Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003)

Mayor of the Sunset Strip: Directed by George Hickenlooper. With Rodney Bingenheimer, Exene Cervenka, John Doe, X. A look at the history of fame in the world through the eyes of pop star impresario, Rodney Bingenheimer.

“As an Angeleno, I was a long-time listener to KROQ, but gave it up the day grunge came to town. I used to listen to Rodney back when he was on at a decent hour. He was so weird and you always felt like you were terribly cool and on-the-edge for listening to him. It is too bad KROQ abandoned Rodneyu0026#39;s kind of music in favor of the crap they play today.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut on to the movie itself. I thought it was excellent in its own right, which had the classic tragedy theme. Looking at it that way, this movie could not have been better.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut from a music standpoint there was something lacking. Rodney is Rodney because of the music, his love of the music, his ear and knack for the music. There was plenty in this movie about the musicians but very little about the music they play. I would have liked a few comments along the lines of, u0026quot;Oh, the first time I heard the opening riff of such-and-such a song,u0026quot; or u0026quot;Man, when I saw so-and-so play for the first time at the Whiskey!u0026quot; There is a curious lack of talk about the actual tunes in this movie. One DOES come away with the feeling that it was just celebrities that Rodney loved and not the art they created…and I know this is not the case.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut back to the u0026quot;tragedyu0026quot; that was this movieu0026#39;s real purpose. It was so excruciating to watch some of these scenes. A truly great movie in this respect. The encounters with the family, the dumping of his momu0026#39;s ashes, the freak-out with Chris Carter, the horrible, horrible side-story of the 50-year-old wannabe rock star. This movie was positively Shakespearean! And knowing what a tragic landscape Los Angeles really is, I loved that this was conveyed so well in this film; the Dennyu0026#39;s, the stripmalls, the ugly apartment buildings.”