Top 10 Overlooked Films About Sex, Drugs And Rock & Roll
There’s nothing like a loud, snarling film to bring out your deviant, inner fist pump. Stick it to the man and check out our list.
Top 10 Overlooked Films About Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll
There’s nothing like a loud, snarling film to bring out your deviant, inner fist pump. Ever since Bill Haley hit the big screen urging kids to rock around the clock, we’ve been relying on movies as vicarious views into rebellious rock, meaningless sex, and recreational drug use. (And perhaps a few of us have even tried the scene ourselves…)
But with so many clichés weighing down the genre, what makes a great sex, drugs and rock-n-roll movie? Here’s our list of seldom-seen, under-appreciated, let-‘er-rip films, including one of the great cinematic visions of the last decade. What?! Read on. And rock on.10. GARAGE DAYS (2002)
After directing visually arresting dramas THE CROW and critics’ favorite DARK CITY, Alex Proyas returned to his Australian homeland for this comedy about a Sydney band with more rock star ambition than talent. The difference here is in Proyas’ visual edge; we know he can create a heavy, ominous tone, but here, in a lighter setting, his approach has a wild, no-holds-barred goofiness. With all the BS stories about making it big, wouldn’t you rather laugh at the band that gets that “one shot at fame”? GARAGE DAYS reminds us that fantasizing about arena crowds and sexually promiscuous groupies should be fun. Which it is.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch GARAGE DAYS this month on Sundance Channel.9. LE DONK & SCOR-ZAY-ZEE (2009)
Scor-zay-zee is real. Le Donk is not. But that doesn’t stop director Shane Meadows (the searing THIS IS ENGLAND) from putting the two together in this pseudo-documentary about a rock roadie (concept co-creator Paddy Considine) who dreams of bigger things for himself and DJ buddy Scor-zay-zee, via an opening slot for cheeky real-life Brit rockers Arctic Monkeys. Along the way, fiction meets reality—and sometimes intrudes on reality—in this wacked, wholly improvised comedy that was shot in just five days on a miniscule budget. This one’s for anyone who craves mad beats, life on the road and a clueless sidekick.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch LE DONK & SCOR-ZAY-ZEE this month on Sundance Channel.8. WASSUP ROCKERS (2005)
It’s often disturbing to see the situations that controversial director Larry Clark has in store for the kids in his films (KIDS, KEN PARK), from suicide to dangerously unprotected sex. The teens in this lesser-known Clark feature have it a little easier: They’re lower-income Latino skateboarders, full of attitude and barely pubescent moustaches, who cross the tracks to shake it up in the wealthier neighborhoods. Taunting cops, meeting white chicks, looking to party… you know, standard troublemaking stuff. Clark fills the soundtrack with skate punk anger, including music from his non-professional cast, playing as The Revolts. No hip-hop for these rockers.
Rock out to a clip from the The Revolts.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch WASSUP ROCKERS this month on Sundance Channel.7. JOY DIVISION (2007)
The band Joy Division were smack in the middle of the Manchester movement (as seen in 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE), pounding out of the U.K. punk scene with a dank, danceable, synthesized sound led by enigmatic and deeply troubled singer, Ian Curtis. Documentary filmmaker Grant Gee (photographer for the doc STONES IN EXILE) imbues his chronicle of the band with a visual style completely befitting their moody sound. With hundreds of tales about how bands formed and affected their industry, the simply titled JOY DIVISION is surprisingly different, just as the tragic band was. Features recent, must-see interviews with Joy Division members.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch JOY DIVISION this month on Sundance Channel.6. UNMADE BEDS (2009)
You know why the beds aren’t made? ‘Cause there are plenty of people in them, if you get my drift. The title of this 2009 Sundance Film Festival favorite refers to the various sleeping locations of Axl (fresh-faced Fernando Tielve), a 20-year-old Spaniard who ends up with happy hippies in a giant communal space in London—the same spot as Vera (French actress Deborah Francois), another foreigner trying to find her way in the metropolis. Director/co-writer Alexis Dos Santos’s style is fresh, rocking and decidedly European, conveying the free-wheeling attitude with handheld photography, stills, and unexpected music selections. Just jump in and let the French New Wave feel roll right over you.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch UNMADE BEDS this month on Sundance Channel.5. CONTROL (2007)
Hailed as mandatory viewing for modern rock fans, this biography of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis is part love story, part post-punk tragedy, based on the ironically titled book by Curtis’s wife, Debbie. With a Sex Pistols performance as inspiration, Joy Division began playing in late 1977; the strange, sad epileptic Curtis was dead by May 1980. Shooting in stark black-and-white, director Anton Corbijn (known for comprehensive Depeche Mode and U2 video documentaries) gets an impassioned performance from actor Sam Riley, playing Curtis as a confused soul caught up in something bigger than himself. Samantha Morton is empathetic as always, as Debbie.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch CONTROL this month on Sundance Channel.4. ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE (1998)
After rolling around in teen muck and misbehavior (figuratively, of course), bad boy director Larry Clark followed up his lightning rod, KIDS, with a rambunctious road-trip movie featuring big scores and little smarts. This overlooked cult favorite stars James Woods—cult cool all by himself—and Melanie Griffith as a druggie couple who mentor a pair of younger rebels, including a pre-MAD MEN, 18-year-old Vincent Kartheiser. They steal, they screw, and then things get dangerously serious. And who does “dangerously serious” better than James Woods? Hey, adults are f-ups, too! Reminiscent of Gus van Sant’s DRUGSTORE COWBOY, with Clark’s verite visual style.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE this month on Sundance Channel.3. I'M NOT THERE (2007)
It makes sense that director Todd Haynes would peer into the many faces and facets of Bob Dylan: He’s examined the cult of personality before, with Karen Carpenter in the infamous SUPERSTAR, and with a curious rehab leader in SAFE. To work out Dylan’s self-guided reinventions, Haynes uses six actors, each playing a version of the poet during the era of free love and free dope, including the wiry, spot-on Cate Blanchett and a fierce Heath Ledger. Look for an inspired flash of music and violence during the 1965 Newport Folk Festival scene, where Haynes imagines Dylan’s guitar as a machine gun when the legend famously “plugs in” for the first time. Cool and creative.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch I'M NOT THERE this month on Sundance Channel.2. 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (2002)
In the late 1970s, the Manchester, U.K. rock scene was on the verge of exploding—Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and, yes, Joy Division—and a guy named Tony Wilson was there to help make it happen. PARTY PEOPLE admittedly mixes fact and folklore to tell how Wilson (Steve Coogan) organically built Factory Records, and of the angry rockers, sad personalities and dumb asses that were involved. Coogan mixes his snarky persona with a touch of naiveté – just watch him explain to his wife why a groupie was servicing him in the back of a van. Director Michael Winterbottom always keeps the party moving, conveying the historic importance of the “Madchester” sound.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE this month on Sundance Channel.1. ENTER THE VOID (2009)
After shocking audiences with his revenge nightmare IRREVERSIBLE, Gaspar Noe ascends to all-new creative heights with one of the most original, technically amazing dreamscapes of the last decade. American drug hustler Oscar is killed by Tokyo cops in the first act: Noe spends the rest of the film explaining how Oscar got there, and Oscar’s soul spends it looking for a new body. Inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, VOID has drug trip visuals that rival the conclusion to Kubrick’s 2001, a twisted, neon version of Tokyo, and plenty of contemplation on death, sex and the afterlife. It’s like cinematic hypnosis. In the film’s pounding soundtrack, LFO chants “This is going to make you freak.” You’re damn right.
Author: Norm Schrager
Watch ENTER THE VOID this month on Sundance Channel.
