Change Your Image
josh_m_nileski
Reviews
No Holds Bar-B-Que (2002)
Indescribable Insanity For People Who Like To Party
I got a bootleg from eBay, and it's exactly what you'd expect from Diamond Dave. If you saw Dave in concert with Hagar, you've seen some of the footage, and if you heard his most recent album, you've heard some of the music. But trust me, that's not all there is to it. I could tell you everything that's on it and you still wouldn't get the whole picture. It's just an hour plus of...what? Midgets, clantily scad women, music, martial arts, and various other insanity. Dave does some classic Van Halen, some cool covers, some new stuff, and participates in bizarre, indescribable set pieces.
If you're a fan, it's highly recommended. And if you're not, you might want to track it done just for the oddity. Here's a barometer: Let's say you live in a vacuum and have never heard of David Lee Roth or any of Van Halen's music. If the idea of models dressed as pregnant trailer trash drinking Milwaukee's Best in front of a giant boom box playing raucous music makes you smile, then this is for you.
Like Dave once said before VH hit it big, "We play dance music for people who like to party." Same vibe, new millennium.
Enjoy.
Great Balls of Fire! (1989)
A Truly Bizarre Film Experience
This is a movie that, if it came out today, I would hate. As it stands, I have distance on it and I love it because it is unlike any other film ever made.
Jim McBride as a director treats the material as a straight rock and roll fairy tale. That's why, if the characters in the movie were fictitious, the film would be a minor stylistic classic among film buffs. Akin to "Dick Tracy" for its production design or "Moulin Rouge" for its weaving of pop hits into a broadly stroked love story. It would be beloved if only for the few scenes between Dennis Quaid and Alec Baldwin (as Lewis' cousin, Jimmy Swaggart) playing polar archetypes.
As it stands, however, "the people and events depicted herein are real." Even on a script level, the movie knows that Jerry Lee is a much worse person than depicted in the film. Where the film alludes to Jerry Lee being a general cheating womanizer and, at times, even a specifically cruel individual to his young wife, the script points it out more evidently. That the script largely demurs from the sometimes horrific moments that Lewis instigated in his true life romance with Myra Gale Brown is enough to turn off most viewers. That the film itself almost completely ignores Lewis' uglier traits (even while the script is acknowledging them) is why it is considered so uneven and, thus, unsuccessful. However, completely detached from those detestable facts, the film does offer some of the greatest rock music ever recorded, an appropriately rebellious, true lovin' rocker to record it, and a soft-focus, easily-quotable rock and roll fantasy romance for a screenplay. Combine those things with the unfortunate, incontrovertible truth and you have an exceptionally odd amalgam of a movie.
P.S.: I'll add that I am a huge fan of Jerry Lee Lewis' music, so I admit that I have one up on a viewer who is either uninitiated or is just plain not a fan.
Martin & Orloff (2002)
Good, Funny Independent Comedy
I'll be honest: I had high hopes but low expectations for this film. As guilty as that makes me feel, it's true. The movie, however, was better than even my expectations. It's not for everyone, but that's the beauty of independent film. It allows for off-beat, darkly comic writing and the casting of actors like the superb-as-always, H. Jon Benjamin. It would probably be enjoyed most by those who are already fans of the "Upright Citizens Brigade" (all of whom appear, in addition to writer-stars Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh), but I would still recommend it to non-fans, if only for the unique and memorable cinematic experience it will provide them. (Even my mother, who doesn't "understand" most of my comedies I show her, enjoyed herself.) I make no guarantees, but it definitely deserves a shot.