In our previous review of Pleased To Meet Me (2013), we discussed the analogous career travels of musician-actor John Doe and Sam Raimi-bred Bruce Campbell. Campbell resigned himself to being an actor that would never book a leading man role in major studio picture; that his career would consist of smaller support roles in A-List pictures, while maintaining a leading man status in B-Movies.
And as result of his iconic status from The Evil Dead, one day, Bruce got a call to star in La Patinoire, aka The Ice Rink (1998), a French rom-com about an inexperienced film crew producing a hockey film — with Campbell starring as Sylvester, a fish-out-of-water American actor cast as the team’s goalie, who falls in love on-screen and off-screen with his leading lady.
And so it goes with this Swiss-French co-production casting John Doe in a minor support role as a musician scratching out a living in a dusty Arizona casino. Thus John, like Bruce (thanks to The Evil Dead), is cast as the lead in self-produced indies like Pleased to Meet Me, or he’s cast in an overseas, major studio film as a support player — courtesy of his iconic tenure with his Los Angeles punk band, X. And in the U.S., John trades chops with such A-Listers as James Woods, Jennifer Aniston, and Ben Affleck in Salvador, The Good Girl, and Forces of Nature, respectively.
And, because of the Chin that Kills, I rented The Ice Rink. And because of Doe, I sought out this road movie (during its festival release) set in the Navajo Nation of the American Southwest that stars renowned French art house actors Vincent Bonillo, Mathieu Demy, and Anna Mouglalis.
“Never wait for something to happen.” — Jade
A decade ago, the now estranged brothers Alex and Bernardo (Bonillo and Demy) lived on the coast of Mexico in a menage-a-trois, spiritual existence with Jade (Mouglalis), until a tornado destroyed their mutual business — and Jade disappeared. And while the still dreaming, 40-something Alex drifts in the memories of his youth, Bernardo became a responsible husband, father, and architect in Geneva, Switzerland.
The brothers are forced to reconcile as strangers-in-a-strange-land when they discover Jade now resides in Arizona. Dying from cancer, she wants the brothers to take care of Frieda (who is possibly either of their daughters), her now 10-year old, half-Sioux, half-American and half-Swiss daughter (well played by Disney series actress Ruby Matenko, who’s also appeared in the U.S. cable series Baskets and Veep). Jade makes a living as a singer known as “The Frenchie” in a slot machine casino with fellow musician Matt (John Doe). The film also stars local Navajo actors Zoël Zohnnie (as a medicine man who practices white-man medicine) and Kody Dayish (as a youthful hashish dealer).
My Little One comes from a place of erudition, with co-writers/directors Frédéric Choffat and Julie Gilbert drawing on their connections to the Navajo desert and its indigenous peoples as result of Choffat growing up in the Moroccan desert, while Gilbert, as result of her mother’s career as an ethnologist (a branch concerned with sociocultural anthropology), spent her youth among the indigenous peoples of Canada, Mexico, and U.S.
The indigenous aspect of the film — both of the peoples and landscapes — beautifully captured by cinematographer Pietro Zuercher, is maintained with Navajo native tongues (not subtitled) amid the English and French (subtitled) speaking cast. While I’d would have enjoyed watching Doe in a larger role in such an exquisitely-made film (he’s a fine actor deserving of such a casting), this tale of the lost and confused fear and loathing in an exotic land is still a joy to watch.
As with the unfurled existentialism in the dusty, lost landscapes of Border Radio — John Doe’s acting debut from all those years ago — a film that pinched from the ’70s cult films Easy Rider, Vanishing Point (John starred in the ’90s remake) and Two-Lane Blacktop, My Little One harkens the French New Wave films of old to remind us of Michelangelo Antonioni‘s The Passenger (1975), as well as the ’80s American independents Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down by Law (1986), and Mystery Train (1989) by writer-director Jim Jarmusch.
A hit on the festival circuit — where it was nominated as “Best Foreign Independent” at the 2019 Golden Trailer Awards — in France, Germany, and Switzerland before its European theatrical release, Los Angeles-based Cinema Libre Studios acquired the rights to distribute the film in the U.S. in the wake of its U.S. premiere at the Miami Film Festival. Other films on the studio’s roster include Imprisoned starring Lawrence Fishburne, the rock-doc Creating Woodstock, and the recently U.S.-released historical import from China, Enter the Forbidden City.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes on Medium.
When it comes to musicians as actors, John Doe is the “Bruce Campbell” of the profession. Campbell has stated in interviews that he accepted his lot as an actor, in that he’d never be a leading man (after losing out to Billy Zane for The Phantom), instead getting smaller support roles in A-List pictures and leading man roles in B-Movies.
And this seems to be the lot rolled by John Doe. Not that John cares: he’s always a musician first and an actor second. So, like Ash, we’ll see John in the supporting cast of a bloated Hollywood project mixing it up with the likes of Ryan Reynolds Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock (Forces of Nature*) and Patrick Swayze (Road House*), then see him as a leading man in an indie project (his upcoming, 82nd film, D.O.A.: The Movie, and the-2002-still-can’t-find-a-copy Under the Gun co-starring Christopher Atkins).
In this Kickstarter-financed, shot-in-two-week-mostly-on-the-first-take film named after an old album from ‘80s college radio darlings the Replacements, John Doe leads a pleasurable cast of veteran musicians thespin’ for the cameras. In his support are Aimee Mann (yes, the Til’ Tuesday “Voices Carry” girl),’70s folk singer Loudon Wainwright III (of the 1972 novelty hit “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)”), and ’80s college rock folkie Joe Henry. More current indie-rock fans will recognize Whispertown’s Morgan Nagler, Over the Rhine’s Karin Berquist, and the Broken Spurs’ Adam Kramer in the cast.
Doe is somewhat playing himself: Pete Jones, a legendary rocker at a personal and professional crossroads. The muse has left him. He can’t seem to get his long-in-the-studio album finished. He’s dodging bankruptcy, foreclosures, and lawsuits from his record label. He needs help.
That help comes in the form of his ex-wife and former producer Laura Klein (Aimee Mann) who now works as a National Public Radio reporter. Referencing her inner, old studio producer, she believes Pete’s artistic rut is the result of losing his “musical purity.” So, for an episode of her syndicated radio program “World Café, she devises a 24-Hour experiment where she’ll place an online classified ad to form a one-day eclectic band of six random musicians to record a new Pete Jones tune.
This mostly ad-libbed, improvisational comedy project that comes off as a more serious, Spinal Tapish mockumentary is based on a 2002 episode of the National Public Radio program “This American Life.” In that program, a group of strangers were recruited from classified ads to enter the studio for one day to craft a cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”
If you’re a fan of Louisville Kentucky’s indie-rock and folk scene (where this was shot) and hep to obscure references to early ‘90s college rock bands like Sleater-Kinney and Pussy Riot—along with Loudon Wainwright III as a socially maladjusted Theremin player and seeing John Doe in a leading-man role (check all those boxes for moi)—then there’s something here for you to watch.
This one is hard to find and is only available for streaming on the Vudu platform. Sorry, Amazon Prime users: there was a streaming copy, but it’s no longer available. But keeping checking back to see if it returns.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
This entry in our week of John Doe film reviews is a personal, family-affair project for its star Jennifer Jason Leigh (who made her debut in Eyes of a Stranger and captured young male hearts as Stacy Hamilton in Fast Times at Ridgemont High). Leigh produced the screenplay written by her mother, screenwriter Barbara Turner.
Courtesy of timberroseway/PicClick
As an actress, Turner got her start in 1955’s Blackboard Jungle and 1958’s Monster from Green Hell; she came into her own as a screenwriter with 1966’s Deathwatch starring her then husband — and Jennifer’s dad — Vic Morrow (Message from Space, Escape from the Bronx). Her other notable writing efforts include Cujo (which she nom de plume’d as Lauren Currie) and the Academy Award-winning Pollock.
As her co-star, Leigh chose her long-time friend Mare Winningham (St. Elmo’s Fire), whom she known since she was thirteen years old. The choice proved effective, as it provided Winningham with her lone Academy Award-nod — for Best Supporting Actress. For their director, Leigh and Turner chose long-time family friend Ulu Grosbard. A well-regarded theater director (The Subject Was Roses, A View from the Bridge), he worked extensively as a second unit director on the box office hits Splendor in the Grass, West Side Story, The Hustler, and The Miracle Worker; he counts Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro as his close friends.
As is the case with fictional rock n’ roll films that are not biographical (Ray, Walk the Line, What’s Love Got to Do With It), while critically acclaimed, it failed at the box office and failed to find a cult audience on video (see Prey for Rock & Roll; Paul Simon’s One Trick Pony comes to mind). The story concerns the artistic sibling rivalry of the Flood sisters. Leigh is the jealous and less talented, punky bar room howler of the Janis Joplin variety continually at odds with Georgia, her critically-acclaimed country-singing sister.
John Doe serves as a member of Sadie’s band; he assisted the cast in the recording of the film’s thirteen-song soundtrack featuring covers of tunes by Lou Reed (“I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “Sally Can’t Dance,” “There She Goes Again”), Elvis Costello (“Almost Blue”), and Van Morrison (“Take Me Back”). If you You Tube “Georgia 1995,” you’ll populate several clips from the film featuring Leigh’s vocals.
It’s powerful stuff on both the acting and musical fronts. Watch it. You can stream it as a VOD on Amazon and You Tube.
We love our rock ‘n’ roll chocolate in our movie peanut butter at B&S, so be sure to check out our “Rock ‘n’ Roll Week” Round Ups, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, offering over 100 links to rockin’ reviews. We also rounded up our John Doe film reviews, here.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
In 1998: It was the battle of the Earth-destroyed-by-asteroid epics Deep Impact vs. Armageddon.
In 2013: It was the battle of the terrorist-attack-on-the-White House epics Olympus Has Fallen vs. White House Down.
And back in the early ’90s: It was the battle of the Gunfight at the O.K Corral flicks that were 1993’s Tombstone and 1994’s Wyatt Earp.
Welcome to the O.K Octagon for the Wyatt Earp showdown that Kevin Costner built.
In “The Western Godfather,” an October 2006 article published in True West Magazine, it’s learned that Costner was originally involved in Hollywood/Buena Vista Pictures’ (part of Walt Disney Studios) production of Tombstone — starring as Wyatt Earp. As is the case with the clout of A-List stars, they’re given control over their scripts. Costner was, of course, unhappy with screenwriter Kevin Jarre’s (an expert history scribe courtesy of his 1989 Civil War epic, Glory — but you know Jarre’s work in Rambo: First Blood Part II) version that focused more on all of those involved in the epic Wild West gunfight, than Wyatt Earp.
So Costner turned in his spurs to Uncle Walt and signed on the dotted line with Bugs to make his own version Wyatt Earp’s tale for Warner Bros. with Lawrence Kasdan (of Star Wars* fame) who helmed Costner’s previous western, 1985’s Silverado. And Costner used his considerable clout to convince most of the major studios to refuse to distribute Tombstone.
So, what was the end result?
Tombstone — released first, in December 1993 — was a box office success, becoming the 16th high-grossing western released since 1979.
Wyatt Earp — released in June 1994 — was a critical and box office bomb.
So, how bad was it?
Wyatt Earp earned five Razzie nods for Worst Picture, Director, and Screen Couple (Earp and his three wives), while walking away with the awards for the Remake or Sequel and Actor categories. In addition, Costner’s version ended up on several major, national publications’ “Year End Worst Of” lists, including Rolling Stone, which ranked it the 2nd worse film of the year.
And good ‘ol Pops, a western freak who never appreciated my love for all things Spaghetti Western — or Klaus Kinski** — beyond Clint Eastwood’s forays, hated Wyatt Earp. But he loved Tombstone. So there you go. (And he, like I, loved Costner’s Waterworld and The Postman, and Costner’s early film Fandango is still one of my VHS-rental favorites.)
And why are we reviewing the Costner one and not the Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer-starring one? Have you not been paying attention at all this week, ye B&S About Movies reader?
This one stars the perfect-for-the-western-genre-and-we-wished-he-did-more-of-them John Doe of X as Tommy “Behind-the-Deuce” O’ Rourke — a character based on the real life professional gambler and gunslinger Michael “Mike” O’Rourke, aka “Johnny O’Rourke,” aka “Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce.”
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publish music reviews and short stories on Medium.
This attempt to transform country superstar George Strait into a chiseled-chin leading man is the feature film debut — and lone feature film — written by Rex McGee, through he returned with Where There’s a Will (2006), a cable movie directed by John Putch (who made his acting debut in the 1981 NBC-TV movie Angel Dusted and appeared as a grown-up Sean Brody in Jaws 3-D).
The film’s director, Christopher Cain, previous helmed 1987’s The Principal starring Jim Belushi (who, in a meta-WTF of of all time, had his character, Rick Latimer from that film, re-appear in the 1991 sci-fi flick Abraxas). Cain also gave us the Brat Pack western — and that overplayed and annoying Bon Jovi song — Young Guns (1988). He followed up Pure County with The Next Karate Kid (1994) starring Hilary Swank from the recent, controversial box office bomb The Hunt. Of course, we are all about the Big Three and cable network TV movies of the ’70s through the ’90s, so we remember Cain at B&S About Movies for Wheels of Terror, which aired on the USA Network (you know, back in the days before USA ditched original content to become an aftermarket shill for NBC-TV series).
While Pure Country barely made back its $10 million budget, the accompanying soundtrack became George Strait’s biggest, best-selling album. And on a sadder note: the film marked Rory Calhoun’s (Motel Hell) last film appearance; he died in April 1999. Calhoun is the wise father of Strait’s love interest played by Isabel Glasser. Retreating into TV work and indie films soon after, she co-starred with Robert Patrick and Rutger Hauer in the 1998 Top Gun ripoff Tactical Assault.
Strait is a character not far removed from his real self: he’s world-renowned country star Wyatt “Dusty” Chandler. However, unlike Strait, Dusty’s a trouble soul: he’s tired of the lights and smoke and the sets. And he’s none to fond of a new song called “Overnight Male” written by Buddy Jackson (Kyle Chandler), his manager Lulu’s (Lesley Ann Warren) boyfriend, being forced on him.
So, in a plot twist analogous to Neil Diamond’s 1980 remake-bomb of The Jazz Singer — Dusty cuts off his trademark beard and ponytail and splits for the open road. And does this sound a lot like when Rick Springfield made his play for the silver screen — and bombed, just like Neil Diamond before him — in 1984’s Hard to Hold?
Yep. It’s the same old he-has-everything-but-really-has-nothing story. And love is always the answer to get back on top.
Just how many of these musician-vanity projects — where the soundtrack always performs better on the Billboard charts than the film on the Variety charts — will Hollywood make before they realize their attempts to transform “then hot” musicians into A-List leading-actors (well, outside of David Bowie, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson) doesn’t work?
Billie Eilish? Hollywood is calling. And for your own sake, don’t pick up the iPhone.
While the story is a simple, hokey story, truth be told: Strait is a pretty decent actor and he would have been better served by breaking into the business with a non-musical role, you know, as with Trace Atkins, Dwight Yoakham, Tim McGraw, Randy Travis, and Tobey Keith.
Oops! I stand corrected. There are musicians that can act. Open mouth. Insert crow.
Hey, wait! Where’s John Doe?
While Johnny D. didn’t make the marquee as a co-star, he — as he always does, and as he did in Great Balls of Fire (also reviewed this week) alongside Dennis Quaid — is excellent in his support role as Dusty’s longtime friend and drummer, Earl Blackstock.
And did you know that director Christopher Cain’s adopted son is Dean “Superman” Cain? And did you know Dean co-wrote — with the Roger Corman-bred George Armitage (Private Duty Nurses, Night Call Nurses, Darktown Strutters, Gas-s-s-s, and the 1979 TV movie Hot Rod) — a female-driven sequel directed by his dad in 2010, Pure Country: The Gift, that starred country star Katrina Elam?
It’s okay. No one did.
And that there was a third sequel: 2017’s Pure Country: Pure Heart?
But we did see the original, thanks to John Doe.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes on Medium.
We gleaned over this biker flick as part of our “Exploring: The Clones of the Fast & the Furious” featurette during our first “Fast & Furious Week” back in August. And since John Doe shows up as tough-ass sheriff, we decided to bring it back with a review proper for our “John Doe Week.”
That’s right. If you have a hankering for a movie that stars one of the guys from N.W.A and one of the guys from the Los Angeles punk band X — then this is your movie.
That’s not your rods n’ cones, that’s the copy. The guys who made the Fast and the Furious, XXX, and S.W.A.T made this.
Now, if this Ice Cube-fronted two-wheeler sounds a lot like the Laurence Fishburne-fronted Biker Boyz, you’re probably right, as both films went into production at the same time. But the better known Ice Cube John Doe one was concocted by the production team of the Fast & Furious franchise. And Dreamworks wanted some of that Warners Bros. F&F stank on the screen, so they came up with their quickie mockbuster knockoff, got it? The trailer says it all, really.
So, is this The Fast and the Furious . . . only on motorcycles? Well, do you see any Torque sequels on your streaming service? No, you don’t. And that’s what happens when you get a $45 million box-office return on your $40 million investment: for Torque is one of those films where its performances, writing, and direction are slagged across the board . . . but everyone praises the stunts — so much so that it was nominated for several Taurus Awards.
Taking its cues from those juvenile delinquency films of the ‘50s and ’60s, the Sharks and the Jets the Hellions and the Reapers are illegal street racing-cum-biker gangs that compete on the two-lane blacktop and in the crystal meth business. And one of those members of makes the mistake of returning from Thailand to set things straight with his estranged girlfriend. Is any one woman worth it? Apparently so: for when she’s kidnapped for leverage, her ransom is the delivery of two bikes filled with crystal meth because, well, illegal racers always deal meth to finance their bike builds. Complicating problems is yet another gang member who wants our on-the-run biker wusspud from Thailand for the murder of his brother.
Damn right our favorite punk bassist steals his scene/courtesy of backgroundartist.tumblr.com.
Along the way, Joe Doe shows up as the bad ass Sheriff Barner. Oh, and the always badass Dave Wyndorf and Monster Magnet appear in a club scene to perform “Monster of Light” from their sixth album Monolithic Baby! (2004) — which did nothing to place the song on Top 40 Active Rock charts. So, we’ll give Torque bonus points, not only for quenching our John Doe jonesin’, but for giving Wyndorf a line and letting him kick a little ass, and for ripping off George Romero’s Knightriderswith a sword-jousting scene that inspired us to watch Knightriders, again.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Editor’s Desk: Upon the news of his medical hardships, we’ve seen an uptick in our reviews of Tom Sizemore films, which is no way for anyone to discover an actor’s films. Regrettably, Tom—whose credits included the major studio films Natural Born Killers, True Romance, and Black Hawk Down—has died at the age of 61 after having been been hospitalized in a coma for two weeks as result of a brain aneurysm brought on by a stroke.
If not mentioning Tom in passing another review, we’ve reviewed many of Tom’s films, which you can easily discover at B&S About Movies.
Tom Sizemore November 29, 1961 —March 3, 2023
A Little History of Grunge . . .
By 1988, underground “college rock” bands began to bubble under the mainstream and crossed over onto mainstream AOR stations still waste deep in the likes of the hair metal bands Winger, Slaughter, and Poison. And while the audio nimrods didn’t play the newly “major label signed” Husker Du (to Warner Bros.) and The Replacements (Sire), and gave record-industry guru David Geffen of Asylum Records (home of classic rock mainstays, the Eagles) the snub when his new label, DGC, signed New York noise-merchants, Sonic Youth, those spandex bastions did begin to “experiment” with the “more commercial” likes of the Cure, Jane’s Addiction, and Love and Rockets. Yeah, they spun Alice in Chains, but were still not quite ready to pluck Soundgarden from Seattledom.
Then, slowly, while those stations still bowed to the dynasties built by Led Zeppelin and Hendrix, you began to hear less Winger and more of the “false grunge” of Candlebox, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots, and (B&S Movies’ proprietor Sam’s favorite bands) Creed and Bush. Then, instead of Slaughter ad nauseam, you heard a little trio out of Seattle ad nauseam—and overnight America became a nation of coffee houses with hep-baristas adorned in $50 JC Penny designer flannel shirts and $150 Macy’s faux Doc Martins.
1991: The Year Punk Broke, indeed. Flux Capacitor me to 1985, Doc Brown. I need to be sedated, Joey.
Image created by R.D Francis.
A DJ’s Journey . . .
I started my radio career in the early breakers of the Seattle new-wave, working at a small, technically inept, stodgy and dying non-commercial FM that somehow, we, the staffers, convinced our clueless “L7” bosses to give an all-“alternative” format a try and dare rock ‘n’ roll lovers—not interested in blues babbling, folk hootenannies, jazz noodling, plunked banjos, and book reviews—to tune into our audio graveyard left of the dial. And it worked.
And thanks to an indifferent “voice of a generation” who blew his brains out a few years later, the two battling classic (ass-ic) rock stations in town became “rock alternative” outlets overnight and decided the alt-nation wanted to hear the (bane of my existence) Crash Test Dummies and Spin Doctors, and some chick named Torn Anus, I mean, Tori Amos, caterwauling like humping cats on a hot summer night about girls and corkflakes.
So, the tales of WXOX 90.6 Providence, Rhode Island, in the frames of A Matter of Degrees are near and dear to this DJ’s heart. The new film through 20th Century Fox’s specialty arm, Fox Lorber (Independent Magazinearticle), along with its accompanying soundtrack on Atlantic (the track-listing read like the playlist of one of my airshifts), was heavily promoted in all of the alt-rock mags of the day: Alternative Press, B-Side, CMJ, and Option (good reads!). It was probably even in the alt-section of the mainstream radio trades The Hard Report, FMQB, and Rockpool; it’s been so long, I can’t recall.
The staff of my radio station was stoked. The film was directed by W.T Morgan, who directed the alt-essential concert doc, X—The Unheard Music, and X’s John Doe was starring (later of the radio-connected The Red Right Hand). Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson from the B-52s had roles as DJs alongside Doe, and North Carolina’s hottest college-rock band, Fetchin’ Bones, who just got bumped up to Capitol Records, had a role.
And we were eventually crushed. What we thought was going to be a 1990 college rock radio version of the 1978 progressive rock radio chronicle FM—ended up being Friends: The College Campus Years. Then, we got alt-fucked again, by Cameron Crowe, with Friends: The First Year out of College, aka Singles (1993). Yeah, we got more “radio” with Airheads (1994)—but got more caterwauling cats in the “false grunge” screeches of 4 Non Blondes instead of Throwing Muses and the Breeders. At least Christian Slater’s alt-rock pirate in Pump Up the Volume (1990) cleaned out our Eustachian tubes. And I don’t need any Reality Bites (1994) from Lisa Loeb, either.
Well, at the time, courtesy of our Husker Du and Sonic Youth snobbishness, A Matter of Degrees seemed like a mainstream boondoggle produced by the same “suits” who decided to program songs about frolicking princes, chicks into cornflakes, and creepy, long-haired baritone Dean Martins humming stupid Canadian shite that was giving us A Flock of Seagulls when we wanted the Ramones. But as the VHS box patinas and the tape forecasts snow, I have come to love A Matter of Degrees—and its VHS and CD are a prized part of my collection because: it’s a time capsule that I wished never dissolved into the past.
A Matter of Degrees, written by Brown University alumni Jack Mason and Randall Poster, we come to find out, wasn’t about a radio station: the radio station served as a backdrop-linking device to a clever, ‘90s version The Graduate (1967), only with The Lemonheads (who ironically cut a cover of “Mrs. Robinson” for an early ‘90’s DVD reissue of the Dustin Hoffman hit) instead of Simon and Garfunkel backing the life-undecided, college campus hippiedom tales of Maxwell Glass (Ayre Gross; House II, Minority Report).
For Max, Providence, Rhode Island, isn’t a place: it’s a state of mind and that “mind” has been rattled by his being accepted into law school (he applied only to the hardest schools so he’d be rejected; he gets accepted to Columbia, the hardest of them all). Then he discovers his cherished campus radio station, which employs his friends Welles Dennard (the incredible Wendell Pierce; USA Network’s Suits, HBO’s The Wire, NBC’s Chicago P.D, Nicolas Cage’s It Could Happen to You) and Scuzz (the amazing-in-his-small-role Tom Gilroy; went onto work with R.E.M’s Michael Stipe and taught at Columbia University) is going to be torn down to make way for a research laboratory backed by a corporation that services the military. And when the station is rebuilt: the free-form format is out.
So, with an Abbie Hoffman-tenacity augmented with coursework titled “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ethnicity,” Max is going to save the radio station—with arguments invoking the name of infamous ‘80s insider trader Ivan Boesky as a verb: Max speaks ill of the boyfriend of his feisty, Jerry and Elaine-styled best friend, Kate Blum (Judith Hoag; April O’Neill in Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, pick a U.S TV series), who runs the radio station: “[Roger] Ivan Boeskied it for them.” Not even their college-dropout/car mechanic roommate, Zeno Stefanos (Tom Sizemore, Zyzzyx Road), who has a propensity to lug car bumpers through the house and make sandwiches by slapping undiluted Campbell’s pea soup between two piece of white bread, can’t get Max off his disillusioned, high sparklehorse: “Remember, women and animals hold up two-thirds of the sky,” Zeno zens. (Now I had my share of Ramdan noodles and peanut butter sandwiches for dinner back in the day, but raw soup sandwiches? I’m glad I didn’t get accepted into Brown.)
“Hey, whatever happened to John Doe? I thought he was in the movie?”
Doe is Peter Downs, the founder of the station who “blew five years in San Francisco recycling the hits like a goddamned monkey” (been there, done that) and returned to his job as the program director of WXOX because, “this is paradise.” Oh, and Peter has a bitch-be-crazy girlfriend, Isabella Allen (Christina Haag), who has Max’s nose wide open. (See what I mean about the Friends-relationship dithering and not enough radio station? Get the Aniston out of here!) In the end, the station and sounds of “Peter Downs and WXOX 90.6 Providence” that Max man-love croons from a shark-toyed bubble bath to a toilet-perched Kate, serves as a plot-character linking device (just like Taj Mahal’s Dix Mayal on WKOK in Outside Ozona).
A Matter of Degrees is a case of “you had to be there.” If you never experienced college campus life and being enamored by the left-of-the-dial “hits” crackling over the airwaves of its tin-can station or a local non-com, you’ll have a lukewarm response to the film. The fun Mason and Poster-penned script reminds me of The Graduate; however, it won’t be in the same classic league as The Graduate when it bounces off your retinas. Your gray matter will populate it as a Singles rip-off—only this film came first. It is, in fact, the first Gen-X, well “grunge,” film in our $5.00 cup-of-coffee flannelled landscape (and you can visit with those films in our “Exploring: 50 Gen-X Grunge Films of the Alt-Rock ’90s” overview.).
Chalk it up to nostalgia fogging my sight; with eyes that see all of my friends from the grunge epoch as I flashback to my views from the glass booth (as I cracked open a new album called Bleach by some band called Nirvana) in the spot-on-miscreant Scuzz, the cucumber-cool Welles, and the rest of the WXOX satellites.
“Rock and roll can save you!” urges Peter Downs.
It did, Peter. More than you will ever know.
It smells like celluloid. Sounds like analog.
Where to get and how to hear the CD soundtrack and see the VHS movie:
While A Matter of Degrees tanked as a theatrical feature (the Sundance crowd shrugged), it blossomed on the international home video marketplace, carrying the titles of Louco Por Rock (Crazy for Rock, Brazil), A tutto rock (Too All, Rock Italy), and in Poland, Radio Maxa (Maximum Radio), or, more accurately, “Radio to the Max.”
As with most of the failed films in the pre-DVD era unceremoniously dumped to VHS, A Matter of Degrees has never been released on DVD—not officially nor as a grey market DVD-R—and there are no online VHS rips. There are no CD rips (of the non-vinyl) soundtrack, but you can listen to this re-creation of the soundtrack I patched together on You Tube. You can also see the soundtrack’s liner notes at Discogs. Multiple copies of the CD soundtrack, the even rarer cassette version, and the VHS can be found on numerous seller sites, eBay in particular. Not finding it won’t be a problem.
Caveat Emptor: John Doe’s incredible theme song for the film, “A Matter of Degrees,” which appears on his debut solo album, Meet Joe Doe (1990; DGC) and the promotional EP single, A Matter of Degrees, does not appear on the soundtrack, which is baffling, considering he’s one of the leads of the film. You can watch John Doe perform the single on the study-helper-for-the-late-night college crowd (good times): The Late Show with David Letterman (there is just something “off” seeing John Doe as a “traditional” lead singer clutching a mic-stand and not wearing a bass). Let the video play through to watch David Letterman’s 1983 clueless-awkward interview with X (really, Dave: alphabet jokes?) as they promote “Breathless,” the soundtrack single to the Richard Geer remake of Francois Truffaut’s film (1960) of the same name. X also covered the ‘60s hit “Wild Thing” for Major League (1989).
As with John Doe: Fetchin’ Bones are in the film—performing their MTV 120 Minutes hit, “Love Crushing,” for a “Save WXOX Benefit” (where John F. Kennedy, Jr. shows up and serenades a girl with an acoustic guitar)—but their song doesn’t appear on the soundtrack. Go figure. And the film is dedicated to D.Boon (backed by Doe’s title-cut song in the film only), the late guitarist-singer of the Minutemen. Why does the post-D.Boon outgrowth of the Minutemen, Firehose, appear on the CD soundtrack, and the Minutemen do not? Double go figure. And don’t bother (poi-dog) pondering how the B-52s got soundtrack skunked. Seriously, this film needed to pull a Dazed and Confused (1993) and release an “Even more . . .” Volume 2 to contain all the great “college rock” in the film. (Oh, hey Kris Erikson, Uncle Tupelo made it onto the soundtrack!)
You can also learn more about Randall Poster’s success as a music supervisor, the art behind movie soundtracks, and his longtime collaborations with director Wes Anderson (2014’s Grand Budapest Hotel) courtesy of these print interviews conducted by WIPO Radio, The AVClub and New Music Express. As it seems there will never be a DVD restoration replete with a commentary track, these interviews are the only way to gain insights on how A Matter of Degrees was and came to be made. (Jim Dunbar, who portrayed DJ Frank Dell, also amassed over 60 credits as a music supervisor, some in the company of Poster.)
In Poster’s post-1990 interview with the alternative music trade NME—New Music Express, he had this say on why he gave up on screenwriting and producing to work exclusively as a music supervisor on films (2012’s Skyfall, 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street; he won a 2011 Grammy for “Best Compilation Soundtrack” for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire):
“I was always a big music lover, a record collector and an avid movie fan. I got through university studying English Literature, and I found myself without any professional direction. I wrote a screenplay with a friend of mine [Jack Mason] about a college radio station. We did a lot of new songs for it, and we did a record and I just felt that that was really what I wanted to focus on. I wanted to work with great directors, so I figured if I made music my focus, and that would enable me to do [work with great directors; like Wes Anderson].”
Poster also tells us that his college radio love letter was not only filmed in Providence: much of it was shot at Brown University. Poster and Mason were inspired by the college’s campus radio station, WBRU, changeover from a free-form to commercial format in 1985. They wrote the screenplay after graduation. It took them five years, but they got it made. And that’s awesome.
How beloved is A Matter of Degrees?
A post at the Radio Survivor blog, written by fellow AMOD fan, Jennifer Waits, proves this cherished time capsule of ‘80s college radio has fans that want, and need, a DVD release of the movie (hint to Kino Lorber!).
Then there’s new fans—of this almost 30 year old movie—like General Manager Sharon Scott of the streaming-community station Art x FM. When she put the new, low-powered community FM (LPFM) outlet in Louisville on the air, she was granted the WXOX-LP call letters. According to Sharon, she didn’t know about A Matter of Degrees or its fictional radio station until well after the station received the call letters. Then, she spotted the movie’s promotional sticker on the door at WRFL and was taken aback that it was the same call letters she had chosen.
It looks like Louisville has found its audio salvation! “WXOX Louisville can save you!”
You can learn more about the new WXOX and Sharon Scott’s fight to save WRVU-FM, Vanderbilt College’s radio station, after students lost access to its terrestrial signal. The Radio Survivor article also provides links to learn more about the history of Brown University’s WBRU.
Peter Downs was right: “Rock ‘n’ Roll Can Save You!” And don’t believe the hype the mainstream is selling.
Fool me once, trailer embed elves . . . you can watch the trailer for A Matter of Degrees on You Tube.
About the Author:You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies(the link populates a text-only listing of his reviews).
Image courtesy of photographer Allen J. Schaben for a May 2020 Los Angeles Times article by Randall Roberts/font overlay by PicFont.
My grandfather drove a big El Camino that was painted with black primer and held together with hope and Big Red chewing gum. Whenever I’d ride with him, he’d generally be blasting an 8-track of “The Killer,” often pulling over and yelling at me to pay attention, telling me that no one could play the piano like Jerry Lee.
I kept that in mind while watching this movie, which is based on his biography by child bride Myra Lewis and Murray M. Silver Jr.
Directed by Jim McBride (who also made the American version of Breathless with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2writer L. M. Kit Carson), this is a great way to learn just why Lewis was so important to men like my grandpa. (McBride also worked with Dennis Quaid on The Big Easy; he also directed the cable rock ‘n’ roll bio-flick Meatloaf: To Hell and Back.)
Would Jerry Lee have supplanted the King if he couldn’t keep his hands off his thirteen-year-old first cousin? This movie never really tries to answer this, instead showing us the fervor that The Killer* was someone who wasn’t above setting his piano ablaze to get a reaction. Dennis Quaid, well, kills it in this movie, absolutely inhabiting the soul of Jerry Lee on screen.
Silver, who co-wrote the book, claimed that the film was phony, while McBride said that he didn’t care about the facts. So while no one liked the film, nearly everyone liked Quaid in the lead. As for The Killer, he hated the book, so he wasn’t going to like the movie. Yet he did concede that Quaid “really pulled it off.**”
Winona Ryder is fine as Myra, but where the film shines is by placing real rock stars into unexpected roles, like John Doe — hey, the whole reason for this week on our site — as Myra’s put-upon pa J. W. Brown, Jimmie Vaughan as Roland Janes, Mojo Nixon as James Van Eaton and CBGB regular and New York Rocker writer Lisa Jane Persky as an early rival for Lewis’ affections. This movie also boasts Steve Allen as himself, Alec Baldwin as Lewis’ cousin Jimmy Swaggert, Nashville sound engineer David R. Ferguson as Jack Clement, the late Lisa Blount (Dead and Buried, Cut and Run, Prince of Darkness, Needful Things***) as Lois Brown and, of all people, Peter Cook as a British reporter.
*The official Lewis website states “Many people think it’s because of his rowdy reputation or because of how he knocked out audiences. The truth is that “killer” was a common slang term during Jerry Lee’s youth, and he would say goodbye to his friends by saying, “See ya later, killer.” This became his nickname before he had a performing career.” Or maybe he lived up to it later when he may or may not have killed his fifth wife, Shawn Stephens; definitely shot his bassist Butch Owens with a .357 accidentally and also showed up at the gates of Graceland with a loaded pistol on the dash, which sent him to jail eight months before Elvis died.
**To be fair, that’s really Lewis singing and playing the piano parts.
***Which also has the version of “Great Balls of Fire” that Jerry Lee re-recorded for this movie on its soundtrack.
Variety hated it. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times hated it. And it received five Golden Raspberry Awards nods for Worst Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor (Ben Gazzara? No, way, for he rocketh), Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay. Then John Wilson, the founder of the Golden Raspberries, listed it in his The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of “The 100 Most Enjoyable Bad Movies Ever Made.”
Feldercarb, we say! For Pittsburgh born-and-bred director Rowdy Herrington* made this AND the Steel Town-set Striking Distance. And that’s the type of cinematic one-two punches we love ’round ‘ere in the B&S About Movies office cubicles, Big Hoss. Come on, now! A Doctor of Philosophy who travels the country as a bouncer kicking some town-psychopath ass and a Pittsburgh-bred, drunken river boat cop chasing down killers on the outskirts of Lawrenceville?
Seriously, what’s not to love here in this updated, glorified and horseless western (that takes place in Missouri, but was shot in California and Nevada)? And that’s what the mainstream critics who slagged Road House failed to see — and all of us lovers of all things “B-Movie” were able to see: Patrick Swayze’s Dalton is the new sheriff in a corrupt gold-mining town run by ex-Civil War hero-done-good, Brad Wesley. Only, this ain’t your granddad’s old n’ stuffy Cary Grant or Van Johnson western: this one’s modernized with a monster truck built specifically for the film**.
And Cary Grant or Van Johnson never delivered lines like this fan favorite:
Ah, but alas . . . for today, we came here not to bury Rowdy, but to praise John Doe, our favorite bassist from Los Angeles — this week of reviews is dedicated to him, after all — as the ne’er-do-well Pat McGurn, Brad Welsey’s favorite nephew with a weak constitution. As I look back on this film for “John Doe Week,” wow. Doe really shines in his role as Pat, whose loserville-status is what caused the whole dust-up between Sheriff Dalton and town “owner” Brad Wesley in the first place. Any other guy, after being fired — like myself, and Sam, B&S’s Chief Cook and Bottle Washer — would just find another job. But when you’re Pat McGurn: you run cryin’ to Uncle Brad who, in turn, gives you a couple of his guys to go kick some defenestration ass. Doc Clay, well, her stirrin’ up romance with the town’s new “bad boy,” that was just addin’ more tabasco to Brad’s breakfast Bloody Mary; lazy-ass Pat was the vodka, for you do not mess with the son of Brad’s only sister.
John, if you’re reading this: that’s sum mighty fine thepsin’, pardner!
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
* Rowdy Herrington sat down with us for an extended interview back in November of last year. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4). He talks about Road House in the second part of the interview.
** In the movie, that truck, built in 1988 and known as Bigfoot 7, destroyed a new car showroom and crushed four new cars: a one-take shot that cost $500,000, a bill that could fund 10 of the low-budget flicks we normally review at B&S About Movies. And, yes, the truck did turn up again in Tango & Cash, another film that, like Road House, was slagged by critics across the board, but wow . . . we love that retro B-flick as well. The next time you’re in Kissimmee, Florida, for a Disney World romp, swing by Fun Spot America where Bigfoot 7 is currently displayed.
Look, we’re not going to sugar coat: the reviews on this one ain’t good. But when you have a film with a cast headlined by Malcolm McDowell and Sid Haig, with Corey Feldman along for the ride, and Slayer’s Tom Araya and X’s John Doe in tow, you cut generous amounts of CGI-slack for this, the writing and directing debut of musician Jesse Dayton. Dayton is a Texas musician best known for his soundtrack collaborations with Rob Zombie (Halloween II ’09 and The Haunted World of El Superbeasto).
How can you not want to at least try to watch a film with this cast—regardless of the fact that there’s no in-camera effects and all of the gun fire and headshots (to kill the zoms) are cheap CGI-boondoggles? Malcolm McDowell, as always, is good in his role and giving it his all, but we sure wish Zombex gave us more of him, Sid Haig, John Doe, and Tom Araya. Also stepping up to the plate is Lew Temple (the real star of these proceedings)—who we all know as Axl from The Walking Dead—as a conspiracy-spouting talk radio DJ out to expose the cover up.
Dayton gets bonus points for injecting a sense of reality into the undead tomfoolery with a zombie outbreak infecting a post-Karina Louisiana. Ol’ Mal is, of course, the greedy pharmaceutical boss distributing a new anti-stress drug that triggers the outbreak.
You can watch Zombex on Amazon Prime and Vudu as a VOD, but we found a free stream (without an account sign up) on Roku Online. The film’s Facebook page is still active, so you can check out stills from the film.
You can learn more about the life, career, and discography of Jesse Dayton at his official website. Fans of HBO’s True Blood also know Jesse for his songs “Coming Down” and “One of Them Days” appearing in the series. And I really dig Dayton’s countrified take on the Cars’ “Just Want I Needed,” complete with lap steels and mandolins. Give it a listen.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
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