Which Rock Movie Really Represents "The Perfect Age Of Rock 'n' Roll"?

posted in: Music News • Rock

At OurStage, we don’t spend every single waking moment traversing the Internet for the latest trends, news and the freshest sounds in music, though we’d understand if you thought otherwise. Believe it or not, we sometimes watch TV too. So imagine our excitement when we came across the commercial for The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

This is what we gather from the trailer: schlubby guys writes some songs, Michael Jackson shows up for a minute, they tour, they get famous and there’s oodles of tension”creative, professional, personal, etc.”and surprise, surprise, there’s a girl at the center of it all. If that rundown sounds a wee bit cliché then you aren’t alone according to the reviewing body over at Rotten Tomatoes, where the film has earned a 0% approval rating. Ouch.

While the our disappointment was diminished by news of the upcoming film adaptation of Patti Smith‘s book Just Kids, we were still a bit put off. But we haven’t seen the movie yet! So it wouldn’t be fair to pass judgement. But just because The Perfect Age might not be perfect per se that doesn’t mean that “rock movies” don’t have a lot to offer as a genre.

There’s the rock documentary, for example, maybe the most critically respectable and vaunted genre of rock movies. What’s better than a deep look into the interplay and dynamics of you’re favorite band (if you’re a huge nerd)? Wilco‘s I Am Trying To Break Your Heart chronicles the band’s tumultuous recording of their landmark Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, replete with gut-churning band tension, label shenanigans and enough live footage to make any alt-rock fan salivate. On the other end of the genre spectrum, Anvil! The Story of Anvil follows cult heavy metal act Anvil, who are still rocking after their mid-80s heyday but have certainly seen better days. Directed and shot by super fan Sacha Gervasi, the film is an absolutely loving, gritty look into the life of a band who is doing it for the love and nothing else. Netflix has become a fantastic resource of Rockumentaries, but don’t take our word for it. A notable sub-genre of the rock doc is the rock biopic, an account of a musician or band’s career. They’re usually wellsprings of quality source material. And it’s those rockers turgid, riveting life stories that make movies like Sid and Nancy, The Runaways and Great Balls of Fire so great. Probably the best example in recent memory is Control, which covers the life and times of legendary British post-punker Ian Curtis and Joy Division. Moody and shot entirely in black and white, the film is a fitting tribute to the iconclastic Curtis.

Then there’s comedy rock movies, another subgenre with nerdy, cultish appeal. We’ve all seen Rocky Horror Picture Show and This Is Spinal Tap. Those films, while fantastically funny, especially Spinal Tap, aren’t the limit of the genre. The ’90s were a great time for these movies thanks to High Fidelity, Empire Records and SLC Punk! But there’s only one Airheads. Released at the height of the alt explosion in the early ’90s, Airheads is a cult favorite; featuring equal parts metal, shaggy unkemptness and Adam Sandler, Steve Buscemi and Brendan Frasier (!!!), the movie recently enjoyed a fresh blast of exposure, thanks to turnable.fm. The site’s captcha for a user’s invite asks, “Who’d win in a wrestling match, lemmy or god?” Well…

Finally, there’s the rock dramas, where The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll and other of their ilk reside. Usually loud, bombastic and over the top, this form of rock movie has some the greatest dichotomy between the hits and the misses.  There are the spectacular successes like Rent, Purple Rain, Saturday Night Fever and awesomely bad failures like Glitter and Across The Universe. Our personal favorite? We couldn’t pick just one, but one name stands out above the rest: Cameron Crowe. Almost Famous. Singles. Say Anything. Crowe gets movies, and Crowe gets music. And if all his previous films and experience as the youngest ever writer for Rolling Stone magazine haven’t proved his rock bonafides, the man also directed, produced and wrote the upcoming Pearl Jam retrospective Pearl Jam Twenty. Nuff said.

The point? Go check out The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll and be comforted by the fact that is it doesn’t suit your tastes, that’s OK. You know that there’s enough rock filmage for you to watch until your eye balls bleed, and what’s more rock and roll than that? See you at the movies.