Tag: Infant Sorrow

Rock and roll gender wars

More in my series of clips featuring fake bands from the movies inspired more or less by Aldous Snow and Infant Sorrow, the band in “Get Him to the Greek.”

As Roger Ebert notes in the DVD commentary to Russ Meyer’s “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” it was kind of progressive to make a movie about an all-female rock band in 1970. They were certainly rare as hens-teeth in real life until  several years later the Runaways, the Go-Gos, and finaly the Bangles broke the rock and roll gender barrier. I’m not sure how inspired any of them were were by the Carrie Nations, the fictional band in the film directed by Meyer and written by Roger Ebert, but this opening sure shows Meyer’s remarkable filmmaking approach and a hint of what kind of dialogue you can expect when you let a movie critic write a movie. (A later scene features the immortal words spoken by a Phil Spector-esque impressario: ‘This is my happening and it’s freaking me out.” That’s Ebert, baby.)

By 2001, of course, women in both real and cinematic rock bands were hardly unusual. On the other hand, there weren’t too many rock and roll band transsexuals, and there was just one victim of a botched sex change operation. Below, Hedwig and the Angry Inch explain the meaning of their name. It’s not necessarily an experience for the faint of heart, but it sure is rock and roll.

The pimp and the hippie

Since “Get Him to the Greek” has been on our mind lately, and if you haven’t read my mammoth press day interview thingy with cast members Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Rose Byrne, and writer-director Nicholas Stoller you may do so now, or at your leisure. I’m also happy to report that, whatever the recently returned Nikki Finke is saying, it’s doing somewhat better than expected and defeating the really horrid looking (and, not surprisingly, horribly reviewed) “Killers” as of this moment at the Box Office.

Be that as it may, inspired by a fun piece over at the Playlist on fake bands from movies, along the lines of Aldous Snow’s Infant Sorrow from “Greek.” This weekend, I’ll be presenting some great moments with great fictional cinema bands. I’ll lead with one of the best moments from 2004’s “Hustle and Flow.” I think this was the moment I realized what I was watching was going to be a little more like “The Commitments” and a little less like “Superfly” when I saw it cold at Sundance. (Did I really declare it “the sweetest pimp movie of all time”? Oh, I was young and foolish then.) Since this is a rap tune created by an actual, fictional, pimp played by Terrence Howard, all the usual work-related provisos apply. Also, I wonder about those subtitles on the video. Just how do you translate “Whoop That Trick” into Greek? For that matter, how do you translate it into English?

And now for something completely different. A lot of you are probably familiar with the gay Hitler from the musical version of “The Producers” but fewer of you may know the hippie Hitler played to insane perfection by Dick Shawn in Mel Brooks 1968 original comedy cult-classic. Here, Lorenzo St. Dubois, call him “LSD” for short, sings “Love Power” and grabs the Broadway glass ring with the help of his all-female back-up band.

All the movie news that fits my schedule

With Cannes starting to wind down — or with people probably starting to leave in the manner of Hollywood folk at lengthy fests much in the way Los Angelenos leave sporting events early — maybe the news will start to slow down a bit as well. In any case, it’s looking like I won’t be around to cover it tomorrow, and then comes the weekend movie preview, so this will have to tide you over for a bit.

Megan Fox in * Our top story tonight, however, is far away from anything likely to screen in, or even out of, competition at the world’s most famous film festival. Seems that Megan Fox, who you might remember compared director Michael Bay to Hitler some time ago, will not be returning in “Transformers 3.” Apparently Bay has finally realized there are lots and lots of unnaturally attractive young women in Hollywood and some of them can act a little.

In any case, Nikki Finke brings you a crash course on the apparent Fox/Bay hate affair, while AICN’s Merrick reminds you of some of those other unnaturally attractive women.

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