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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 32.14%
Worth A Look: 16.07%
Average: 35.71%
Pretty Bad: 14.29%
Total Crap: 1.79%
4 reviews, 32 user ratings
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| Still Crazy |
by Brian McKay
"Almost Funny, Spinal Limp"
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"Still Crazy" stars a bunch of Brit geezers I've never heard of before (except for Stephen Rea), as a group of has-been musicians from the 1970's who decide to go on a reunion tour. While it brings a few chuckles, the humor is contrived and the melodramatic aspects of it fail to strike the right notes.The problem with this film is that it just doesn't quite ring true. All the cliche's you would expect are here. The glam-rock stars from the seventies, "Strange Fruit", are now has-beens with day jobs. All except for lead singer Ray, who seems to be a caricature of Ozzy Osborne right down to the glassy eyed, perpetually stoned, slack-jawed expression and the bitchy, meddling blonde manager and Yoko-ono-esque wife, Astrid. There's Tony (Rea), the down to earth keyboard player, Les the angry bassist, Beano the drummer who's running from tax collectors, and Karen, the groupie who once held the band together, and still does.
When an improbable set of circumstances leads to the band getting back together for a reunion tour, they encounter all the standard rock n' roll mishaps along their journey, slowly working their way from laughing stocks to respected rock and roll veterans. It's watchable, it's cute, sometimes it's funny, but in the end it is as forgettable as most of the real bands that rose and fell in the 70's. The performances are decent, but the dialouge is often stilted and the direction lackluster. And the music, for the most part, is really, really bad. I know there was a lot of bad shit made in the 70's, but was it really this bad? Someone who actually listened to rock and roll back then will have to let me know - I was ten.The main shortcomings of this film are that it lacks the credibility of a film like "Almost Famous", as well as the comedic punch of "This is Spinal Tap". The attempts at humor are too obvious, lacking the subtlety of a "But these amps go to eleven" moment that is so funny because it's delivered in such an unassumingly pretentious manner. Likewise, the dramatic moments that are meant to be poignant never quite pull it off, landing just this side of sappy. There are worse ways to kill and hour and a half, but I'd rather watch a movie with midgets dancing around a foot-high model of Stonehenge.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1472&reviewer=258
originally posted: 08/08/01 20:52:46
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USA
22-Jan-1999 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
22-Apr-1999 (M)
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