2012 Rock of Stages

‘Rock of Ages’ hits the theater today and even though I HATE HATE HATE many of the songs in it (“We Built This City” arrggggggghhhhhh) I hope it does well for various reasons ol’ Bingo’s not gonna share with you. But I will say this… I saw it when it was going through its original development phase in Hollywoodland and it was tongue in cheek, arch and clearly not grounded in reality. Just stupid enough for me to enjoy. After passing through Broadway bombast and on to BIG MOVIE RELEASE it has transmogrified to become “grounded in the reality of the strip” with Tom Cruise as Axhole Fahrvergnügen who’s Rockin’ the Paradise. It’s not for music aficionados, it’s for 14 year old girls. Or for people who enjoyed Moulin Rouge. Or the work Elton John has done with Tim Rice. Or the sound of a coffee grinder with a screaming hamster spinning around in it. Here’s some of the scenes they cut from the movie… thus disappointing me forever.

I Love The Dead – Alice Cooper
After a wild and hilarious night of shooting up 12 year old runaway with black tar heroin Axhole Fahrvergnügen breaks into the city morgue and has sex with the victims of a tragic high school football game bus crash. But “only the chicks man, what do you think I am?” he tells his cohort in crime Hate Lee Comitz (played by Vince Vaughan in a tour de force performance sadly cut from this movie but will probably end up in Anchor Man II… that way the director won’t have to deal with him).

No Hassle Night – The Dead Weather
With the irony of this song over the scene, dripping off the screen… a montage shows a group of teens (played by the same 24 year olds you see on Glee or shows like that) scrimp and save every nickle they can find to cover the $20 it takes to get in and see their friend’s band, Rug Skooter, “pay-to-play” at some shithole on the strip. Naturally Tur Dzucker (played to stunning effect by Mike Myers as a Czech guitar god with a Scottish accent) leaps on stage during their 22 minute set, blows everyone away with the power of his (even half drunk) riffing, pukes on Skooter’s lead singer, tells the audience to ignore “these talentless fucks” and come to a party at his hotel room at the “Sunset Riot House.” The lead singer quits to attend the party.

Bus Ride – Marco Benevento
In a sad & tender scene (which should have stayed in the movie) runaway teen Lisa Goodmuffin (played by a highly CGI’d Charlize Theron in Vanderbilt Jeans and a puffy nipple blouse) takes the long bus trip home to Oklahoma reflecting on her year in LA… supporting her favorite band, Metull Keengz by:

making sandwiches and giving head for smokes,
keistering so much dope that she develops a habit, and blood poisoning, through the tin foil,
crying when the doctor tells her she’s “going to have to carry this one to term,”
realizing she has to explain to her family why the baby’s daddy is listed as ‘Metull Keengz’ on the birth certificate.

Touching shit. She gets off the bus in Albuquerque.

Crash Street Kids – Mott the Hoople
Headed home from the big victory a young female cheerleader/music fan, Tina Wigglesworth (played majestically, in what would have been an award worthy role, by Denzel Washington in body makeup) looks out the window and dreams of a sexy candle bath night where she gives her virginity to Axhole Fahrvergnügen. Without warning the bus veers wildly off the road, cut off by a drunk Tur Dzucker speeding through and intersection in his Alfa Romeo. The last thing Tina sees is Lisa Goodmuffin’s horrified face pressed against the window of a bus going in the opposite direction. Axhole takes her virginity a couple hours later.

Censor – Skinny Puppy
This scene was meant to run after the end credits but was excised as being “too real.” The government is successful in censoring music and offenders (including Jonah Hill as Little Petey, Axhole’s Fluffer) are forced into camps where they can re-think their enjoyment of music. Maybe even “drift off into the twilight realm of their own secret thoughts.” It could have been an incredible cross promotion for another rock music extravaganza needing to be filmed entitled Joe’s Garage Parts I, II & III but the studio realized the music was too good and put it into turnaround.

You got to fight, for your right, to partay. See you Monday for a new Daily Soundtrack.