves their own movie, it’s the Ramones. Allan Arkush’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” is a bonafide love letter to the punk juggernauts that ruled music in the seventies and eighties. While the movie is a genuine tribute to the band, even with them appearing constantly to perform some of their greatest hits, “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” is also a very funny and silly movie, to boot. It’s a kind of a parody of a teen high school comedy that would oddly become the norm in the eighties. It’s also kind of a satire of Roger Corman’s own teen oriented films that has the foresight to tackle punk rock over the then popular disco. “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” is way ahead of its time in satirizing a lot of cliches that would become the standard, including the snooty classmates, uptight teachers, and of course, the evil authority figure.
Invisible Roots: Afro-Mexicans in Southern California (2015)
It is estimated that more than one million Mexicans can trace some of their ancestry back to the African slaves brought to North America by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th and 17th centuries. This documentary short by Tiffany Walton and Lizz Mullis focuses on a community in the Los Angeles area of Afro-Mexican heritage.
La La Land (2016)
I don’t know if I’d ever call “La La Land” a masterpiece. I wouldn’t even call it a great movie. But it at least gets an A for effort, anxiously trying to evoke the classic musicals of Hollywood’s yesteryear that has a lot of first year theater students salivating over. “La La Land” is a neat and charming little novelty, and one I was thoroughly invested in, mainly for the fantastic photography. “La La Land” looks gorgeous, especially when characters Mia and Sebastian are sitting on a park bench at dawn, dancing and singing. But that’s about the entirety of the film’s merits. The cinematography and special effects are fantastic, but don’t actually compensate for a weak storyline, and forgettable musical numbers.
Sully (2016)
In 2009, New Yorkers were submitted to watching what media branded “The Miracle on the Hudson,” and seven years later, director Clint Eastwood tries harder than ever to transform the very unique event in to something of a hero’s journey. Eastwood takes Sully Sullenberger’s story and transforms it in to an unremarkable and tedious drama that would be so much more appropriate as a Sunday night movie on basic cable, if Sully were played by Neil McDonough or Tom Selleck. Tom Hanks can play a role like this in his sleep, and in “Sully,” he evokes the exact same tones and character elements we saw him master in “Captain Phillips.” In Eastwoods ho hum drama, Hanks is the poor man’s Captain Phillips, sensationalized to look distressed and making very hard decisions in a very tough situation.
Judy Collins: A Love Letter to Stephen Sondheim (2016)
Is it possible to have a more sublime combination than the erudite music of Stephen Sondheim and the ethereal song stylings of Judy Collins? This filmed concert, originally broadcast on PBS, features the legendary songstress performing the Broadway master’s finest works at Denver’s Boettcher Concert Hall, backed by the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Glen Cortese.
Ocean Waves (2016)
Another very rare Studio Ghibli film is finally coming to the states as director Tomomi Mochizuki’s “Ocean Waves” is opening for audiences anxious to visit the lesser known entries in the Ghibli catalogue. “Ocean Waves” is described as one of the very few movies not made by Isao Takahata or Hayao Miyazaki and has rarely ever been seen outside of Japanese television. Adapted from a novel of the same name by Saeko Himuro, “Ocean Waves” is a short (At barely eighty minutes) but very well realized teen drama about two teenage boys hopelessly enamored by a gorgeous young girl named Rikako, who is often given to flights of fancy and adventurousness that allow the two friends Taku and Yutaka a chance to break free from the monotony of their busy school lives.