Sunday, May 29, 2022

JUNESPLOITATION '22: Musical Double Features III

Today's double is a pair of girl-punk movies.


Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982)
Trailers: Satisfaction, Sing Street

Diane Lane was 17 when this was made (and Laura Dern 15), and everyone in this, down to the Stains’ copycat fans, feels painfully real. This reminded me a lot of THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN (which I watched for last year’s Summerfest), particularly in the way that the Stains become a movement. I love that this isn’t a portrait of a band’s whole career (though we see a few snapshots of their eventual success in the movie’s final moments). This is about the initial phase, where they’re trying to define themselves. And I LOVE that, even though they have a crisis of authenticity at one of their shows, it’s too late for it to derail their momentum — they’re already on the radio and most people won’t care (or even know about) what happened at one gig.




We Are the Best! (2013)

Trailers: Her Smell, Prey for Rock & Roll


This was not quite what I expected but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Because the characters are so young, there’s a lot of screen time devoted to them just being kids. I feel like a lot of people have experiences like the story of this film. Two friends start a band, maybe add one or two people who actually know what they’re doing, ultimately write one or two songs, play one gig, and then perhaps it’s all over and they move on (the end of this film is ambiguous in terms of whether these characters ever play together again, but I imagine they drift apart and move on not long after the credits roll).

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