The Rocker

The Rocker (2008)


Director: Peter Cattaneo
Writer: Maya Forbes, Wallace Wolodarsky, Ryan Jaffe
Starring: Rainn Wilson, Teddy Geiger, Josh Gad, Emma Stone

Synopsis
drummer of a hair band gets dropped as the band gets signed. he vows revenge. twenty years later they're berjiliionaires, he works for a shelving company? he gets fired, dumped, and moves in with his sister and her family. son is in a band who needs a drummer. coincidence? they play prom. they get picked up to do a tour. he is a rock guru, and cheerleader.

MOster
I really don't have a lot to say about this movie, at least in essay form. Leila missed one important thing in the synopsis: There's the whole "naked drummer" thing in which these poor kids, rehearsing over some sort of super-phenomenal video conference thing, become a YouTube sensation because the Wilson character is naked.  That wasn't funny.  Pans across leotarded mens' crotches aren't funny.  Anachronistic cell phones used to be funny.  Extremely sweaty dudes are not funny.

The most fun we had in watching this was Leila laughing at me for logging our laughs.  I used a scale which is relative only to this movie, where a 1.0 represents approximately 10 seconds of laughter.  In seven individual incidents, Leila's total reached 4.95.  In 13 individual, charitably-assigned incidents, my total score was 0.676 (yes, I got to the thousandths place).  In other words, this was not funny.

This movie hit exactly every beat.  After about the 20th minute you'll have seen all the constants and all the variables.  It doesn't take a genius to work out the entire rest of the 100.


The Woman
um despite the three names in the "written" category of this bloggy thang, i truly believe this came out of the plot-o-tron 9000. some hollywood executive fed the plot-o-tron little details like 'rock band', and 'has been', and 'comedy' and the plot-o-tron came out with this most unoriginal movie that's been done a quadrillion times over. i mean, there was not one thing in this movie that hadn't been done before. i told moster when we had finished watching it in it's entirety that it was a movie that could have never been made. if we're friends and you liked this movie, i may have to question our friendship, or maybe just your IQ. it made it to our queue because i hold out hope for rainn wilson. he was just so incredibly awesome in 'six feet under'...we don't watch the office.