Prey for Rock & Roll (2003) Reviews

• This is the Real Thing

  ajb-62004-06-06

  I just want to respond to some of the comments I've read here. First of all, this movie absolutely GETS IT RIGHT. Yes, rock musicians do really talk like that. I know this because I am one and so are all of my friends. Yes, most of the rock musicians I know really dress like that and really do all that drinking & drugging. And about the music...if the music was good, there'd be no movie, get it? They'd have gotten signed long ago so there'd be no hard times, no conflict. They even said during the movie that she couldn't sing! You want bad acting & great music, go watch Purple Rain. You want to watch a movie about what the rock life is really like, watch Prey For Rock and Roll.

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• Real Women Who Rock

  Zoe-Trope2003-06-01

  Prey for Rock and Roll is a great movie for anyone who likes to rock, especially women who have grown up admiring the likes of Joan Jett, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Lita Ford, Chrissie Hynde, or any women in the predominantly male music industry who have taken control of their music rather than allow themselves to be molded into the industry's "male fantasy" of a female musician. (Britney Spears, are you listening?) But it's not a movie only for women -- I saw PFRR with a guy, and he loved it. We are looking forward to the soundtrack coming out -- great music. Just to balance out my comments, my very small criticism is that once or twice (and only once or twice) a line sounded a little canned or flat, but I tend towards overanalyzing in that regard. (I won't say which lines so I don't give the movie away.) But overall the dialogue was great, very real, with a lot of humor also thrown in. The interactions between characters were great for building them up beyond 2-dimensions. (For example, Jackie's relationship with her mother made Jackie's character more interesting, Tracy's relationship with her boyfriend made her boyfriend more interesting -- a role that could have otherwise easily have been a caricature instead of a character. Ivan Martin was also great in the role.) I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone ready for a movie that balances the heavy (harsh aspects of life) with the light (finding the humor in life and following your dreams).

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• Rock Chicks!

  Vomitron_G2006-02-06

  It was inevitable for me to see this movie. I play in a rock band myself. We've done concerts for almost no audience and we've done sold-out ones too. Small clubs as well as big festivals. So you could say I've "been there, done that". This being said, I have to make one thing clear: rock musicians come in all shapes and sizes. Not all rock musicians are like the ones portrayed in this movie, but the type of rock chicks in PREY FOR ROCK & ROLL do exist and I even had the pleasure of playing with them. So you could say that this movie is a pretty accurate portrayal of what rock & roll is all about on some levels. The first part of the movie was a little boring, perhaps. I was thinking "This movie is supposed to be about a rock band's struggle for some recognition, but all we see is stuff about their family and relationships." But the second half is much better, 'cause things start to happen (in their private lives and for the band). So maybe the first half was necessary to make you care about the characters. The over-all acting was pretty good, especially Gina Gershon as the lead singer and Drea de Matteo as the silent bass-player with a nasty drug habit. The music itself was just standard rock & roll, well-played, but nothing special. And yes, Gershon's singing wasn't very good at all but at least it was her voice doing the singing. And let me remind you that a lot of successful rock singers aren't actually good singers. The fact that their music's kinda average makes it believable that they haven't been signed yet. Anyway, to me the problem with Gershon's singing wasn't so much the singing itself, but more the lyrical contents. She sings about stuff a 16-year-old would sing about, not a 40-year-old. When you see them play (live or at a rehearsal) it's all pretty accurately filmed. You see the drummer hitting the right drums, the bass-player playing the right notes,... except for the guitar-player. Lory Petty should really learn how to play the right chords when acting. And one more thing: a band playing in a rehearsal room never acts the same way as on stage. And if they do, their's a big chance that afterwards they'll laugh about it. The rehearsals looked a bit too serious to me. They didn't even play mistakes while rehearsing. Not once. Oh well, it's a movie, right? But there are also a lot of things I did like. At one point you see the first phase of a song being written: Jacki trying to find the right words together with the right chords on an acoustic guitar. Afterwards you see and hear the finalized version of the song. Then there's the rape-scene. Actually, we don't get to see the act and the idea alone is horrible enough, but I felt real good about what happened to the rapist afterwards. And at one point you see an enthusiastic teenage girl coming up to our rock chicks, doing the R&R-sign and saying something like "I really love your music, but if it were just a little faster, it might be even more cool". And at the end Jacki writes a fast song about that girl. It's just a little detail, but if you can read between the lines, than you know that Jacky's into R&R for all the right reasons. Doing it for the fans is one of them. PREY FOR ROCK & ROLL is just an enjoyable movie about being in a rock band. I was thinking about giving it 6 out of 10 stars, but I saw this movie together with a girl and since I consider it to be a chick-flick, more or less, I asked for her opinion. She agreed with me that if you're a 16-year-old, you'll probably think of PREY FOR ROCK & ROLL as THE coolest movie ever. But she isn't a teenager anymore and ended up giving the movie 7 out of 10 stars. So this one's for you, Barbsi.

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• Riot Grrrl Fairy Tale

  kristy_chan2005-04-07

  They finally made a Hollywood film about Riot Grrrl! "Prey For Rock & Roll" was written in part by Cheri Lovedog, front woman for Lovedog, an L.A. all-woman punk band with no major record releases. They opened up for more distinguished punk bands like X and the Descendents. It is a moving story about being an aging punk rocker woman in L.A., and I have a feeling that Lovedog probably imbued this story with much of her own life story. Warning: Plot Spoilers: The part of this film I am most interested in, of course, is it's function as a feminist fairy tale. The narrative is structured around Clam Dandy, an all-woman (with two lesbians and one bisexual woman) L.A. punk band. The singer, Jacki (Gina Gershon) is often the solid figure the other members depend on. Jacki, despite being beautiful for her 39 years, expresses consistent insecurity about what is socially appropriate for 39 year old women and how valuable she is, as a 39 year old woman to society. This is a very real set of doubts for most women in the Western world, and I imagine living in L.A., even if it is the seedy underbelly, has to intensify those concerns. Despite her worries undermining her self-esteem, Jacki supports her three band mates through trying ordeals. Tracy (Drea Matteo) is a messy-headed drug addict. Tracy confesses toward the end of the film, that she is addicted to narcotics and alcohol. Lori Petty (from "Tank Girl") plays Faith, a bleached blonde lesbian, who rings for Anne Heche in her Ellen heyday. Faith, like Jacki is a relatively solid character, although her lack of experience with personal tragedy alienates the other characters as they experience their own personal horrors. I felt that this interpersonal dynamic is a very common, real one in real life, so the introspection of the script definitely works in "Prey"s favor. Sally (Shelly Cole), the drummer for Clam Dandy, looks younger and hipper with her retro styling ala "Grease", but she endures the most sexualized violence out of any of the leading female characters. She expresses her frustration that her girlfriend Faith looks at her as though she will "shatter", giving the viewer an idea of her own internal strength. The character development here is rich, and I especially appreciated the attention paid to the dynamics of female friendships. Even more, I appreciated the complex web of feelings between subjects that emerges within groups of women. I think these qualities are really important for a movie to function as a feminist consciousness raising film, but in the milieu of female clichés, it is increasingly difficult to construct female characters who don't reconstitute existing clichés. It helps that the character who goes down at the end is not "the junkie whore" or "the rape victim", otherwise "Prey" would descend into the fodder of after school specials. The interpersonal conversation is really what adds contextual depth to the subjects in this film. The content of the plot explores sexual objectification, aging, rape, incest, and many other issues explored by similar bands like L7, 7 Year Bitch, and Bikini Kill. During the 1990's, Riot Grrrl really was a climactic punk rock feminist movement. As a person who fervently existed in that environment as a music fan (and fanzine writer), I almost feel like this film is a thinly masked one about that time. The piles of tragedy Clam Dandy endure seem melodramatic, but in this case, it is art imitating life when we remember Kathleen Hanna's (of Bikini Kill) assertions that her brother used to rape her, when we remember the horror of Mia Zapata (of The Gits) being raped and murdered, when we remember that Stefanie Sargent (of 7 Year Bitch) and Kristen Pfaff (of Hole) died of a heroin overdoses. The overwhelming shared pain within a circle of people is immeasurable, and that makes the "plot twists" in "Prey" convincing. However, unlike real life, where Mia Zapata's sympathizers had to wait a decade for her killer to be caught, Jacki and her sensitive" boyfriend Animal, who went to prison for killing the stepfather who raped his sister, Sally, exact vengeance on Nick, a rapist character who was dating Tracy. Rapist revenge films can be feminist ("Girls Town") or exploitive ("I Spit On Your Grave"), and in this case, I feel that "Prey" operates as the former. The other dimension of this film concerns it's plausibility as an adequate representation of musicians and their lifestyles. Arguably, Clam Dandy (despite having assistance from Joan Jett on the set) are not the greatest rock band. Gina Gershon's singing isn't moving or even good. They can't even get a recording offer over $2,000 despite having a decade of experience as a band. Arguably, Clam Dandy spends more time negotiating their personal drama than practicing. This aspect of the film seemed to infuriate people in other reviews, although I think they really are missing the point.

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• Rock and Roll is the devils music!

  rexbot2003-12-21

  I've always thought of punk rock as the most pure variant of what 'rock and roll' really is. Anarchy, chaos, pure violent emotion. Basically we are going to say what we came here to say and f*ck you if you don't like it. In this film we are treated to those who would dare to devote some or all of their lives to the creation and perpetuation of this form of musical expression. We see how life and all its harsh realities are synthesized into musical form. This film is not a simple 'band chasing a contract stereotypical Hollywood rubbish' though I think that is how its marketers are trying to falsely spin it. This film is about each character and how they influence and are influenced by the music they create. Punk rock isn't pretty, thoughtless or safe music and the characters depicted in the film aren't either. We see both the humor and the tragedy that makes that humor possible in each of the characters lives (and there is plenty of each). Also, the lifestyle of those who choose to 'pray' at the alter of rock and roll pay a price. I think the double almost triple meaning of the title of the film says it all. Perhaps one really must suffer for ones art. Basically, everything about the film is extremely well done from writing to the cast, direction, music, costumes, etc... Its obvious that this was a work of love for all involved. That being said this film isn't for everyone and there is plenty for people to hate and fear. If you're one of those unfortunate few who sympathize with the title of this review then you have more problems than I can help you with because Gina Gershon is hot no matter who she is kissing! Overall Rating 9/10 oh, and f*ck you!

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