The Rocker

The stack has gotten ridiculous. I've written about the stack before. It was staying at manageable levels but then the Blockbuster in Santa Monica went out of business, had a $1.99 DVD sale, and I wasn't able to completely help myself. I limited myself to 10 (though I'm still kicking myself to not picking up poison Ivy's 4-6), which doesn't sound bad but add in a few TV series I've picked up, as well as the existing stack (which wasn't insubstantial), and the underside of my coffee could program TBS for the weekend. Anyway The Rocker is my first foray into reducing the stack (I've also promised to refrain from buying cheap used DVD's for awhile-sure. It could happen). Why did I buy it? Well it starred Rainn Wilson as a drummer, and did I mention $1.99 DVD's?

Anyway the The Rocker starts with Fish (Wilson) being get kicked out of a Metallica/Motley Crue/Poison-esque band called Vesuvius in 1986 so the record label head's kid could play for them instead. He spends the next twenty years working dead end jobs until he gets asked to play the prom with his nephew's band, which is fronted by a suitably brooding high school senior with daddy issues. Fish ends of becoming an internet sensation when footage of him playng drums naked (don't ask) gets posted to youtube, the band gets signed to a label and becomes a big sensation in about three months (if only it were that easy). Their success leads to their being asked to open for Vesuvius at the rock and roll hall of fame and of course Fish has to confront all his demons, but they all learn a lesson, and whatever. The plot is pretty much what you would expect, and while I would hesitate calling The Rocker good, I did laugh a fair amount of times and even though it was about ten minutes too long the whole thing moved along in a fairly satisfactory manner. It's probably worth checking out when it inevitably ends up in heavy rotation on Comedy Central.

A Few more thoughts:
-The film has some tonal consistency issues as it veers between being an outright parody and a more conventional comedic film. Since Spinal Tap is already the definitive satire of hair metal specifically, and the music industry in general, any other film that tries to do it will fall short. (Though Will Arnett was pretty funny as the David Lee Roth-esque lead singer of Vesuvius)
-Speaking of Arnett the supporting cast in this film is loaded. Besides Arnett it has Bradley Cooper, Fred Arminsen, Arniz Anzari, Jeff Garlin, Jane Lynch and even an appearance by Lester from Chuck. Most of them are pretty heavily underutilized, but still, they're always nice to see.
-The films biggest flaw is that it leans a bit heavily on 'hit in the crotch' jokes. These don't just include ball shots, but can include variations like getting hit in the head, having bugs fly in your mouth, etc. Look I like a good cup check as much as the next guy, but any time you go to the well more than twice it just shows a lack of imagination (especially since Idiocracy made the definitive crotch joke with 'Ouch My Balls'). Hell they could have gotten rid of ten minutes easy if they just cut the number of times Fish falls or gets hit in half.
-The drumming in it actually doesn't look too bad except that Wilson's grip looks more like someone clubbing a seal than actual drumming (of course given the genre that may be right). On a related note the songs written for the movie are also decent (again still not as good as Spinal Tap), though writing stuff that sounds vaguely like third eye blind isn't the most difficult task in the world. (I do have to give them some extra points for turning 'In Your Eyes' into an extended drum solo)
-The other thing I want to give the film credit for is that even though there were a lot of cliches they avoided the two biggest ones: i) the lead singer's dad didn't see him perform and come back and ii) Wilson didn't end up hooking up with Christina Applegate. That was nice.