Rock of Ages

I remember Stephen King commenting rather p1ssily about "Grease".  He didn't like it , he said, because it presented an antiseptic version of the 1950's.  And I remember thinking, "F*** off Stephen King" or something equally well-argued.  I mean, musicals aren't SUPPOSED to be reality, right?  I'm quite sure that "Calamity Jane" presented a sanitised version of the Old West too, and that Sister Maria was probably a total skanky ho-bag.  This is acceptable. 

What is NOT acceptable is doing it to MY decade!  Yes!  The 1980's have been totally scrubbed up, washed down and Glee-ed in "Rock of Ages" a hideous PASTICHE of the BEST DECADE EVER.  I think the problem with the film is not that they reimagine 80's rock hits - this I can live with.  It's not the totally hackneyed story (the moral majority tries to shut down a Whisky-A-Go-Go type bar).  It certainly isn't the supporting cast - Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin, Paul Giamatti, Tom Cruise and Bryan Cranston are all terrific - and Catherine Zeta-Jones totally steals the show as a Tipper Gore type politician's wife.  It is NOT EVEN the fact that the script made me wonder what Americans would be left to actually SAY if someone took the words, "God", "Oh" and "My" from them.  

It is the fact that the two LEADS are possibly the most charmless, irritating pair of non-entities I have ever seen in this or any other film.  Warbling their way through rock classics and looking all dewy-eyed and idiotic.  I did not care for them, is what I am trying to say.

This ruined "Rock of Ages" for me.  I suggest the rock star version of SingStar if you are in the mood to indulge your 80's groove.  Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to prance around the kitchen tops while strumming a colander and pretending to be Rick Springfield.