New Classics: Airheads
Airheads
Released: 1994
Lead Cast: Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, Adam Sandler
Supporting: Michael McKean, Joe Montegna, Chris Farley, Judd Nelson, Michael Richards, David Arquette, Ernie Hudson (yeah, you don't know him by his name, but the guy's been in 89 movies)
Cameos by: Harold Ramis, Stuttering John, Lemmy, Mike Judge (voice of Beavis & Butthead), Allen Covert (aka the guy who's in EVERY Adam Sandler movie)
A ton of big names despite a limited production budget, this movie didn't generate a lot of box office dollars. And it's too bad, this was a gem of a film for several reasons. Especially now, with the benefit of hindsight, the significance of this film in its time cannot be understated. If it was a 5 out of 10 when it came out, it's a 9 now.
"OK, who are you guys?"
"My name's Pip"
"The band. The band name."
"Sorry about that."
Like I said, the cast they got for this movie was pretty good for its time. Fraser hadn't busted into the complete sellout yet (he was still doing movies like School Ties and With Honors mixed in with appearances in such classics as Encino Man). Buscemi makes every movie better (can you think of a bad role for him? I can't), a toned-down Sandler didn't try to steal every scene with his goofiness, and actually played a decent second banana. Montegna was dead-on as an aging radio DJ, sedated by his role in the corporate world but with the fire of rock still burning. Farley was, as usual, perfect in comic relief. And, for a goofy comedy, it didn't have any of the glaring logic flaws that tend to mar an otherwise good flick (where you find yourself asking, "Why would he do that?").
More importantly, the main characters, especially Fraser, Montegna and McKean, play their parts without becoming self-parodic. They feel real. It's clearly spoofing the culture, but by paying homage to it rather than beating you over the head with it.
"I figure I could write one song that will live on forever. After that, it just don't matter."
This movie doesn't get nearly enough credit for defining such a transitional period in music. The early to mid-90's were the death of Rock & Roll as we know it. If the 60's started it, the 90's ended it. Gone was the mindset of "I just wanna rock," and in came the mantra of "I just wanna make money." This is when you had the entrance of rock's all-time lowlifes like Blink 182 and Creed and Godsmack and just about everything else that's come along since. To a lesser extent, the 80's had their garbage, as we witnessed with some of the more glamorous of the hair bands-- Motley Crue comes to mind-- but you still had the underground metal, the hunger for music that drove the amplifiers in garages across the country. By the mid-90's, you just had a bunch of whining. The creators of the movie saw this, saw that rock was being taken over by pop, saw that despite the efforts of a few dedicated guitarists, there was a larger movement of pre-packaged bubblegum 'rock,' the Ronnie James Dios of the world being replaced by the Jon Bon Jovis.
The film hits on this several times, and they weren't being subtle about it. The opening scene at the record company shows a band of 17 year-olds wearing Dr Seuss striped top-hats with their manager reminding them not to talk. There's also a discussion between the bassist Rex (Buscemi) and station manager Milo (McKean), where Rex asks why they never play any of the good discs laying around the studio.
Milo asks him, "Well if they're so good, how come they're not tearing up the charts?"
To which Rex replies, "Because you never play 'em."
It's a simple exchange but a complex discussion. If a band never gets air time, who's going to listen to them? Who's going to call up and request a band they've never heard of? This should get its own blog topic, but that's for another day.
Montegna's character, Ian "the Shark," was a perfect metaphor of the whole movement. Here's an aging guy, a still hip DJ, a symbol of the rock of old, being forcibly shoved out by the almighty dollar when Milo agrees to switch the station's format to "the mellow sounds of the rain." The movie's creators knew where they were going with that character and Montegna nailed it.
"Wrong, dickhead. Trick question. Lemmy is God."
At least four distinct Motorhead references in this movie, if you're paying attention. The opening sequence was set to the tune, "Born to Raise Hell" (sung by Motorhead). There's a Motorhead poster in the Pallatine Records building. There's the quote listed above, and Lemmy himself makes a cameo in the scene where Chazz (Fraser) comes clean about being a high school dork (Lemmy's the one in the crowd who yells out, "I was editor of the school magazine!"). I like the fact that they chose Motorhead, the seminal metal band of the 70's, instead of a more mainstream choice like Led Zeppelin or KISS. If nothing else, it brings another element of realism to the movie. You'd be hard pressed to find any serious metal band from that era who didn't derive their motivation from the movement created by Motorhead.
There's also an appearance by White Zombie in the club scene at the Whisky, and the Galactic Cowboys make an appearance as the fictional "Sons of Thunder," if you're keeping score.
"You expect him to make a speech? What does he look like, Sting?"
The movie isn't preachy. It's fun. It's not supposed to be a head scratcher, it's supposed to be a head banger. They weren't trying to do too much with the film, and that's why it's effective. For a genre as devoid of intellect as heavy metal is, they didn't try to weigh it down with complex characters and twisted emotions. Things feel more raw, as they should with rock and roll. Chazz's girlfriend Kayla has an incendiary temper, as does Rex, which create two of the main points in the plot. Normally this works against a movie, but with music it doesn't have to. Look at two recent music movies that tried to tug your heartstrings: Almost Famous and Rock Star. One soared while the other fell flat on its face.
"...And he wipes his ass with the record contract!"
Very underrated quotability in this movie. Had this reached cult classic status as it should have, you'd hear more people yelling out, "I'm gonna stab their heads off... with MY DICK!"
I'm not going to go into any of the finer utterances, I'll just let you all watch the movie and figure it out.
"You're gonna scream 'Rock and Roll'? You're gonna go to jail for that?"
In its true historical context, this movie stands out as a subject that hasn't been tackled nearly enough. And although its silliness stands above its poignance, it's still a great film. It has only gotten better through time, and since it's a period piece, will continue to age well. You can pick it up midway through and still enjoy it (as you flip around Ted Turner's channels on a Saturday). You can always quote it, you can always watch it, and that makes for a fine movie in my book.
I'm aware that I'll be agreed with very little on this, but that's OK. As a music fan, I've been nothing but disgusted for the last 10 years with very few exceptions, and this movie's all you need to explain why.
Final Score: 8.5 out of 10.
posted by BJC @ 11:48 AM
Your thoughts (4 so far)
4 Comments:
You can make a small argument for grunge, but in truth it's more or less separated from rock and metal.
Grunge started circa 1989, and hit the mainstream market in 1991. But it didn't last long. Kurt Cobain died in '94, and within two years Soundgarden and Alice In Chains had broken up. And those three bands were the grunge movement. Sure, you can call other bands 'grunge' from that era, but they were just copies of the big 3 and didn't have any real feeling.
There were a few grunge/alternative crossover bands from around then too (Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins), but they sensed the end of the movement and went on to more 'traditional' alternative styles pretty quickly.
As for your other point, I blame record companies. It's easy for them to mass produce artists and hype them relentlessly-- it's cheaper and there's less risk. It's also brought about what is known now as the "Ashlee effect"-- where record labels go on to the internet and artificially hype up their artists by posing as teenagers who actually like that crap. In truth, there isn't a soul in the universe who would voluntarily hear 'the lesser Simpson.' The human psyche is very easy to manipulate.
As a psych major, Alison, I'm surprised you asked that.
As an ex-radio station manager (as well as DJ), it's all too apparent how the corporate music machine works. When people ask me why I never stuck with it, that's what I tell them.
Here's the thing, Alison. It's a fact that the majority of music consumers are teenage caucasian suburbanites. It's also a fact that corporations like to target younger audiences (builds loyalty to a brand). When you put those together the point becomes very clear that the mass market for music is geared towards a generation who can't really decide for themselves.
It's not that they're incapable of it, it's just that they'd rather not take the chance of standing out if they can easily fit in. This is why the 'Ashlee effect' worked so well. You take a bunch of media-savvy types and have them write glowing reviews of a shitty album based on the point of view of a kid. It's success in-a-box.
When the young minds develop and realize they can decide things for themselves, they start branching out-- but in most cases, they have nowhere to go. The entire music industry is focused on 14 year-olds, so there's no more choice. So what do you do? You listen to whatever's smacking you in the face. Jessica Simpson. Matchbox 20. Britney Spears. Coldplay. Eminem. It's all the same.
Corporate America isn't focused on what we want, it's focused on what we'll buy. Digging for real talent is a complicated process, not to mention expensive. Labels won't bite on an artist unless they know they can package it. Going back to the Ashlee case, it's an executive's wet dream. Here's a girl who already has name recognition, so you pay a producer to fix up and double-over her vocals, have her lip-sync a few shows and BAM! There's your platinum album. It's textbook.
(By the way, the record exec in Airheads nails this too when he says, "If it's in English, it's a gold record at least!")
I guess my point is that real talent isn't always marketable, and industry execs know this. They won't give you what you want unless they have to, but they'll bend over backwards so that you think it's what you want.
College radio is the last bastion for good music on the airwaves.
Of course, you still get buried in crap promos from major labels, but you're free to ignore them (commercial stations get paid by labels to give certain artists extra spins).
A rule of thumb we had was the more promo material you get for an artist, the worse that artist is. The good bands let the music speak for itself.
I detest the Idol's show's, including American Idol and Canadian Idol. The interesting thing is that the winner's of Canadian idol still don't go anywhere because the Canadian public isn't sucked in like the American public is with their Idol shows. What the record companies have done to music these days is just like Television, if one thing sells then they want everything to adhere to the same crap. As an ex-promoter I saw how the system was crashing to become one big clone and ran for my life
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