Rock of Ages (2012) Review

Credit: Rotten Tomatoes

Rock of Ages is a messy through-washed affair that has moments of painful cheesiness and glory in such close proximity to one

another that it's hard to take it all in with a straight face. In other words, it's an interesting film to write about.

The film's reason for existing --telling an extremely formulaic love story sprawled among random 80s
power ballads -- seems so tenuous that it makes complete sense that it's adapted from a Broadway
musical where formulaic love and carefully curated songs are more suited to live stage.

Julianne Hough plays ingenue Sherri, who’s fresh off the bus from Tulsa although she's hoping to be a
singer rather than an actress. She arrives at a concert venue on the Sunset Strip that's supposedly
legendary (sorry, this reviewer is a little less hip to 80s music outside popular car commercials and karaoke bars) where she quickly meets her rocker love interest Drew (Diego Boneta). While neither of the two leads are
particularly interesting, but it helps they are surrounded by such a cleverly assembled cast.  

Tom Cruise takes a break from his day job as a stunt man on film to act the hell out of his role as aging
rock God, Stacee Jaxx (that name alone should qualify the screenplay for awards buzz) whose big gig
at the venue could make or break them. Jaxx leans into every stereotype imaginable but displays a
self-consciousness that makes the dialogue crackle when a particularly alluring reporter (Malin
Ackerman) challenges him out of his comfort zone (leading to an extremely hot romance). Screen siren
Catherine Zeta-Jones goes against type as a pent-up politician Patricia acting as rock and roll morality
police. Alec Baldwin (perhaps the only unwise casting decision considering he’s such a good fit as
polished authority figures that it takes a lot to shake that image) plays shaggy-haired club owner
Dennis Dupree with Russell Brand finding his niche as Dennis’s side kick. 

The plot is a lot like the 90s cult classic “Empire Records” whereas there’s a really fun and happening
place that represents the purity of music and all that on one side, and there’s “the man” that wants to
get in the way of all the good fun. The creditors (the actual antagonists in the stage version, here they’re
off-screen) are closing in on the club, a greedy manager (Paul Giamatti) reneges on the proceeds, and
Patricia wants to run a moral crusade against the evils of rock and roll (I imagine this is a crusade that might have worked

around the time of “The Music Man” but the choreography is up to par on "Hit me with Your Best Shot" so I can run with it). 

“Rock of Ages” is populated with a hodgepodge of musical numbers from various 80s ballads. Some are
simply sung by characters walking down the street while a handful (particularly Jefferson Starship’s ”Any
Way You Want It” and Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”) are elaborately choreographed show
stoppers. Director Adam Shankman was able to work some magic with “Hairspray” and does the same
thing here.

Like “Empire Records”, this is a great hang-out movie that drips with a powerful nostalgia. Most people
watching the film won’t be able to relate to the vibe of Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip in its heyday that
inspired the play’s creator. However, most of us have that special hangout of our youth that the film taps

into. With the aging Dennis and Stacee characters finding space in the fictitious realm, the film sends

the affirming message that youth isn’t always wasted on the young.

Like a power ballad, this is a film that rides on raw emotion. It’s a little spotty and non-sensical but it ends
on a clear high. 

Has the Five Picture Best System Always Been a Mistake? Yes

Between 1944 and 2008, the Oscars were reduced to a paltry five Best Picture nominees per year and the competition for those slots was intense. 

In the "races" leading up to Oscar Nomination Day, two or three films would establish themselves as clearly belonging:
2000: Gladiator-Traffic-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2001: Lord of the Rings
2002: Gangs of New York, Chicago
2003: Mystic River, Lord of the Rings, Lost in Translation
2004: Aviator, Sideways, Million Dollar Baby
2005: Crash, Brokeback Mountain
2006: Departed, Babel
2007: No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood
2008: Slumdog Millionaire, Milk. Curious Case of Benjamin Button

After those two or three, it was a disaster. The list of films nominated for BP in the 90s included Awakenings (about as dramatic as an episode of ER), Godfather III (considered to be a disappointment), Four Weddings and a Funeral (80% of Jon Cusack romantic comedies have more to say than that film), Il Postino (clearly has been forgotten: I just asked eight of my facebook friends if they've heard of that film: ZERO said yes), Secrets and Lies (I got one of eight on that one), Babe (how many films were influenced by that? I think Homeward Bound 2 and Zookeeper was the only other film ever to use the formula of talking animals), and The Fugitive (decent for an action film, but even a good action film today like "Source Code" or "Adjustment Bureau" is not going to make the Oscars). 

The biggest danger to the credibility of the Oscars is films looking like TERRIBLE in retrospect. For example, if  I learn that classics like "Easy Rider" and "Wild Bunch" weren't nominated for Best Picture at the 1969 Oscars, I'll be disappointed but I'll usually assume they were too radical for their time and legitimately good entries took their place. However, if I look it up and find that "Hello Dolly" and "Anne of the Thousand Days" took those slots instead, well, Academy, you've got some 'splaining to do!

When a bunch of films are going for that final spot, the Oscars are very prone to making the wrong choice. As seen in "The Reader", "Atonement", and "Chocolat", genre bias will always kick in: Period pieces, biopics, and pieces set in Britain will often win out over a variety of other genres (explaining why James Ivory, Stephen Daldry, Stephen Frears each have directed three BP nominees). The low point was probably "The Queen" which was an entire film devoted to whether someone should read a press release.

Ten years in, we've seen such tremendous genre diversity, that the number of films that the ambitions of film makers from a wider range of genres now has a chance of being able to be rewarded prestige. These films include:
Serious Man-A grim black-comedy rooted in deep philosophical underpinnings or none at all (depending on who you ask)
Martian, District 9, Gravity, Her, Arrival-Science-fiction ranging from adventure-oriented (Martian) to hard-core (Arrival) 
Beasts of the Southern Wild-A cross between fantasy and science fiction
Amour-A foreign-language love story
Django Unchained-A spaghetti western set in the South (genre film maker Quentin Tarantino's stats have fared much better in the 10-picture era statistically)
Call Me By Your Name-A queer love story stylistically in the mold of a European indie film
Black Panther-Alas, a comic-book film!
Up, Toy Story 3-Cartoons. The only other time an animated film made the short list was "Beauty and the Beast" in 1991
Shape of Water, Boyhood, Black Swan, Inception, Grand Budapest Hotel, Black Klansmen-Auteurs like Guillermo del Toro, Darren Aronofsky, Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Spike Lee, and Guillermo del Toro who wouldn't have broken through in the past have benefited and often won big at the Oscars with an expanded field. 
Room-Somewhat of a horror film in the first half with an experimental structure by auteur Lenny Abrahamson


In the years before the Academy expanded its field:
 
Almost Famous, Mullholland Drive, Memento, Royal Tenenbaums, Far From Heaven, Adaptation, About Schmidt, Road to Perdition, Eternal Sunshine, History of Violence, Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, Dream Girls, United 93, Into the Wild, Sweeney Todd, Wall-E, Dark Knight, and Wrestler all had a good chance of being included if they expanded the nominee slate.

Would it have made up for questionable choices like Chocolat? Most definitely. I think more movie fans were happier with 2011's choices than 2000 because all the good nominees were included and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (according to RottenTomatoes.com, it was the lowest rated 21st Century BP nominee at the time) will just be seen as a quirky anomaly in retrospect.

Seven More of My Favorite Articles in the Field of Journalism

For more of this series, click on the "My Stories" tag


Spelling Bee Double Dip- Skagit Valley Herald and Zebra Magazine (2019)

I have been covering the spelling bee for five years now (story of how I got this gig) and it's been one of the highlights of the year. You're mingling with a wide variety of other interesting journalists, you're trailing children and their families having the time of their lives, the media people treats you seriously and gives you your own room with gourmet snacks, and it's this strange subculture where intellectualism is celebrated. On top of that, the competition has turned me onto word nerdom.

But, hey, why not go to your favorite event and make some extra money with a double dip? I'm not sure how embedded this term is but a double dip is when you cover the same event for two publications.

The problem was that unlike previous years where I started querying in advance, I only thought of double-dipping the day before. So on the first day of the Bee I called a couple places I knew were short of coverage in previous years, than local publications in Richmond, Arlington, and Alexandria where I wrote previously and in the interim I introduced myself to the Spelling Bee contestants from those cities.

Olivia Coleman (same name as the Oscar winner, how cool is that!) was half Brazilian, one of the younger contestants in the Bee and the first contestant from Alexandria City Public Schools in their history. After everyone else turned me down, Zebra Magazine (which covers Alexandria) bit. Negotiations and timing were a little hard to nail down on short notice, and I had to go down an extra day (but I'm such a word nerd, I would have gone down anyway). On the upside, the Olivia Coleman story allowed me to write a broader more comprehensive story for an audience that was less familiar with the event. After five years, my Skagit Valley Herald story was pretty much autopilot.

Link: https://thezebra.org/2019/05/31/maury-4th-grader-olivia-coleman-makes-alexandria-school-history-as-first-national-spelling-bee-competitor/

Coverage of the Metro Shutdown of the Blue and Yellow Lines-Washington Times (2019) 

n what could be the best journalistic move to happen to me (although I say that with a healthy sense of caution as nothing's guaranteed in this business) in terms of securing a steady healthy income for myself,  the Washington Times expressed an interest in me earlier this year and I passed a trial article to be their regular transportation guy.

The trial article was on an impending doomsday scenario where all metro lines south of National Airport would close for the Summer. Having been in this region through other tortuous shut downs and slow downs, I have spent many a metro ride filled with angst and frustration.

With that said, this was a good opportunity to explore the source of that frustration and find out why the people who run this system seem so incompetent. The people I talked to at Alexandria City's Department of Planning and other agencies were professional and convincing that they did indeed know what they were doing and had thought a plan as unpredictable as this one at the very least. And while I'm not sure I agree with the shut down's logic, it's not my place to editorialize.

Two highlights here were 1) that I got to have an email exchange with the anonymous Twitter source @unsuckdcmetro 2) That figuring I might as well be ambitious and outside of the box, I figured the best way to have opinion was a poll. I personally interviewed 100 people and asked them two questions. Pretty insane experience I might not want to do again but it gave the article some color.

Link: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/25/upcoming-metro-repairs-irk-alexandria-area-commute/

Why Green Book is the Best Film to Discuss Race This Year-The Federalist (2019)

How fortunate that I had an opportunity to simply proclaim my esteem for my favorite film of the year in print.

More than that, this past year's Oscar race represented the high point of a particularly toxic brand of identity politics making its way into cinema's most prestigious (and simultaneously superficial) event and while this article was meant (as with much of my writing in this sphere) to directly take on the haters, I'm immensely proud that I didn't stick to the attack ads in this piece.

I discussed the other four Oscar contenders that talked about the black experience in praiseworthy terms but simply showed how they approach race in ways that aren't as brave or necessary as "Green Book" which actually forces the audience to engage with the un-PC side of interracial conversation. I believe that PC culture has created racial tension through keeping necessary conversations about race off-limits and the catharsis that "Green Book" successfully pulls off is about releasing that tension.  The erroneous argument that's become a sacred creed of Woke America: The skin color of the film maker is the determinant of appropriateness of tackling a "black film" and any other backlash that (predictably) would increase exponentially after the publication of the article, is given just passing mention so as to not dignify the inane silliness of it all.
At the end of the day, the Oscar voters sided with me which was quite the thrill.

Link: https://thefederalist.com/2019/01/03/high-profile-films-show-bravely-discuss-race-2018/

What I Learned from Running the Ten Mile--RunBlogRun (2019)

Since I discovered that I didn't necessarily suck at sports by joining the cross-country team right before my sophomore year, running has always been part of my identity. For a while, I simply followed the sport on TV and wrote about it because, hey, write about what you know.

After nine years, two of the captains of my high school team (who are brothers) had the misfortune of their mom being killed in a car accident. At their funeral, I told them I'd run a race in their honor and I thought the experience might make a good article..

The article allowed me to talk about how running shaped my identity (something I've always wanted to do) but I felt I added something new to the conversation by discussing how running was a part of me even when I was dormant or doing it poorly. By talking about running as a learning process and what I had learned, I also thought the article could have pedagogical value and I showed it to a few friends who were also thinking about running too.


Link: http://www.runblogrun.com/2018/12/the-army-ten-miler-by-orrin-konheim.html

David's Gardens --Worcester Journal (2016)

Around the time my grandfather died, my grandmother suggested I write about his life. My mom's parents, who fled religious persecution and poor conditions in Persia to be in the first generation to settle and found the nation of Israel. From there they moved around to other countries before settling to the US and as someone who grew up in the same boring stretch of suburbia, that was pretty interesting to me.

A couple years out of college (late 2008) and still in that phase when I hadn't yet broken into journalism, I was looking to give a lot of things a shot and one of those content farm sites (that THANK GOD are not in existence anymore; if anyone ever made money it was because they were putting in way too much labor) had a prompt to write about a relative who gardened. I squeezed a square peg into a round hole and wrote about my grandfather from a gardening angle since he kept a garden everywhere he went throughout his life and the idea of tilling the land figures into Israel's history. I'd call it a square peg/round hole scenario because it was more that the gardening motif was conducive to a good essay than an overwhelming need to write about gardening.

Anywho, this article was rejected in around 2008. It wasn't even a positive rejection of "come back with improvements" but I decided to send it again a year or two later. And guess what? They still rejected it. But I saw a writing prompt for a literary journal and went with that a few years later.

Coincidentally this occurred a little after my grandmother died and I was privileged to take this back to our family reunion. The story sadly didn't run in print because the Worcestor Journal doesn't do print anymore. I'm not sure what the point of such a journal is but oh well.

Link: http://theworcesterjournal.com/2016/03/09/201639tbn1py8je3xy0cudin1qcagrz9ah2z/

Ten Film Schools-TopTenz.net (2013)

You kind of hear about how USC or NYU is a prestigious film school but what else is out there? I was curious to know and did a bit of research,  bit of write up, and bam! Article delivered. I like this article because it makes for a good listicle, it's evergreen, it's service oriented (provides use) and it gives insight into a part of the film industry people don't often think about.

Link: https://www.toptenz.net/top-10-great-film-schools-in-the-united-states.php

JEB Stuart Celebrates 50 Years of Rowing-Falls Church News Press (2018)

If you seek to do all your stories remotely, you're often missing out. The job requires you to prioritize pertinent information from a list of facts and when you get up close to those facts in a sensory manner, you are able to get a feel for what's important much quicker. You also might find out stuff you wouldn't have known if you didn't go out for yourself and look. More importantly, oftentimes, the events can be a fun--particularly for someone who likes exploring other worlds and subcultures.

Fifty years ago, a local high school crew team won a world championship and I was to cover their reunion. Although the first source who called me was a little over-enthusiastic about the story he wanted me to write, I could relate as someone who probably has placed too much importance in my extremely modest high school athletic achievements. I could also relate as someone who often wants to maintain bonds from my adolescent days and I was curious to see how this group of people navigated such a feat (were some of the members of the original team forced into it more than others?).

I went and experienced a (word I don't use too often here) lovely picnic and was somewhat inspired to see the world champions, alumni from varying years, and current rowers mingling. With a support network like that, it makes complete sense that everyone who had some identification to a beloved high school sport would want in.  

Link: https://fcnp.com/2018/07/06/j-e-b-stuart-rowing-team-reunites-50th-anniversary-world-championship/