Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I wanted to like this a great deal more..., January 3, 2008
Garage Days (Alex Proyas, 2002)
There is something deeply, desperately wrong with a movie's marketing when the very tag line seen on posters around the world gives away the film's major plot twist. That doesn't stop this from being an amusing little film, however. It involves an Australian garage rock band fronted by Freddy (Spartan's Kick Gurry) who are trying to find a place to play. Freddy's girlfriend Tanya (Queen of the Damned's Pia Miranda) plays bass. Guitarist Joe (Brett Stiller) is predictably moody, and is in tenuous ground with girlfriend Kate (XX/XY's Maya Stange). Manager Bruno (Russell Dykstra, from the BlackJack franchise) is something of a lovable foulup who seems congenitally incapable of getting the band gigs, but a chance encounter at a bar between Freddy and the manager of Sprimp, Australia's hottest act, gives the band hope. Meanwhile, with the various relationships on the rocks, Freddy finds himself more and more attracted to Kate; will internal pressures kill the band off before they can even make it to their first gig?
As much as I hate to say it, the weak link in this chain is director Alex Proyas. When Proyas is in his element, I have endless respect for the man; The Crow and Dark City are well on their way to becoming bona fide classics, and he even managed to make something halfway watchable out of I, Robot. The common thread, of course, is that all of these films are dark, moody pieces punctuated with frenetic action scenes. Garage Days, on the other hand, is a light comedy piece. Not the kind of thing one would expect from a guy who normally does dark fantasy action pictures, and it shows. Imagine if David Fincher tried to do a remake of, say, Sunday in the Park with George. The general raucousness of the film feels forced at times, artificially subdued at others. The upside to it, though, is that the comedy tends to be more understated than one would expect from a movie of this type, which leads to some subtle (and some disturbing) gags that might have otherwise come off as silly and/or tasteless.
It could have been a better film, to be sure, but it's not a bad one as it stands. Worth checking out, at least. ** ½
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
another Proyas enjoyment....for the most part, August 23, 2004
After seeing The Crow I had much loved respect for Proyas and then he did Dark City and I still did, but I was pretty mad at him for doing I, Robot because I hated that movie with a passion. Then I saw this one on the video shelves and I rented it and I liked it, to some extent. Rock stardom is always interesting, especially when they play. Some good performances (one in mind being Kick Gurry), but some come off as bland. Brett Stiller?? Any relation to Ben Stiller? Maybe? Who knows. Anyway, the slow motion stuff was interesting and kept me from steering away. Marton Csokas (costarred with Vin Diesel in Triple X) also stars as the head manager to Sprimp (nice band name). Highlight would be the dinner scene when their all hallucinating..funny s**t. Proyas pulls off another enjoyable movie...for the most part. This made up for I, Robot. My suggestion is dont go see the crappy I, Robot...rent this one.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The "Citizen Kane" for struggling musicians, August 8, 2004
In the tradition of "Airheads" and "That Thing You Do" comes this against-genre film from the director of the dark fantasy adaptation of "The Crow" and sci-fi classic "Dark City" (as well as this summer's would-be box office hit "I, Robot") Alex Proyas. It's another in a line of interestingly quirky Australian movies (and in fact not terribly dissimilar from the late Michael Hutchence's acting debut "Dogs In Space", though certainly far more light-hearted) that adds to that nation's reputation as a producer of fine cinema that pound-for-pound can go round-for-round with the heavyweights of the industry in Hollywood without breaking a sweat.
The film was obviously a labor of love, and even though the band at the center of the movie was definitely low-fi, the movie itself was shot using first-class editing and production values. The scenes of introspection when characters are given to voiceover monologue are particularly effective, to say nothing of the "Fun With Drugs" sequences. And even though there is a shortage of original music (how do you go about writing a song that you DON'T want to sound good?), the music used on the soundtrack itself is a terrific sampling of classic rock and alternative music that have been genre standards for ages, used to good effect (especially AC/DC and the Cure).
The actors are certain to be unknown to most American audiences, and not all characters are developed as evenly as they should be (this is particularly true of the band's bassist Tanya, who starts out as the frontman's girlfriend and then almost disappears from the plot entirely, instead being relegated to a position player; the fact that the characters are introduced at the beginning of the movie by the instrument they play in the band rather than their respective character names is not likely an accident). It is true that all of the classic rock-&-roll lifestyle cliche's are represented; there are problems with relationships, problems with drugs, and even problems with maintaining a grip on reality. There are sleazy managers, sexually manipulative diva wanna-bes, and has-beens who just don't know when to cut the mullet and get a real job. We've seen these issues play out across the pages of Billboard and Rolling Stone magazines with megaplatinum acts like the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, and of course the Rolling Stones. This is a movie that is dedicated to all the bands (a few of which I have been a member of) that never made it far enough to implode in such public surroundings.
As the case of the DVD asks: "What if you finally got your big break...and you just plain sucked?" See this movie and find out.
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