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Detroit Rock City

List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]

Review by Jeremy Kleinman | posted February 1, 2000 | E-mail the Author
Detroit Rock City is a surprisingly good film. More than just a movie about a rock band in makeup, this film is packed with great scenes and a lot of laughs. The film is backed by the best and worst of 70's rock (Styx's Sailing Away, Radar Love, Van Halen's Running With the Devil and a whole lotta Kiss) and captures 70's nostalgia without dwelling in it too much. While the film does contain its share of sex, drugs and rock n roll film cliches, (not that there's anything wrong with that)it also takes a few unexpected twists and turns which lead to some of biggest laughs in the film.

As far as extras go, this is one of the most packed DVD's I have ever seen. In addition to a widescreen and regular version, the film contains two music videos, the original theatrical trailer, deleted scenes (which weren't too bad) talent bios, multiple angle features for the Kiss concert footage, footage of the garage band in the movie singing and playing, audition tapes for the male and female lead, and DVD-Rom features including access to the original script, a website and more (I couldn't access the DVD-ROM stuff but I'll take their word for it). One other great feature is an instructional video teaching viewers how to play Kiss staple "Rock N Roll All Nite" on Guitar! I haven't seen this as a DVD extra before and couldn't resist breaking out the guitar and learning the song.

Finally there are the commentaries. There are four commentary tracks. Four! First is a cast and crew commentary which is hilarious in parts, particularly due to the contributions of James DeBello, but also including commentary from one of the writers, Giuseppi Andrews, Lin Shaye (Magda from There's Something About Mary), Shannon Tweed, and phone-in commentary from Sam Hunnington (the male lead) and his mother. The cast and crew commentary is a lot of fun, but the phone in portions seem a little disruptive. The second commentary is by Director Adam Rifkin. While the cast and crew commentary briefly touches on deeper themes in the movie, Rifkin's commentary goes in depth, to demonstrate the ways in which this film parallels the hero's quest tales of Greek Mythology and give many other insights into the film. Deep, huh? Next we have the Kiss commentaries. A separate commentary by Gene Simmons, while not tying into the movie which is playing as much does give all you would ever want to know about Kiss, and finally there is another commentary from the other members of Kiss! This makes it worth buying, simply because no one could make it through all the commentary tracks in one rental period.

Kiss fan or not, this film will bring you back to the days when seeing your favorite band when they came to town was the most important thing in life. You will also find yourself laughing about some of the scenes days after seeing the movie. It's a lot of fun and highly recommended.

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Highly Recommended

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