Rock of Ages

Glam rock from the 1980s provides almost all of the source material for the 2012 film called Rock of Ages. Based on a musical of the same name, we find ourselves in a world mirroring the Los Angeles nightlife during those glory days of hair metal, but something still feels off. Join co-hosts Jon and Mark for a trip to the Bourbon Room to see Stacee Jaxx take the stage along with Arsenal, Wolfgang Von Colt, and even The Zee Guyeezz. Just remember to write your name on all your favourite albums.

Clean up the strip!

Transcript

Jon (00:00)
Tonight on the Rock and Roll Theatre, we don't know where we've been going, but we sure know where we've been. Rock of Ages, starring Tom Cruise and a whole lot of other people.

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll Theatre Podcast. My name is Jon. I'm joined by my brother Mark. We're each episode here in the theatre we take a look at music, movies, pop culture, all sorts of fun stuff. And today we're looking at Rock of Ages.

Mark (00:32)
Rock of Ages was released on June 15th, 2012. It runs two hours, three minutes, rated PG 13. This is a jukebox musical comedy film. What that means is that it's using songs that are already in existence. They're not original. This was directed by Adam Shankman based on the Broadway musical, also called Rock of Ages, by Chris D'Arienzo.

budget for this film was $75 million. At the box office, it generated only $59 million. So that is a loss.

The film stars Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta, a leading ensemble cast that includes the likes of other people like Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin, Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta Jones, Malin Akerman, Mary J. Blige, Brian Cranston, and Tom Cruise. The movie is built almost entirely around famous 1980s rock hits from bands like Journey, Def Leopard, Poison, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Foreigner, and Guns N' Roses.

Jon (01:40)
It makes perfect sense with the success of the musical that they would, of course, make a movie version of it. And we got a lot of big names in this film for sure. And the three main stars, you can totally see where they were at in the trajectory of their careers at this moment, why they would have been chosen. Julianne Hough was in Dancing with the Stars, which is a big hit around that time. Diego Boneta was in Pretty Little Liars. And then we, have Tom Cruise, who's Tom Cruise.

Mark (02:01)
The film adaptation originated after the Broadway show's success. Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema acquired the film rights in two thousand nine. The original Broadway production ran for over two thousand performances, ending in January twenty fifteen, and it tied as the thirty fourth longest running show in Broadway history.

In this movie, Tom Cruise's singing surprised many viewers and critics, with his performances receiving some of the strongest praise in the film's reviews. We'll see if that's true later. The soundtrack became one of the best selling soundtrack albums of twenty twelve and later received a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack. We'll also be taking a look at that a little bit later.

Jon (02:43)
I'm not so sure we're gonna give the soundtrack any awards tonight. However, this is our first full-on musical we're tackling in the rock and roll theatre. Also, it was Tom Cruise's first musical, so a good place to start. And just a very quick thing here before we get into all things Rock of Ages. If you have time, if you have a second, if you could like, subscribe, comment, download, check out our TikTok, check out our YouTube, check out all the things we got going. I know people are tired of us saying this, but little things like that really, really help us out. But for now, Rock of Ages.

Mark (03:12)
Film opens, we hear a live version of Paradise City. We see some smoke, we see some clouds, then we see the Rock of Ages symbol. Wings, it's metallic, it's spiky, it takes the center of the screen. We learn that this is 1987 and we are in Los Angeles. Then we pan to a scene where we see a Greyhound bus leaving Oklahoma. Okay, that's pretty far from LA. We see a young woman on the bus.

This is the main character, Sherrie. She's introduced. We see her looking at her records. She writes her name on each one. That's kind of an odd technique. I'm not the type to do that to my own records, but anyway. We see her stopping on one called Arsenal. That seems very special to her.

Jon (03:59)
I recognize all the albums she has in her collection. I'm sure you guys on Discogs would not like what she did to the with the Silver Sharpie to the permanent vacation album by Aerosmith. However, Arsenal is not a band I've ever heard of. So we're gonna see where that takes us here in a moment. also she's feeling a little bit homesick and she's looking at a photo of her and her grandmother. Actually, that is a real photo of her and her actual grandmother that she used as a prop for the movie.

Another fun fact about the Sherrie character is that Taylor Swift was actually considered to play her.

So Sherrie puts on her headphones and she starts singing Sister Christian by Night Ranger. And then we know we're in a musical. The bus driver starts singing. All the passengers start singing. Everybody's singing along to Night Ranger as they travel through New Mexico, then down to LA. as the credits are rolling here to start off, we see wow, there are a lot of big name actors in this movie. the bus pulls up right past the Capitol Records building and she gets off, very reminiscent of the scene from the poison video, Fallen Angel. Poison were also on Capitol.

So she gets off the bus and then again another musical breaks out. She starts singing Just Like Paradise by the immortal David Lee Roth. And randomly, everybody in the street knows all the words and joins in.

Mark (05:04)
Time for our introduction to Bourbon Room. We're hearing Nothing But a Good Time by Poison. So it looks like Bourbon Room is going to be the stand-in for the Whiskey a Go-Go Club, We see our second main character here, Drew. Drew is working as a bar back. He's working hard. He's really trying to make it in LA.

We also meet some of the others around the bar. We meet Lonnie, played by Russell Brand. He's sort of a bar regular, sort of a right hand man to the to the owner, maybe. Looks like he wants to be in Motley Crew pretty badly. But there is good energy in the scene. We're getting a nice bar vibe. It's it's nighttime, it's gritty, it's it's got some real feel to it. Back out on the street, Sherrie, she has her suitcase stolen, unfortunately.

Some guy runs away with it. It has all of her records in it. Drew happens to be standing outside of the bourbon room on break, and he runs over to help her, but it's too late.

Jon (05:56)
If you find her copy of Permanent Vacation on eBay or anywhere else in your net, please return it to Sherrie. this scene is very reminiscent of the Welcome to the Jungle video by Guns N' Roses. So we have our second get off the bus out into the city streets moment already, what, seven, 10 minutes into this movie? But Sherrie needs a job. I mean, she showed up in LA with basically nothing. So Drew helps her get one at the bourbon room. Simple, easy. He goes up and talks to the owner, who at first is like, no, I don't want to hire her. Then 10 seconds later, after she busts one table, he's like, Okay, you're hired.

So the plot is moving along very predictably. But then we learn that Arsenal, the band from her record collection, are said to play their last show ever at the Bourbon Room. Dennis, played by Alec Baldwin, has a huge tax stat apparently, and this show will save him and his club. So a whole lot of plot points all in one simple scene here.

Mark (06:43)
Moving along, we are introduced to the Mayor Whitmore campaign to clean up the strip on the evening news.

This is led by a political protest group with the acronym L-O-S-E-R-S, Losers, loosely based on the PMRC crackdown of the late 80s on rock music. Mayor Whitmore is played by Bryan Cranston, and his wife, Patricia, is played by Catherine Zeta Jones. There's also another really good quote I heard during the news story: Rock and Roll is a disease.

Jon (07:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mark (07:17)
so we see that there's a witch hunt led by Mayor Whitmore's wife, Patricia, who wants to shut down the bourbon room.

Jon (07:22)
we've seen this plot line before in the rock and roll theatre where the evil forces are conspiring against the cool kids to destroy all their fun. Never seems to work out, but we'll see this time. So we go into what their substitution for Tower Records in Los Angeles it's a good looking set. It's got a whole bunch of cool posters up on the wall. We hear jukebox hero by Foreigner, Sherrie and Drew are looking at records. I like the posters in the background though. We got Kisses, Crazy Knights, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, and of course, Arsenal.

then we cut to meeting Stacee Jax, who is the lead singer of Arsenal, of course, played by Tom Cruise. he's at Madison Square Garden and getting ready for a show. ⁓ funny little note here that Kevin Nash, Diesel, WWF wrestler from back in the day, is one of the bodyguards. And let's just say that Stacee's in a way, he's kind of messed up and probably not in any condition to play a show. Fun fact about Tom Cruise, he lived in Ottawa, Canada for part of his childhood, which is me and my brother's hometown and is the hometown of the rock and roll theatre.

So this morphs into an elaborate scene where the group of women, the losers, I guess, led by Patricia, do this like choreographed protest dance in front of a portrait of singer Stacee Jaxx, Tom Cruise, ⁓ shirtless. He he got in shape for this role. I'll give it to Tom on that one. And they do Hit Me with Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar. I mean

I I wrote down, is this so bad? It's good. And during all this, we see the mayors getting freaky with some other women. ⁓ the dancing is not good, but they did base the choreography around the ending of Beat It, apparently. I did not catch that. And we just watched a whole lot of Michael Jackson a few weeks ago for our episode on Michael. So yeah, okay, I guess it was based on Michael Jackson. Meanwhile, Drew and Sherrie are going to the Hollywood sign.

For a late night romp, you know, hangout session, shall we say. As they're heading up there, the most random fo poster I can find in this movie is from a very ⁓ I didn't I only know one song by this band. I remember seeing this video in the late 80s, Jet Boy, and their song, Feel the Shake. There's a Jet Boy poster in this movie in 2012. That kind of blew my mind. So Drew plays a little bit of a song. He wrote an acoustic guitar, you know, just something he whipped up. Don't stop believing by Journey. So good job, Drew. If that's just something you you got the top of your head, I have a feeling that's gonna be a really big hit for you.

The the dialogue is cheesy, the romantic vibe is cheesy, it goes exactly the way you think it would. They end up kissing under the Hollywood sign. And then we see a nice happy montage afterwards of Drew and Sherrie doing all these things, going around, hanging out after work, going to the beach, that type of thing. And then of course we hear Talk Dury to me, another poison song, but hey, it's always good to hear more poison.

Mark (09:44)
Now we're back at the bourbon room. It's time for Arsenal's last show. But hey, the opening band just dropped out. What are we gonna do? Two hours until the doors open. So we see Dennis, the club owner, played by Alec Baldwin, and Lonnie, his right hand man. They're having a debate. What's going on? They don't their wigs are not very convincing in terms of ⁓ an appearance here for the 80s. Anyway, but

Jon (10:08)
They're terrible. We have to talk about the wigs. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark (10:13)
You know where this is going. We all know where this is going. Drew's band is gonna do it, right? He's the barback in the club. They're gonna hop up on stage. The band's name, Wolfgang Von Colt. That's a great name, isn't it?

Jon (10:18)
Horst.

Well Wolfgang Van Halen is Van Halen's Eddie Van Halen's actual son. So maybe they they base it on that. I don't know.

Mark (10:32)
They're told they can play three songs, no covers. And then we see them do a sound check with Heaven by Warren.

Jon (10:41)
So this is the second song I guess Drew has written. So he's two for two so far for writing on classic rock songs. I remember seeing Warrant play this show called Roller Jam. I think it was this like roller derby show where they had musical guests. And it's still up on YouTube. You can still see it. They do a really good version of Heaven on it, as well as a good version of Down Boys.

Mark (10:58)
We see Stacee Jaxx pull up to the club. He's in a limousine. In the background, when you see the limousine going down the street, you can actually see a Motorhead billboard. Cool.

Jon (11:07)
Love to see some love from Motorhead. And then we finally hear the song Rock of Ages. Def Leopard song, of course, that the movie is tiled after and the Broadway show is tiled after, and their whole their whole branding empire, Rock of Ages, is is named after.

We see Stacee has arrived and he has a monkey with him, Heyman, who is like his butler, his friend here that takes care of him. This is a very common theme for us in the rock and roll theatre. This is the third movie we've covered with a monkey. We had Bubbles in Michael Jackson. We had Dr. Zaius in Josie and the Pussycats, and now we have Heyman here in Rock of Ages. this is our 17th episode. That's a fairly high percentage of monkeys in episodes. Also, his fur coat looks great on it.

Mark (11:44)
All right, in the club, we meet Stacee's manager, Paul, played by Paul Giamatti. He tells Stacee he's gotta do this Rolling Stone interview backstage first before the gig. Stacee is not feeling it. He's giving the reporter really dumb answers. He's trying to end it as soon as possible.

Jon (12:01)
The character of Paul, the manager, is actually loosely based on Doc McGee, who is Motley Crue's manager, Bon Jovi's manager, and quite the character in his own right. Also while I'm here, Heyman is whipping up the drinks for everybody, he's quite the good bartender.

Mark (12:14)
So the reporter named Constance, she talks about Stacee's difficult behavior and she implies that maybe he was kicked out of Arsenal. Of course, Stacee denies this no way, and then we go into this dream sequence of him playing a stadium show to Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi.

Jon (12:32)
I gotta admit, Tom Cruise makes a pretty good glam rock front, man. And this scene's pretty good. It looks like an 80s video. There's authentic, like those sparks they always had in those 80s videos, the wall of martial amps, the lighting rig looks perfect. It looks exactly like it would for the late 80s.

Mark (12:45)
Stacee comes back to life here. He's out of the dream. We're back in reality. And he looks over at Sherrie. Sherrie's working at Bourbon Room. So he looks over at her and he tells her to go get another bottle of booze from his limousine. I found this strange. Aren't they literally in a bar?

Jon (13:00)
Like who's in charge backstage? He should have everything he needs back there. waters, booze, beers, food, what have you. So I don't think he'd need to run back to his limbo to get a ball of booze. But hey, ⁓ as we go as goes back outside, we realize there's a protest going on. I kind of forgot this plot line was still kicking around, but the losers are out there, they're protesting every everything on the sunset strip or the the fake sunset strip, wherever we are here.

But back inside, Stacee's hooking up with Constance, and this leads to a big misunderstanding in a minute.

Mark (13:28)
So Drew and Wolfgang Von Colt, they're getting ready to go on stage, getting in the zone, getting hyped up. But Drew looks over to the side of the stage and he sees Sherrie and she seems to be with Stacee. So he's thinking they must be together somehow. Maybe they're being friendly. I I don't know. He he's not liking this though. It's starting to play some mind games on him right before his really big moment here. So all right. The band takes the stage. Drew is fired up now.

He wants to open the set with I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister. It looks good, it sounds good, the plane looks real, and the crowd is really loving it.

Jon (14:06)
Three for three for Drew. He is a hit writing machine. It's a good performance from him. It's well done. It's well acted. I did think it was funny that this completely unknown band getting their chance, the entire crowd knew all the words to the chorus before it even started. Imagine that. But after the set, Drew's not having it with Sherrie. He's pissed off. He thinks that she was with Stacee, even though she wasn't. They break up and Sherrie quits, immediately quits working at the bourbon room.

then Stacee's manager Paul sees that Drew actually has some talent. So he comes up to him after the show and starts selling him hard and how he could be the most famous, band out there yet. how we can just take him to the top and all that. So Drew really starts considering it. Meanwhile, Arsenal get up on stage.

They they do pour some sugar mead by Def Leppard. Tom Cruise yet again does a good job in this. we learned that Def Leppard themselves were actually in the crowd for the filming of this scene. I read that several places. Apparently they were on tour at the time and were cruising through Florida where this movie was actually filmed, not Hollywood, and wanted to drop by and see it, and apparently they loved it and enjoyed it.

Mark (15:03)
After the set, we see Drew tell the Bourbon Room that he wants to quit, since his new manager now, Paul, is offering him a record deal.

We see Dennis. He's counting the money from the show. Over $31,000. Pretty good, right? Not so fast. Stacee's manager, Paul, he swoops in there again and he takes all of it as part of Stacee's take and breaks their original deal.

Jon (15:28)
I think Dennis should have fought back a way harder on that one. I mean, managers are sketchy. They always try to steal money. I've had managers steal money from me, so I know what it is. And also, maybe Drew should consider this before he signs with Dennis.

Mark (15:40)
So we move to a new scene now. Sherrie's out, she's looking for jobs, and it's not going too well. She ends up kind of having a mini breakdown on the sidewalk in the rain, so it's not going too well.

So there's a s figure standing over here. We see Justice Charlier. This is Mary J. Blige. She finds Sherrie and she offers her a job as a waitress at the Venus Club. That's a strip bar.

Jon (16:02)
Finally, one hour and thirteen minutes into this film, we get Mary J and we hear her singing this medley of Shadows of the Night and Harden My Heart. Mary J, of course, has an amazing voice. We'll be talking about a lot later on this episode. But I I think, I mean, at an hour and thirteen minutes, I think they should have brought this character in a little bit earlier.

Mark (16:19)
Time to go back to that war on the strip. Do you remember that?

Jon (16:22)
No, I totally forgot we're even doing this, and is clearly filmed completely separately from everything else we've seen.

Mark (16:28)
So Mer Whitmore's wife, Patricia, she explains her grudge that she has against Stacee Jaxx.

Jon (16:34)
Turns out the grudge she actually has is that her and Stacee used to hook up. And Brian Cranston's character here just seems like he doesn't even know he's in this movie. He's kind of like, uh-huh, okay. Like I swear Bryan Cranston probably filmed these scenes. He's an amazing actor. Don't get me wrong. Breaking Bad's an amazing television show. He's been in a lot of cool things. But when it comes to this one, I think he probably filmed his scenes in an hour in between takes of something else he was probably filming.

Mark (16:57)
We go back to Drew. He's meeting up with manager Paul and he's ready to sign his deal. We see a montage to Here I Go Again by Whitesnake. We see Drew recording his album. We pan over to Sherrie. She's still trying to find another job. The Bourbon Room is still looking like they're in trouble. Paul is shopping Drew around to different record labels, but it doesn't really seem to be selling. The labels are kind of like, you know what?

Rock is on the out, like we're looking for something new, we're looking for something fresh. So Paul decides to switch Drew to be the lead of a pop hip-hop boy band group called the Z Guys. It's sort of like a cross between Vanilla Ice and New Kids on the Block.

Jon (17:47)
Fictional band Du Jour from our Josie and the Pussycats episode would definitely cite Z Guys as an influence, and they're definitely spiritual brothers.

Meanwhile, Sherrie decides she's got to start making some more money here at the Venus Club. So she starts dancing up on stage. And then we hear Any Way You Want It by Journey. And it's very strong vocal performance from Mary J. Blige.

So, manager Paul, meanwhile, calls up the bourbon room and says he wants to book a show for that very night. I mean, if I was Dennis after he ripped him off for 31 grand, I would have hung up on his face. But I guess he's more forgiving than I am. Because tonight he has a special double bill. It's the debut of Stacee Jack's The Solarist with special guest Z guys. And Dennis can keep all the profits this time. And Dennis takes the deal. I mean, I can't believe he'd actually do that, but he did. But considering how 90s music was going, Paul might be right to take the Z guys in the direction they were going.

⁓ funky fresh as they would have said back then. And and because Rock was starting to hit a decline there in the early nineties. So I he had the right kind of sense of like, okay, this is going more towards pop, more back towards those sensibilities. But meanwhile, also we see a great scene of, hey man, the monkey. He's dressed up like a dictator and he's kind of freaking out. He needs to chill out a little bit.

Mark (18:54)
So did you forget about that Rolling Stone article? Because now it's been published.

Jon (18:58)
I totally did, Mark. I totally did.

Mark (19:01)
Stacee is pissed off. He finds out about the $31,000 taken from Bourbon Room and he fires his manager, Paul.

Jon (19:11)
Once again, everybody, managers are sketchy.

Mark (19:15)
And guess what? Drew and Sherrie just happened to cross paths at the Hollywood sign. Wow, how could that have happened?

Jon (19:22)
That is super convenient. Both with the Hollywood sign. my God. Actually, the Hollywood sign is completely fake in this seed. It was actually put up in a Florida landfill.

Mark (19:31)
But Sherrie, she's kind of feeling like she wants to go back to Oklahoma.

Jon (19:35)
She probably should.

Mark (19:38)
Hey, Drew, he hands her a demo tape of his song. He just happens to have a copy on him that exact moment.

Jon (19:46)
Drew is four for four with hit song, so his demo tape must be fire.

Mark (19:50)
Time for another montage. This time it's every rose has its thorn by poison.

Jon (19:55)
We'll discuss as we get to the soundtrack, but let's put it this way Mary J. Blige should have sang the whole song.

Mark (19:59)
Drew is out later that night. He's shopping at Tower Records. And guess what? He sees all of Sherrie's stolen records. He sees her name written in the corner and he's like, ⁓ I know where those came from. So he buys them and gets them delivered to her at the Venus Club. So Justice sees this. She sees how happy Sherrie is when she opens up the bag and sees the records. She encourages Sherrie to go to the bourbon room and find Drew.

Jon (20:26)
Note for all your vinyl heads out there, if you write your name in silver sharpie on your albums, if they go missing, you might get back. Meanwhile though, Stacee seems completely unaware he actually has a show that evening and is completely out of it.

Mark (20:40)
We're going back to the protests now. There's huge crowds outside of Bourbon Room. There's a big protest. It's being led by Patricia Whitmore.

Jon (20:46)
And we're here Built This City by Starship. And there's many famous rockers in the crowd. especially right beside ⁓ Russell Brand's character, Lonnie, we see Sebastian Bach from Skid Row.

Mark (20:57)
So yeah, Lonnie's actually doing something in this scene. So that's a bit of a change. He's leading the counter protest of with the Bourbon Room supporters. So they're on the other side of the street and we're gonna hear, we're not gonna take it by Twisted Sisters.

Jon (21:11)
Sebastian Bach is now the actual lead singer of Twisted Sister.

Mark (21:15)
Stacee Jaxx then pulls up, and obviously he's in support of the bourbon room, and he recognizes Patricia.

Jon (21:22)
Who let Stacee drive a motorcycle?

Mark (21:25)
Lonnie runs over and exposes Patricia as a former band groupie by opening up the Arsenal album sleeve photos that she appears in.

Jon (21:34)
This is a bad look for Patricia, but was probably a fun at the time.

Mark (21:38)
Mayor Whitmore, he's watching all of this from home on the evening news while he's having an affair.

Jon (21:43)
He couldn't care less. Yeah, Fraudy was even in this movie. But meanwhile, Stacee reconnects with Constance. And Alec Baldwin also mentioned that he hated making this movie and especially these scenes. And he only took this role to work with Tom Cruise.

Mark (21:58)
We're going back inside Bourbon Room now. It's time for the Z guys. The crowd totally hates it. The vibe is horrible. It sounds bad. Drew realizes it's bombing.

Jon (22:11)
The Z guys were six months too early. Had they been booked in a different venue, they probably would have done okay.

Mark (22:15)
So Drew's gotta do something. He decides to jump off stage, he sees Sherrie, he runs over to her, he kisses her and convinces her to stay. Then we see Stacee's bodyguards return the thirty one thousand dollars to Dennis. So that's great. Bourbon room is saved, I guess.

Jon (22:30)
Stacee Jack gives till it hurts. Also, Heyman punches out his manager Paul at the merch stand.

Mark (22:37)
Sherrie gets Wolfgang Von Cole to reunite on the spot. I mean, why not, right? And then they jump up on take the stage at Bourbon Room.

Jon (22:42)
Course.

I'm sure the entire crowd remembers their legendary three song set.

Mark (22:49)
Drew and Sherrie sing Don't Stop Believing together. And then the scene morphs into this stadium show eight months later. We're at Dodger Stadium. We see Stacee and Arsenal. They've reunited. They're performing the same song, Don't Stop Believing, in front of a huge crowd. This includes Patricia, who is now a rocker once again.

Jon (22:52)
Of course, of course.

Mark (23:13)
We see a closing montage that shows the full cast roll by roll, and that was Rock of Ages.

Looking at this film's soundtrack, we have Rock of Age's original motion picture soundtrack. This is a classic rock, arena rock musical style of album released in 2012. It was commercially successful and it became the second best-selling soundtrack of the year behind the Hunger Games, Songs from District 12, and beyond. It was also nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media at the Grammy Awards.

And it debuted at number fifteen on the Billboard two hundred and peaked at number five on the chart in its third week. So let's look at what we got here. First up, Tom Cruise, Paradise City.

Jon (24:02)
Shall we say a heavily edited version of Paradise City, much shorter than the original, but I think that's okay for the what we're looking at here. Tom Cruise could have picked to sing this in a lower key. He didn't. I get the feeling Tom's a real perfectionist. Apparently he he trained for hours and hours every day for this role, training his voice. I mean, it's not bad. It's not bad. I I've I've heard worse versions of people singing this song. But also remember, even by 2012, Pro Tools were a thing, guys.

Mark (24:27)
Next we have a medley with Julianne, Diego, Russell and Alec. Sister Christian, just like Paradise, nothing but a good time.

Jon (24:34)
Paradise is a popular theme in 80s rock songs. Two songs in both have paradise in it. we got some Davely Roth here. No Van Halen on the soundtrack. I might mention that in a minute. we have Alec Baldwin doing glam music. Like, I don't need this. Even though it was a good scene, the movie and the transitions between the the three sections are done really well. I always like some poison. So it's okay as far as a medley would go.

Mark (24:56)
Next up we got the same four actors in a slightly different order Diego, Alec, Russell, and Julianne. Jukebox Hero, I love rock and roll.

Jon (25:03)
Jukebox Hero, the classic Foreigner song. I have both worked opening as a DJ for The Real Foreigner and a Tribute Band Foreigner. I've done both. And the tribute band Foreigner was really, really good. I love rock and roll. it's been done to death. I love Joan Jet, but I'm really tired of that song, let me tell you. But I mean, hey, it's it's what you think it is. Jukebox Hero and I Love Rock and Roll.

Mark (25:24)
Catherine Zeta Jones, hit me with your best shot.

Jon (25:27)
I didn't like this scene. I don't like this version of the song. But the only good thing I can say about it, it's short.

Mark (25:34)
Diego and Julianne waiting for a girl like you?

Jon (25:37)
More foreigner. did foreigner's management strike a deal with Rock of Ages? I think they did.

Mark (25:43)
Julianne and Diego more than words heaven.

Jon (25:46)
Every 80s glam rock band worth anything had a power ballad. And these are two big versions of them. Actually, I think More Than Words came out in like ninety or ninety-one and Heaven, late 80s. And but all 80s bands had them. I mean, if you look at Motley Crue's Home Suite Home, that kind of set the blueprint for what stadium rock, you know, ballads are. And this is the both these are, of course, really strong ones. Every single one of these ballads probably starts on the chord of G. And I think overall warrant were kind of underrated in the glam rock scene in the 80s.

Mark (26:17)
Next we got Tom Cruise and Julianne wanted dead or alive.

Jon (26:21)
This is not an easy song to sing, so I'll give them both credit for that. It was a good moment in the movie as well. Tom Cruise sure didn't take the easy way out on this soundtrack, so it's better than what you would think it would be.

Mark (26:32)
Tom Cruise and Maylon Ackerman, I want to know what love is.

Jon (26:36)
Okay, we're on track eight, three foreigners songs. I can't even. Next.

Mark (26:42)
Diego Boneta, just by himself this time, I wanna rock.

Jon (26:46)
This one's short and sweet, but I I really liked how we did it in the movie. This version's fine. It was fun.

Mark (26:52)
Tom Cruise, pour some sugar on me.

Jon (26:55)
Tom's at it again. Another big hit for Tom. I'm a little okay, we're now on track 10 here. Rock of Ages by Def Leppard is not on this soundtrack. So I find that's a little bit odd. But I mean, Pour Some Sugar on me is a standard. Working as a DJ, I have played Pour Some Sugar probably almost every show I've ever played. Young girls like it. Old women like it. Everybody likes Pour Some Sugar on me. It always works.

Mark (27:16)
This time Julianne's with Mary J. Blige hardened my heart.

Jon (27:20)
finally gets to Mary J. Blige around track eleven here. And I was like, when I heard this, I was like, Where where do I know this song from? And it's like, wait a second. And it was this really weird video in the early eighties by a band called Quarterhash. It's the only song I know by them, where they're like running around a trailer and the trailer falls apart. And Mary J. Blige is always a good singer. She mean she's the queen of hip hop soul. And so but this one's kind of more of a hollow notes type of song than the glam song.

Mark (27:44)
Same duo again, shadows of the night, harden my heart.

Jon (27:48)
So basically we're just tacking on the start here with Pat Benatar. And it was yeah, fine. It worked okay in the movie. And Pat Benatar is really good. And this is a really good song from Pat Benatar.

Mark (27:57)
A lot of people on this one. We got Diego again with Paul Giamatti, Julianne, Mary J. Blies, and Tom Cruise. Here I go again.

Jon (28:06)
This song has been done a million times. It's one of the top ten songs, probably of the 1980s. Everybody knows it. Hey, we used it for the intro. It's that it's that popular. It's hard not to like this song, but I feel like Mary J could have handled the vocals on here all by herself.

Mark (28:20)
Right, this one's a little different. Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin can't fight this feeling.

Jon (28:25)
An Ario Speedwagon cover. this is probably the yeah, no, it is. This is the worst thing on the soundtrack. Gross.

Mark (28:33)
Next we have Mary J. Blige, Constantine Mar Lewis, and Julianne Hu Hoff again, any way you want it.

Jon (28:39)
From the worst to probably the best. I thought this was the best song on the soundtrack. Mary J just absolutely kills it. she's more way no moan for R and B and hip hop and that sort of thing, but she can definitely s hold her own as a rock singer for sure. Yeah, it's the best song on the soundtrack.

Mark (28:54)
Diego Boneta just by himself this time, undercover love.

Jon (28:58)
yes, from his phony Z guys band, pop song. ⁓ much like the Dujour band we mentioned from Joe's and the Pussycats, it's a fun inclusion here. I don't think it's as good as their version of what their song was, but it I like it. It's kind of a fun little thing to add here.

Mark (29:12)
Julianne, Diego, Tom Cruise, Mary J. Blige, every rose has its thorn.

Jon (29:16)
When we talk about 80s ballads like we just did a few minutes ago, this may be the biggest one. Everybody knows this one. And I feel like the Brett Michaels look is kind of the look that Tom Cruise went for in this film. The bandana, the hair, possibly not real hair. That's the all the toll. But as first when I saw the poster, I'm like, yeah, Brett Michaels. And this is a very, very famous song, like I said. ⁓ I learned how to play this song guitar as a teenager. I can still play it. I saw poison on this tour for this song, they open up and say tour.

Way, way, way back when. This is a a bit of a different, shorter arrangement, but I mean you gotta shorten some things up here. We're getting into 20 songs.

Mark (29:52)
Julianne Hoff and Tom Cruise rock you like a hurricane.

Jon (29:56)
This is where it's starting to drag for me. It's starting to get a little bit worn out. I mean, good good for you guys. You did the work, you did the training to learn how to sing. Good enough for this film, but I'm we're starting again to like, okay, I don't need a classic rock cover of every song from these two.

Mark (30:12)
I guess we're going into the protest song here. Russell Brand and Catherine Seta Jones, We built this city, we're not gonna take it.

Jon (30:20)
Okay, I just just saying that pairing before we're about to review a song is pretty funny. here in the rock and roll theatre, we did build this city on rock and roll, and we also built it on debts and booze. Shout out to our boys Willem Scream. ⁓ this is kind of it's just it makes me want this album to stop. I did, for the sake of the podcast, listen to the whole song, but thank God it's short, I did not like this.

Mark (30:41)
Everybody, everybody's on the last one. Don't stop believing.

Jon (30:45)
What can I say? This song is the bane of my existence. I play it when I'm working as a DJ, I play this song every night, and every night everybody sings along. I'm glad they love it. I'm very, very tired of hearing it at this point in my life, but I'll never stop playing it because everybody loves it. And it's of course it's gonna be yo and the soundtrack, super popular movie. end of the sopranos, of course, all that sort of stuff. However, like some of these ones like this and Rock Like a Hurricane, I think they could have swapped out something like I remember you by Skid Row that was in the movie, Talk Dury to Be by Poison was in the movie.

And we have no Motley Crew here, no Van Halen. We don't even have Rock of Ages by Def Leppard. So ⁓ I think we could have swamped somebody out to end this soundtrack.

Mark (31:29)
Looking at the critical section for Rock of Ages.

Right now it's scoring 43% on its tomato meter and fifty-five percent on its popcorn meter. That's over at Rotten Tomatoes. So not the best scores there. It has a five point nine out of ten on the internet movie database.

Jon (31:49)
That is shocking. It should be lower.

Mark (31:53)
So some of the common criticisms of this movie was that the screenplay made changes from the original Broadway source material. I never saw the original Broadway source material. But many say that Tom Cruise's performance as Stacee Jack's was really good. It's praised. People really like his renditions of Pour Some Sugar on Me and Wanted Dead or Alive.

This is a fun fact here. So the original creator of the musical Rock of Ages was Chris D'Arienzo. And although he didn't see the film adaptation, he did speak negatively about it. Here's his quote. When the trailer came out, and I saw that there was a monkey in it, and then I knew what kind of movie it was. And I think America sort of knew what movie it was.

Jon (32:41)
Chris, I strongly disagree. The character of Heyman, played brilliantly by that monkey, was the second best actor in the whole movie.

Mark (32:48)
Then we also have Alec Baldwin, who played club owner Dennis. He was also critical. His quote here His quote here. He calls it a horrible movie and a complete disaster. Alec Baldwin had asked New Line Cinema to replace him in his role shortly before the beginning of production.

Jon (32:54)
I'm already laughing as I'm reading the quote here, but keep going.

He is in the movie, and that was his review of the movie. I think that says it all. 5.9 Ern Movie Database. I mean, listen to Alec Ballin, who's in the movie. He ain't giving it no 5.9, that's for sure.

But for everything we look at here in the rock and roll theatre, my brother Mark scours your net for a one-star review of everything that we watch. I get the feeling this week it was not too hard to find a one-star review.

Mark (33:32)
This time we're going to Internet Movie Database. We have a review from email me one two three. This is from October tenth, twenty twelve. One star out of ten. The title Glee on Crack, followed by three asterisks.

They took what little good rock and roll from the 80s had and totally murdered it. If you're a Glee fan, you will love this. If you're a rock and roll fan, get ready to blow chunks in brackets. It's that bad. It's wrong from the word go. Bad direction, bad writing, terrible portrayal of the 80s.

This makes eighties rock and roll fans look like a bunch of screaming pansy disco wannabees.

I am especially offended that they totally murdered some awesome classic rock. The way this was put together makes me wonder if the director has attention deficit disorder.

Then again, maybe it was really bad and they cut it like crazy to barely throw this together as a full length feature. At any rate, it is absolutely useless unless you just put it on so you can pick it apart. That would be more entertaining in brackets at least. Two people found that helpful, three thumbs down.

Jon (35:11)
Normally this is a segment of the podcast where I say something to rebut the one star review with something witty to try to, salvage the movie a little bit. Today I'm not gonna do that.

Mark (35:20)
So the lasting legacy of Rock of Ages it has developed a reputation as being a fun, campy celebration of nineteen eighties rock culture.

It's seen as a nostalgic tribute to the Sunset Strip rock scene and the glam metal era. I I think that era definitely deserves a movie to represent it. So it's nice to see, I guess, in that sense. It helps introduce younger audiences to classic arena rock style music. So I guess that's true as well.

Obviously, Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx is pretty memorable. He does a good job, and it's it's I wouldn't say it's a great character in terms of the story, but his performance is pretty good. Overall, I found it

You know, it's easy to follow, but it's also predictable. Like the plot is is very weak. There's bad dialogue. I also found that some of the characters don't come off as believable to me. Like we talked about Alec Baldwin's character and Russell Brand's character. Like I felt I I wasn't truly convinced that I was watching a a 1980s nightclub behind the scenes sort of sort of vibe. I also thought that one of the main characters, Diego, he just never really pulled me in as being an

eighties guy. He just didn't quite have the look to me. His hair was just not quite eighties enough for me. His attitude was a little bit too squeaky clean. He he didn't seem like a rough around the edges nightclub rock kind of guy.

Jon (36:51)
I agree with everything you just said there. ⁓ you're right, the Diego actor, ⁓ he did not look like an 80s rocker at all. I mean, this movie just reeks of who was popular at the time. Dancing of the Stars is popular, Pretty Little Liars is popular. Hey, let's put them in Rock of Ages. Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise will work hard. He always does for every movie role he has, whether you like him or don't like him. You can't say Tom Cruise doesn't put his all into every performance. And he did hear a Stacee Jaxx. But like you said, everybody else here really seems to be phoning it in to the point where it actually bothered me. Like

Brian Cranston, Catherine, what all like Russell Brand, they did not seem to care they're in this movie. I mean, Alec Baldwin flat out said he hated being in the movie. So it really suffers here from like, I don't find these characters believable. The story is very contrived, very weak. the plot points, if I went back and really studied them, probably don't make a lot of sense. We jump around a lot here. Like there's like fifty, sixty minutes between like certain plot lines being brought up. So it's hard if you'd even remember or even get into it or even care.

I I do believe, I mean, I'm a big fan of this type of music. I grew up in the eighties. I was a teenager, in the eighties. I saw a lot of these bands on tour and they came to my town. And I still have a soft spot for glam metal in my heart. And let's think about it. These songs are played to this day everywhere you go. You're in a bar, you're a nightclub, you'll hear one of these songs. You're at the grocery store, you'll probably hear one of these songs. a commercial, what a soccer game on today I heard. you're gonna hear these things, football games, hockey games. These songs are played to death. for a reason.

There's some really good, well-written songs from the 80s. Most bands only got one or two. It's definitely a decade of one-hit wonders. And they pretty much cherry-picked the best one-hit wonders to make it a musical. I also haven't seen the musical either. I heard it's a more of a raunchy or more of an R-rated performance, which I think maybe this movie might have needed. It's a little too Disney, it's a little too cute, it's a little just too like weaking at itself type of thing. as good as Tom Cruise's performance was, I cannot recommend this movie.

I I to watch it of course two times here to review everything for the theatre, and I was really struggling the second time through. watching it twice actually kind of made it worse. You really notice just like the phoned in of it-ness of it all. the Rock of Ages brand, I'm sure, didn't really suffer from this. It's been a long running show. It tours all over the world. It's in Vegas. They have slot machines with, say, Rock of Ages on it. So I think the Rock of Ages brand survived maybe the financial problems this movie had and went on to be a a huge success.

Well, thank you very much for joining us tonight in the Rock and Roll Theatre. If you could do one quick thing on the way out the door, if you could like, subscribe, comment, ⁓ tell a friend, check out our TikTok, check out our YouTube. We always got lots of cool fun things going on. If there's something you want to see us cover, find us, let us know, and we'll take a look at it. But for now, the theatre is closed.