Many of us who were alive in the 1980s claimed not to listen to heavy metal or its almost indistinguishable twin, hard rock. But we did listen, or at least we heard it — it was unavoidable, an omnipresent aural beast slithering out of car radios, grungy bars and retail-establishment stereo systems. Even if you were more attuned to punk or jazz or just about anything else, it was part of the background noise of your life whether you liked it or not. If nothing else, Rock of Ages — adapted from the Broadway show of the same name, in which ’80s metal hits from the likes of Def Leppard, Foreigner and Night Ranger were woven into a rudimentary boy-meets-girl love story — reminds us just how good many of those songs we were pretending not to listen to really were. The picture has a good-natured, if self-conscious, spring to its step, at least until you-know-who shows up in a bejeweled devil’s head codpiece. The movie almost doesn’t survive his slurpy tongue bath.
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Fans of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages may throw tomatoes when they see the big screen version; director Adam Shankman, screenwriter Justin Theroux and even Tom Cruise himself made some major changes to the plot of the stage show. Some make the edgy musical more family friendly, but others sharpen the story. Will fans embrace their toned-down Rock of Ages movie?
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The thing I love about the ramped-up new Rock of Ages trailer is how unapologetically it states what this movie is: A bombastic, cheeky, kitschy, bright-eyed and utterly slick tribute to the decadence of '80s rock culture, based on the even slicker Broadway hit of the same name. Which of course you already know — but now, with Tom Cruise's brief singing showcase and pretty much everyone else warbling adapted pop show tunes of their own, Warner Bros. and New Line's cards are on the table. There can be no ambiguity: You are either in or you are out. In this era of equivocation and overlapping quadrants and being everything to everyone, it's pretty ballsy when you think about it.
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Real talk: the new trailer for Adam Shankman's Rock of Ages musical embodies all that people who hate karaoke hate karaoke for. Namely, middle-aged folks blaring through cheesy renditions of their favorite '80s make-out/rock songs while the rest of us patiently wait for the plaintive strains of Journey to end, already. I say this as a person who likes -- nay, loves -- karaoke. Sigh. The Twisted Sister/Starship mash-up you really never asked for coming in 3, 2, 1.
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Hurrah for Tweet-happy directors! Thanks to Adam Shankman (@adammshankman), we've got our first look at Catherine Zeta-Jones in character as the mayor's wife in Shankman's now-filming musical Rock of Ages, along with a glimpse of two retro rocker cameos you can expect to see in the film.
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