Sunset Strip

What do you want in a movie? If it's verisimilitude, you must have subjective overview for the context, or else it's just another period piece as distant and impersonal as The Napoleonic Wars. If it's a character study, you must accept this as the basis of the filmed entertainment.

"Sunset Strip" should be viewed as a character study companion piece to "Almost Famous" with far more accurate verisimilitude. "Famous" is a wondrous pastiche, lotsa entertaining bang for your buck. But "Sunset Strip" represents the real s**t. I know. I was there. And here's why you should take my anonymous word for it.

When I first saw this movie I was astonished that I didn't recognize the name of its writer, for I recognized every one of his characters, literally as well as figuratively. The writer obviously was exactly the same age I was, worked in the exact aspects of the entertainment industry that I did, at the exact same time in the early 70's at the exact same spots in Hollywood and knew the exact same people I did (or knew of.) Anna Friel was Genie the Tailor, who did in fact die in an auto accident with several members of British band Fairport Convention. The geeky manager was seemingly an early Geffen clone. The disolute songwriter was a Warren Zevon-alike, while Jared Leto was, dare I say, a completely interchangeable popstar type of the era. My own future husband, popstar of that era, lived in the exact same Laurel Canyon mountain aerie depicted in the film (replete with benevolent landlord), while I worked as a music photographer amongst the main protagonist's doppelganger. And I did know who he was. He was one of the names you'll recognize on photo credits of the era, who owns a major restaurant here. But he didn't want his name on the writing credits, so I'll respect that.

"Sunset Strip" is a highly entertaining character study that is unbelievably accurate in its depiction of an assortment of characters on the perimeter, or the earliest stages of ascent, of the music scene in Los Angeles in the early 1970's. It's all true. And we did go out there every night. . .

Well its like this, all I needed to read on the back of the box was "if you like Boogie Nights, you will love this"...NOT. What an excellent idea for a movie, 70's Hollywood club scene and the people trying to break into the biz....to bad it never delivered. Oh and by the way...it says it has a great 70's sound track playing through out? I think I recognized one song.

I'm not very interested in whether this film correctly portrays life as it actually was or is among the LA hopefuls or in whether the clothes or music are authentic. These issues seem to me to be superficial. As a story it is very, very good and is superbly acted by all the main characters. It is quirky in an interesting way. Anna Friel turns in a great performance as do several of the others. It should have had a wider release - I would give it a much higher rating than many of the banal films which become "hits" these days.

After seeing the film for the first time last night, and then reading some of the negative reviews here, the only logical conclusion I can make is this; if you weren't closely involved in that era, in that place, then you probably won't enjoy the film. But if you did, you will love it.

For those who were there, "Sunset Strip" is amazingly accurate, and sometimes painfully so. The male-centric attitude women of that time had to endure from so-called "liberated" men was summed-up perfectly in the scene where Anna Friel's character is summoned - there's no better word for it - by her rock-star idol, and upon arrival at his hotel room, is asked to serve tea by some pompous jerk.

As stated much better than I ever could by "fastfilmhh" in her review of this film, it is a deadly-accurate portrayal of the time, places and attitudes back then, warts and all.

The only error that I found was when one character made reference to "bad 'ludes." While there was certainly bad coke, and bad weed, Quaaludes were far too inexpensive and easily available for anyone to waste their time knocking off fakes, at least in my experience.

But that small mistake was nicely balanced-out by the stage-whispered comment made during a party scene by yet another pompous jerk - there were lots of those back then - alerting a new arrival to the "real party" going on in a closed-to-the-less-than-super-cool back room. That sort of social status selectivity happened at every party ever held back then, and was called "cocaine politics".

The producers obviously took great effort to maintain an accurate portrait of the times, from using and recording actual Fender 'Strats, to only showing three-piece bands on the Whisky's stage, which was a hard and fast rule at that club, unless the band was currently uber-hot.

Sidenote: If you are interested in securing your grand-children's financial security, find and buy an original Fender Stratocaster like the ones used in the film, plus some strings, and place them in a large safe-deposit box. In a hundred years or so, those puppies will be worth their weight in Stradivarius violins.

Some reviews have mentioned the lack of character development in "Sunset Strip", and that is accurate, especially when compared to other film portraying that period, such as "Almost Famous." While I won't pretend to read the writer's and director's minds, I will say that, considering the accuracy of the rest of the production, it could be that they deliberately left the characters shallow because let's face it, ... they (we) all were shallow back then. You needed those high boots to wade through the wall-to-wall pretense. The only difference between the suits and the freaks was that the freaks were freaks on purpose. And just a bit more honest. Sometimes.

Anyway, if you want to watch a living textbook of that place at that time, "Sunset Strip" hits the nail on the head. Just don't say it's far-out and groovy, please, or you won't be invited to the real party.

Although I usually stay away from renting straight-to-video movies, I was curious to see how they created early '70s L.A. on that famous Strip(BTW, for a great account of the Sunset Strip and the owners of the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, check out the article in the Fall 2000 "music issue" of Vanity Fair.) Unfortunately, a hastily paced "24 hours in the life of" timeline and paper-thin characters make it a pretty lightweight, almost amateurish affair.

As far as creating the early '70s via clothing and hairstyles, it's a mixed bag, with more than half of the cast looking more like "year 2000 youths" wearing retro clothing. The Jared Leto character is an exception, as is the "Christine" character w/ the long dark hair(why does she disappear midway through the movie, btw?)

Adam Goldberg's character just looks ridiculous, kind of like the "Disco Stu" character from "The Simpsons." The costume designs from "Boogie Nights" and "Almost Famous" were a lot better. Since the structure of the film was "A day in the life of..." the filmmakers seemed to rush through the day and night without adding any depth to the characters. I wound up either not caring about the characters(the young guitarist, the fashion designer, the BLAND photographer who is color blind), or wanting to know more about others(Jared Leto's character, the cranky songwriter.) The ending texts at the end of the film that lets everybody know what happened to each character seemed like a quick wrap-up and was utimately unsatisfying.

Altman's "Nashville" and P.T. Anderson's "Magnolia" did a lot better with the day-in-the-life concept. Rent those movies instead, as well as "Boogie Nights", and "Almost Famous." You'll get a better "retro culture" fix from them(well, except for "Magnolia": that film is set in 1999. But I digress.....) BoojiBoy