Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)"I've been up, I've been down, I've been playing women all around ..." It amazes me that this great movie seemed to have bypassed modern audiences to the extent that no-one even remembers it anymore. I remember when it was released in South Africa in 1981, my best friend and I went to see it four times in the same week. At that time, we were uncritically into movies about music, rock 'n roll and disco (Grease; Saturday Night Fever; Thank God it's Friday; I Wanna Hold your Hand etc)and this movie delivered big time in terms of our low expectations. As I've matured, movies like these have either dated rather badly (Saturday Night Fever) or gradually revealed their mediocrity (Thank God it's Friday). The Idolmaker has only become better! This is truly a movie that succeeds in being all things to all people. As kids, it delivered the most basic kind of entertainment that made going to the movies a weekly pleasure. As adults, it delivers an intelligent, bittersweet and admirably unsentimental look at the unforgiving dynamics of an industry and culture prizing image and packaging over substance and content. Featuring a remarkably confident career best performance by Ray Sharkey ably supported by the always reliable Joe Pantoliano and a suitably weeny Peter Gallagher, The Idolmaker is the forgotten classic of the musical drama genre. In a funny way, given the setting, the neighbourhood, the wiseguy attitude - I've always kind of considered The Idolmaker as a kind of sub-Scorsese movie - an upmarket, glamorous companion piece to Mean Streets, Raging Bull and other such Italian American neighbourhood tales. But that would be unfair to director Taylor Hackford, who has fashioned a remarkably original stand-alone homage to the hardworking, entrepreneurial, fame-hungry neighbourhood kids who were the real, unseen backbone of the rock 'n roll industry. Breezy and pacy, yet tinged with profound pathos, The Idolmaker is the best of its kind. The fact that it has a terrific soundtrack that'll have you humming all day doesn't hurt either. This is the best, most insightful and intellectually stimulating movie about rock 'n roll ever made. Add The Idolmaker to This is Spinal Tap and A Hard Day's Night in your collection and you'll own the only movies you need to about the music industry and the stupidities -and undeniable attraction - of its attendant celebrity. Oh yes - and I guarantee that after watching this movie, you'll never be able to take groups like the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync seriously again.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Idolmaker (1980)
IDOLMAKER - DVD Movie
0 comments:
Post a Comment