Customer Reviews

Rave

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen. On top of the horrible acting...the events are so over the top that they aren't even believeable. Especially if you've ever actually been to a rave.

When they made RAVE, the producers probably hoped it'd seem so cutting edge, hip to the latest in youth culture. Yet for all those cutting edge aspirations, the film follows the template of hundreds of other films, a template set by AMERICAN GRAFFITI.

You begin with a diverse group of teens. Racially and socially diverse. Some are close to their parents, others don't get along with well-meaning parents, still others have horrid parents. Some of the teens are nerds, some are bad, some are flaky. One girl's pregnant and doesn't know how to tell her boyfriend. There's a gangsta boy, a boy who's never kissed a girl, and the obligatory gay boy.

It's a large ensemble cast. The teens are introduced, their lives weave in and out amid each other without colliding, and then they all end up at the rave. Where (predictably) everything that can happen, does happen. People O.D. Vomit. Beat each other up. Con their way past security. Make racist remarks. Engage in inter-racial flirting. There's over-crowding. A riot. A shoot-out.

Then the usual wrap-up. Survivors comfort each other at the hospital, or at home. Worried parents are relieved to see their kids come home. Other parents cry when the police arrive to announce their kid is dead. There's a candlelight vigil.

RAVE is an okay film, though nowhere near as great as AMERICAN GRAFFITI. Partially, I think it's because, unlike AMERICAN GRAFFITI, RAVE doesn't capture any large social zeitgeist. AMERICAN GRAFFITI reflected a significant historical transition, from the more innocent early 1960s, to the post-JFK assassination, rebellious 1960s. We knew what lay ahead for those kids after their last innocent summer.

RAVE is about a tiny, brief subculture, one that didn't have much impact, even on ravers. Raving was not part of, or swept away by, any larger historical movement, or on an historical cusp. Raving came and went in a blink. It left no large music stars in its wake (unlike grunge, which at least had Nirvana). Nor are RAVE's actors/characters especially interesting.

Tamara Mello is prominently featured on the DVD box, but hers is one of the smaller roles in this ensemble film. I guess she's gotten to be one of the more famous actors since RAVE was released, so the marketing people have re-released it prominently featuring Mello's name. But she's not so prominently featured on the opening credits, which means the filmmakers themselves didn't consider Mello's a significant role. Mello's name comes after the title (the bigger roles are pre-title) and Mello shares the credit placement with two other names (unlike the larger roles which have a sole credit placement page -- these things matter in Hollywood.)

So if you're a Mello fan, you might be disappointed. She's in the film, she's good in it, but it's a small role.

RAVE is a short film. An hour and 17 minutes (not including over 6 minutes of end credits).

I vote for no more after this one.

First of all, the movie is edited horribly. There are numerous occurences where edits should have been TIGHTENED. The acting is so over the top it's ridiculous. Mary Griffith's (Aimee Graham) father is the stereotypical DEMON father.

We listen to these kids talk to the camera throughout the film and how they live to RAVE, so they can be ONE WITH THE MUSIC and how RAVEing and DRUGing is their life... and I could only ask... WHO CARES?

Then, the kids all arrive at the RAVE. Weehoo!! 45 minutes of BAH! BAH! BAH! BAH! BAH! music and Seizure inducing strobe effects. Kids so drugged up they spend most of the time sitting by the toilet. Punks living to beat up other kids. Punks who riot and create havoc for no reason. A drive by shooting that looked so fake and overdramatized.

Gets you all teary-eyed. Not because you have any emotional connection with any of the characters, but because you spent $1.50 renting the movie on discount day and spent 80 minutes of your life watching it... well... 72 minutes if you fast forward through the credits... 3:30 of BAH! BAH! BAH! for the opening credits... geez.

It wasn't the best movie I've ever saw, but definitely worth watching, and buying for the collection if you like movies based on the Rave culture. The movie Rolling was better though. Makes me miss those good ole times of getting retarded, lol.

I think this movie was an okay portrayal of the rave subculture. I think the movie was too much focused of ALL the negatives that could occur at a rave compared to the good that people attend raves for in the first place. I do believe that this movie is a dramatization of a rave. But I thought the movie was decent. Not the best movie I have seen, but not the worst either. Like, one person.. I didn't even know if she died in the end or not.. Another person did die and another was beaten up by a gang member.. I just thought there was a lot of violence and it should have been more focused on the rave itself.

This movie was horrible. I don't think its fair that a movie can be made like this. I have been a huge fan or Raves and elecronic music for 10 years now, and an active member of the San Fransisco rave scene. I have been to so many raves that I couldn't count them all. Nothing like this happens to Raves.

When people go to raves, they take Extasy and forget about a lot of the bad things that society has programmed us to do. People hug and love on eachother, talk about things they never thought possible.

Rave's have had a great impact on society and continue to to this very day. Sure, there might be a few negative people, and bad things happen once in a while, but even less often than in regular life. Its also another good note to know that in all my years I've never seen anyone die from taking extasy, and the only people who had bad effects didn't drink enough water or drank alcohol as well. Only a healthy responsible person who is in touch with thier body should do Exstacy.

I have to say too, that when a person is trying to be negative, aggressive, or confrontational at a rave, they don't get any responses from people and usually end up stopping the nagatve tendencies, because everyone is having so much fun that they ignore it. People are only negative when they are related to. Raves naturally push bad people away when they have a good vibe. Its a blatant lie to say that they attract them.

At raves people feel free to express themselves artistically, in their form of dress, and about how they feel and their beliefs. We ralate to each other on a deep level that sometimes feels impossible in everyday life. I think its this tribal understanding of unity that really makes it easier to live life thereafter.

Connecting to people, feeling happy and having fun. Lots of smiles. This is a rave. This movie was obviously made to create fear and keep kids from experiencing something that might make them want to be different from the majority of culture. Our entire society is based on fear, and this is something that if changed would inspire a lot of free thinking people that would feel good about themselves.

Come to a rave, be free. Its like a little bubble inside which inhibitions, fear, judgment, and even laws can be forgotten and all that is remembered is emotion, feeling, and our impact on one another.

GOOD MOVIES:

If you want to watch some good, realistic rave movies to see what a real rave is like... watch "groove" (which takes place in San Fransisco), or the documentary "Rave Nation" is an actual documentary about raves. "A Mid-summer Nights Rave" is also good, although its definitely more fantasy, it still has all of the aspects of a real rave tied in.

PS- beware of fake want to be raves! Hip-hop influenced raves tend to have a bad vibe and too many sexual predators. You can tell from the people outside... do they look like "gangsters" or people who would listen to rap? Or do they look like all kinds of people dressed up crazy with glow sticks having fun with smiles? Use your intuition!

I'm a huge fan of Electronic Dance Music and anything to do with this genre; I've been to both the huge acts and the underground parties. This movie had good intensions, but the way it came together is a little lame. I recommend One Beautiful Day if you like coming of age movies to do with electronic movies.

"Rave" reminded me a lot of "Crash," and I think it was not just because we are looking at the Oscar winning film this summer in my Pop Culture class. Both stories are set in Los Angeles and talk about a chain of events dealing with racism that have tragic consequences, although the characters in "Rave" are all teenagers rather than adults. But director Ron Krauss' film came out in 2000, so it anticipates "Crash" rather than being some sort of after the fact juvenile version. However, the title is going to indicate something else to most young viewers, and when they find out that the subject matter is a lot more serious and this is not a total party movie, there could well be a lot of resentment.

The story here is about a bunch of young people from different racial and economic backgrounds who all end up at a rave one night in Los Angeles, where they find loud music and drugs. But we meet everybody before the rave and the characters start crossing paths in different ways. Daffy (Douglas Spain), is a young Hispanic who exchanges racial epithets at Jay Hoon (Dante Basco) when he drives too fast through the neighborhood. Then there are gal pals Sadie (Nicholle Tom), Mary Griffith (Aimee Graham), and Daffy's girl friend, Nette (Tamara Mello). The girls are friends with Amanda (Scott Torrence), who dresses like a girl ("A man, duh," get it). There are also Daffy's friend Bookie (Efren Ramirez) and Lisa (Lela Lee) who might be interested in Jay. Then there is bad dude JP (Franco Vega), who takes a gun from his father, and his friend Lazy (Shaun Weiss), who steals a hat from a store. We meet the families of most of these kids, so we can see who comes from a happy home and whose father is too strict, a bully or an outright jerk.

All of these kids end up at the rave, and if you were expecting a move about the rave scene that is not really what this film is about. It is more that the rave is the scene at which things come to a head in terms of the racism, violence, drugs, and dysfunctional families. Since there is somebody running around with a gun you know that at somebody point somebody is going to get shot with it. I ended up rounding down on "Rave" because I became disengaged in the scene where Mary is accused of being a lesbian by her father and they have an ugly shouting match. At that point the dialogue was a bit painful and a lot of the way things play out is fairly predictable. The script by Krauss, Kristine A. Tata, and Mario Zavala also includes interview segments, where the main characters get to talk about their feeling, hopes and dreams. These portions of the film go from being revealing to being more ironic once somebody ends up dead. The net result is more melodrama that tragedy, but all things considered "Rave" is much more of a message film than an exploitation one.