Rock of Ages

First of all it should be noted that I am not a blind go to the movies kind of guy. What this means is that I usually check out a few reviews for a movie before I decide to go. With that in mind what occurred Tuesday night should never have happened.

We went to see Rock of Ages. It was in a word, awful. Actually that is not even a strong enough wording, it was incredibly awful. The blame however, has to go to me. I had briefly read a review in Rolling Stone of the movie. What I saw was that Tom Cruise nailed his part as the aging rock God Stacee Jaxxs. What I missed was that this was a musical, what I also missed was Peter Travers saying that the movie was bland, the cast was bad BUT that Tom Cruise nailed his part as the aging rock God Stacee Jaxx.

Actually in retrospect it is kind of funny. My wife on Tuesday night as we found ourselves childless said let's go to a movie. Victims of the East Coast heatwave it seemed a good place to go, I said Rolling Stone says Tom Cruise is pretty good in Rock of Ages. I further thought that RS loves to poop all over Tom Cruise so if they said he was good he must be. So we go to the movie, get our popcorn, take our seat, answer the trivia questions, sit through the previews and BAM in the first scene Julianna Hough breaks into song as Sherrie the Midwestern girl on her own heading in a greyhound bus to the West Coast. Thinking to myself that's ok she is just singing a little to set the tone and then everyone on the bus with her starts singing.

Houston we have a problem. Before long it became evident that this was a true blue musical. I wanted to crawl in my seat, while my wife, she who loves musicals said " I am so glad you picked out this movie for us."

The problem is that it was not even a good musical. The music was not bad but the plot was just too cheesy. Julianna Hough, she of Dancing With the Stars fame, is cute but not a great actress. Diego Bonata who plays the male lead, her romantic counterpart and an aspiring rock star is awful. It could well be the role he plays but, to me, this was one of the worst performances I have seen in a movie. Just awful.

The supporting cast, which was actually made of larger stars such as Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand and of course Tom Cruise were all quite good. Cruise sings his own songs, perfects the groupie abusing, single monolithic stare gazing in a fixated way at an object or interviewer to a science. In short it might be one of his best performances but it comes in an awful movie. Baldwin and Brand play their roles for laughs and for the most part succeed. When their characters realize that they are in love and break into song and sing to each other the audience in the theatre teetered on laughter and then broke out into full throat-ed howls. It had to be what the scene was intended to be.

About halfway through the movie I was looking at baseball scores. Our star crossed lovers had broken up, he was in a cheesy boy band, and she was " dancing" at a mens club. By the time we get around to the happy ending the film seems to have some redeeming value. My wife loves musicals, she said she wanted to poke her eyes out about halfway through, but she too acknowledged that it ended well.

I cannot decide if it was an attempt to be played as funny, campy, serious or somewhere in between. For me it did not work. Next time I guess I will take the time to read the whole review.

The Cooler

The Cooler is a 2003 movie directed and co written by Wayne Kramer. The movie was very well received by critics though it did not make a great run at the movie houses.

The movie centers around The Shangri-La Casino and it's Boss Shelly Koplov played by Alec Baldwin. Baldwin is terrific in this role putting every bit of narcissistic nastiness in his soul into the role. William H Macy plays Bernie Lootz a man employed by Shelley as a " Cooler ", that is a person who joins the table of a gambler on a hot streak. Bernie is a born loser with bad luck, a black cloud on good fortune.

Macy too is fantastic in his role. As we join Bernie he is in his last week of employment. A cocktail waitress played by Mario Bello begins to talk to him and soon they are having a meal together, laughing together and sleeping together. Bernie's loneliness is palpable and his feelings of disbelief at a woman being near him again show through.

Shelley has a lot on his plate. His bosses, the underworld figures who own the casino are being given advice by a fresh MBA played by Ron Livingstone. Shelley is completely against the family friendly idea of Vegas.

As Bernie's love life improves his talents as a cooler desert him. This brings no happiness to Shelly or his bosses and how Shelly deals with the changes in Bernie's life are a turning point in the movie.

The movie has graphic language, a little more sex than movies I usually watch, but the talent in the cast and the crispness and ability to shock in the script make up for it.

This movie is an undiscovered gem. It is a fantastic movie. For those wondering how Alec Baldwin keeps landing on his feet this movie might well be the answer. He can, in the right role, be a terrific actor. The cast also includes Paul Sorvino as a drug addicted old school lounge singer that Shelly wants to keep but who the bosses as part of their modernization of the casino want to replace.

This is a fantastic movie.