A screwball comedy about a would-be Frank Lloyd Weber losing his shit about surf rock and hair metal. Really bummed this mostly missed for me, on paper I love the campy satire and extravagant sets but as a movie it just falls apart.
Enemy number one is Paul Williams who supposedly can write a hit but was in his dejected Billy Joel era while scoring this. All the songs are textureless imitations of tired genres, existing more for their generic identifiers than to be enjoyable to listen to. I know it's on theme that Jessica Harper is the only one who knows how to sing, but we still haven't to listen to the other people. Bizarre how the otherwise frenetic editing slows to a hault for the musical numbers, which are shot like a concert film sans the energy and tangibility that makes them fun to watch (barely anyone is dancing and when they are it's the kind of dancing I do in my kitchen while eating ice cream).
I do enjoy some of the editing decisions, particularly anytime the placid pacing picks up and we have cool shots like the shakey cam hallway run or an exploding television. I'm sure Wes Anderson loves this as a lot of his staples - direct to camera monologues, split screen action, tracking characters in and out of doors - are here in a less developed fashion. Weird for a 91 minute movie to feal bloated, but this would be so much more fun if you cut like a third of that (basically, all the songs).
A lot of unarticulated ideas about the music industry get tossed out for satire fodder but rarely land. We've got exploitative record contracts, "fake fan" producers, women who just want to sleep with someone famous (the way this movie positions women being sexually exploited as a consensual act is rancid), and the rabid hoard of fans who demand spectacle at any cost. Extremely cynical on all fronts but without the specificity to actually land the punches it's just slightly above YouTube comments about being born in the wrong generation.
If this was made today Tori Amos would be the phantom and it would be a better movie.
Content warnings: suicide, death by electricution, homophobia, sexual assault (implied), sexual harassment, false imprisonment, drug abuse