Katz5

This is a quite a movie. An adult "fairy tale" that uses Little Red Riding Hood as its inspiration and manages to throw in a satire of white trash living that would make John Waters proud.

The set up is immediate: Vanessa Lutz is about 17 years old, illiterate, and the first scene of the film shows her in class trying to read a sentence that most kids can read in 1st grade. Cut to her home life: Living in a seedy motel in San Diego with her drug abusing mother who "hooks" for money, and a despicable stepfather who, naturally, has a thing for Vanessa.

Things escalate quickly and Vanessa finds herself hitchhiking to "grandmas" in LA. Despite the fact she never met her grandma and is not even sure her grandma knows she's alive. Her car breaks down and a mysterious guy pulls up who calls himself a "child counselor." His name is Bob Wolverton.

To reveal more of the plot would be a crime. But coming out of a post-Pulp Fiction landscape, you can pretty much guess that all bets are off for depraved lunacy. The combination of the trailer trash characterizations, the sexual content, and the violence could make for a heavy experience - a low budget version of Natural Born Killers. But the movie has a a playful mood, despite being the darkest of black comedies.

Vanessa may be trailer trash, she may be illiterate, but she's no dummy. In fact, she proves to be even smarter than the so-called "child counselor." Turns out Bob is married to a wealthy woman who is aware of his "secrets."

The acting in this movie has to be seen to be believed. Reese Witherspoon clearly came of age in 1996 with this film and "Fear," where she played more of a vulnerable character. Later personal problems aside, it was evident with this movie (and her earlier "good girl" role in Man in the Moon) that she was a force to be reckoned with. The filmmakers must've realized it too, and end the film with a freeze frame of her famous smile. Vanessa is foul-mouthed, bad tempered, and fairly vicious when she needs to be - a psychopath, really. But as played by Witherspoon, she gets our sympathy anyway and we hope for a happy ending to this "fairy tale."

Bob Wolverton is another psycho role for Kiefer Sutherland. Before he was a TV hero on "24," Sutherland played quite a few weirdos and psychos on screen, and occasionally good guys in movies like Young Guns. His Bob Wolverton is quiet, sly, and off the charts lunatic.

The supporting cast includes Amanda Plummer, who plays Vanessa's mother, and like her daughter, never really hateful despite her actions. The surprise in the cast is Brooke Shields as Bob's hysterical wife.

Some reviewers have named this as Witherspoon's best performance. She had many more memorable ones up her sleeve, but it's clear who walks away with this movie. And it's not Sutherland.

Director Penelope Spheeris is back with her second of three rock documentaries (or, if you will, rockumentaries). The Metal Years, as the title proclaims, trades in the skid row excesses of the late '70s/early '80s LA punk scene with the over the top excesses of the late '80s LA "metal" scene.

The title is a bit misleading. Most of these bands are not "metal." Kiss and Alice Cooper are not "metal." Aerosmith is not "metal." To quote Ozzy Osbourne, "what is heavy metal? Lead? There's no such thing, really." The focus of the documentary is hopeful bands who all claim they will be "the next great thing, bigger than Led Zeppelin, bigger than the Stones!" And none of these bands have any backup plans because "we're all gonna make it! We are all gonna be superstars." So here are the names of the bands who declared, in early 1988, that "everyone will know who they are in a year": Faster Pussycat. Seduce. Odin. Wow, real household names there.

Their through the roof arrogance and delusions are only mirrored by their banality...all they care about, seemingly, is sex. Sex and rock and roll. Not drugs, as these hopefuls saw what drugs did to some of their idols (also interviewed in this documentary). But they are hard drinkers and most of them smoke cigarettes...but whatever.

One fan (or one of those up and coming band members...I can't remember) talks about how "metal" is a "response to glam." They are not glam! Oh really? All that lipstick and big hair say otherwise.

Of those banal bands, the only band in that "hair band" subgenre that made it was Poison....their interviews in this documentary are rather insipid too. Girls, sex, boobs, booze, more girls, butts, boobs. Poison's album titles like "Open Up and Say Ahh!" press that obsession. Where's Smell the Glove when we need it? Poison managed to eek out a Number One hit later in 1988 with Every Rose Has Its Thorn, which invokes cowboys and western motifs to the point of absolute thievery (of Bon Jovi). Unfortunately, Bon Jovi was not interviewed in the film.

Also missing from the film was Guns n Roses, who in early 1988 was just becoming a juggernaut. They were extremely famous in LA at the time but didn't break out into the mainstream until the single Sweet Child O Mine was released in the summer of '88. Guns n Roses was the last hurrah of "hair metal" (a better term than heavy metal). And it was a phenomenal last hurrah, as their Appetite for Destruction album stayed on the charts for nearly 3 years.

As for W. A. S. P's Chris Holmes: he appears with his mom in the film (he's in a pool chair literally drowning himself in vodka while mom watches and her facial expressions sum up how she felt about her son without uttering a word). Apparently he got clean and sober and continued to rock on.

Steven Tyler and Joe Perry provide the most interesting insights, which is to be expected. The Toxic Twins lived the sex, drugs, and rock n roll lifestyle arguably more than any other band in the '70s. By the time of the interview in this film, they had been sober for only 11 months. It's now 2025 and they continue to rock on.

Ozzy is famously interviewed while cooking breakfast, also talking about his addictions. Two guys who never got addicted, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, show up occasionally to provide their perspectives about the industry - which mostly have to do with getting laid. Although their devotion to their fans comes off as genuine.

Perhaps there was a method to Spheeris's madness with this documentary. She closes the film with footage of Megadeth and interviews with Dave Mustaine, the antithesis of the one-note stupidity (for lack of a better term) displayed by the aforementioned "who were they" bands.

Apparently this documentary was partially responsible for the end of hair metal and the dawn of grunge music. Perhaps. But the success of Guns n Roses into the early 1990s tells another story. Guns n Roses was sort of a bridge between the Aerosmith/Van Halen era of the '70s to early '80s and the grunge era of the early to mid '90s.

Another interesting snapshot of the LA music scene that has its moments.

This film was made in 1979-80, when the LA punk scene was in its adolescence. This gives it a sense of authenticity with its performances and interviews. Several of these bands were considered trailblazers at the time and have left their mark on the genre all these years later (mainly X, the Circle Jerks, and Fear). The others were big names at the time but now mostly forgotten. Others are absolutely forgotten...but the footage is still interesting.

Director Penelope Spheeris interviews several of the bands, but alas not all of them. Interviews with members of Fear, Circle Jerks, and even the Alice Bag Band would probably have been enjoyable (especially Fear). Instead, she spends way too much time on Darby Crash, one of punk's casualties, who didn't have anything particularly interesting to say in the interviews except how he loves to get high before performances and demands beer from the crowd to "come down." Subtitles definitely needed for the gibberish he blathers onstage.

Members of Black Flag explain their $16-a-month rental and their beds stuffed in closets in their apartment, converted from an old church. Members of X are interviewed in their home as well. X was (is) probably the only band featured in the documentary that has something constructive to say about sex, marriage, violence, and society.

Then there are the interviews with punk fans. There is something very off-putting about these young fans. British punk bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash were not just anti-establishment - they were anti- Oligarchy, anti-authoritarianism, and anti- consumerism. These kids being interviewed in the documentary have a decidedly pro-authoritarianism tilt, and are racist to the core. They also seem to revel in violence for the sake of violence. Edward Norton may have watched these interviews to prepare for his role in American History X.

The concert footage goes on for too long as well. Instead of hearing three songs from mostly forgotten punk bands like Catholic Discipline, more interviews would have been preferred. And also a bit of history about the evolution of punk music in the U. S. for those who are not familiar with the genre. And Spheeris's method of interviewing is commendable - just letting the subjects talk. Unfortunately for many of the subjects, they really don't have anything enlightening to say.

Worth a watch for historical value.