Detroit Rock City (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Detroit Rock City | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Adam Rifkin |
| Produced by | Kathleen Haase |
| Written by | Carl V. Dupré |
| Starring | Giuseppe Andrews James DeBello |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | August 15, 1999 |
| Running time | 94 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Detroit Rock City is a 1999 film about four teenagers in a Kiss cover band who try to see their idols in Detroit in 1978. It takes its title from the Kiss song of the same name. The movie failed at the box office, grossing less than five million dollars domestically. It has since become a cult favorite for KISS fans and metalheads in general.
Contents |
[edit] Cast
- Giuseppe Andrews as Lex ::most likely after the name Alex::
- James DeBello as Trip Hurudie ::name most likely from the fact that he was born while his mother was on shrooms::
- Edward Furlong as Hawk
- Sam Huntington as Jeremiah 'Jam' Bruce ::most likely from "jamming" at the drums::
- Lin Shaye as Mrs. Bruce
- Melanie Lynskeyas Beth Bumsteen ::named after the song "Beth" by Kiss::
- Natasha Lyonne as Christine ::named after the song "Christine Sixteen" by Kiss::
- Miles Dougal as Elvis
- Nick Scotti as Kenny
- Emmanuelle Chriqui as Barbara
- David Quane as Bobby
- Rodger Barton as Mr. Stewart Bumsteen
- Kathryn Haggis as Mrs. Stewart Bumsteen
- David Gardner as Detroit Priest
- Shannon Tweed as Amanda Finch
- Gene Simmons as Himself
- Ace Frehley as Himself
- Peter Criss as Himself
- Paul Stanley as Himself
- Ron Jeremy as Strip Club MC
[edit] Plot
Trip, Lex, Hawk, and Jam are four teenagers living in Cleveland during 1978, who would do anything to see Kiss. They have tickets to see the band in Detroit, but Jam's mother hates Kiss, believes they are devil worshipers and that Kiss stands for Knights In Satan's Service. Jam's Mother finds their Kiss tickets, and humiliates him in front of the whole school by burning them. This leaves the boys in a state of shock. Jam's mom then places him in a Catholic school upstate.
The three remaining friends form a plan to get Trip out of class, so he can call a contest line to try to win tickets. They win the tickets, and then they skip class to bust Jam out of the school. They place hallucinogenic mushrooms on a priest's pizza so he is too distracted to notice that Jam is gone.
On the road, Trip throws a slice of pizza out of the window after dropping it on himself. It hits the car of some disco lovers, who beat them up. Hawk knocks a disco-loving guy to the floor after destroying their 8-Track of the Kiss album "Love Gun". The other disco lover guy tries to negotiate a compromise, but they beat him down and leave the car that the disco lovers were driving in a ditch. The disco lovers awake from a daze and find that they are chained to a guard rail, while covered with Kiss makeup. Christine, who walked away from the fight between Hawk and the disco lover, is walking down the road and the boys decide to give her a ride. While in the car, her and Hawk have an argument. After they stop fighting, Trip lights up a joint and passes it to Christine, who later then passes out from it and is left in the car when they reach Detroit.
When they get to Detroit, they find out that Trip did not stay on the phone long enough to give the radio station his information, forcing the station to give the tickets to the next caller. Lex notices that their car has been stolen, and they suspect Christine, who they left in the car and he takes Christine to Disco Inferno. The boys go their separate ways in order to find Kiss tickets, and agree to meet in the same place later. Lex sneaks into the loading crew to help set up the concert, and eventually find himself using a group of junkyard dogs to help get his car back and save Christine from a possible rape from the chop shop guys who stole it. Meanwhile, Hawk gets drunk and winds up dancing naked for money at a strip club. Trip is beaten up by a jock and his friends and goes to a gas station, thinking about robbing it, but when another man with a shotgun decides to rob it first, Trip gets the robber on the floor and saves the store. Jam, whose mother finds him walking in front of her anti-Kiss rally, drags him to a church across the street. Jam's lover sees that he has gone into the church and follows him. They end up getting together and Jam goes back to the rally. He curses his mother and asks for his drumsticks, only to get one of them back (the other one being broken in half, most definitely by his mother in protest). When the boys meet up again, none of them have had any luck getting tickets, so Jam decides that they should beat each other up and say that muggers took their tickets. Upon arrival at the concert, they tell the guards that they were mugged by four people. The guards don't believe them, so Trip tells the guards that it was the people that beat him up before. The guard finds Trip's wallet in the jock's pocket and hands him the tickets. In the concert, Gene Simmons blows fire and throws up blood, Paul Stanley sings his heart out and smashes his guitar, Ace Frehley's guitar smokes and Peter Criss throws his drumstick into the crowd, when Jam, jumping up, catches the drumstick, making up for the one that his mother broke. The song Kiss plays is the title song of the movie, "Detroit Rock City."
[edit] DVD
The DVD is on both Region 1 , Region 4 and Region 2, although the special features differ.
[edit] Region 1 Special Features
- Commentary by Luke Simmons and Director Adam Rifkin
- Commentary by all four original Kiss members
- Commentary by Rifkin and the cast and crew
- Multi-Angle Views of the Kiss Concert
- An instructional segment featuring a step-by-step guitar lesson by SongXpress on how to play the Kiss song "Rock -N' Roll All Night"
- Over 15 Minutes of Deleted Scenes
- 2 Music Videos & Original Screen Test Footage
- DVD-ROM Features: Script-to-Scene Access, website access, email-able trading cards featuring characters from the film, M.A.T.M.O.K. (Mothers Against The Music Of Kiss) spoof newsletters, updated cast and crew biographies and filmographies, and productions notes
[edit] Region 2 Special Features
- Commentary by Gene Simmons and Director Adam Rifkin
- Commentary by all four original Kiss members
- Commentary by Rifkin and the cast and crew
- Cutting Room Floor
- Behind The Scenes
- Music Videos
- Play
- Theatrical Trailer
- Cast And Crew
- Angle Shots On Kiss Concert Only
[edit] Region 4 Special Features
- Commentary by Director Adam Rifkin
- Individual commentary by all four original Kiss members conducted in interview form by Director, Adam Rifkin
- Multi-Angle Views of the Kiss Concert
- Over 15 Minutes of Deleted Scenes
- 2 Music Videos & Original Screen Test Footage
[edit] Factual Inaccuracies
- The concert is supposed to take place on Friday, October the 13th, 1978 at 8:00pm at Cobo Hall. This day doesn't exist as the 13th of October, 1978 was a Thursday.
- According to www.timeanddate.com, there actually was a Friday October 13, 1978. However Kiss did not play at Cobo that year except much earlier (Jan or Feb?).
- Some songs in the movie wern't released until later periods of times, such as David Naughton's "Makin' It" (the disco song the people on the highway were listening to) which was released early 1979, and the ACDC song "Highway To Hell",which was also released in 1979.
[edit] Trivia
- KISS reenacted a 1970's era concert for the end of the movie, which included 8,000 fans serving as extras.
- Many of the KISS collectors items were from Gene Simmons' own collection.
- the girls' names, Beth and Christine, are references to the KISS songs of the same names.
- The first protesting mother outside the KISS concert, the women with brown curly hair, was Paul Stanley's own wife. The pair divorced in 2001.
- Director Adam Rifkin has used the Blumps restaraunt in every one of his movies. The old women pictured in the Blums logo is Rifkin's grandmother.
- Shannon Tweed, who portrays the lady thet picks up Hawk in the bar, Is Gene Simmons' long-time partner. The couple have two kids together, Nick and Sophie.
- At the start of the movie when you here the boys playing "Rock and Roll All Nite", the music you here is actually performed by the four actors.
- In the Mystery band logo, the S is the same desighn as the lightning bolt S's from the KISS logo.
- Each one of the boys mirrors a member of KISS. They even end up with the women befitting of their counterparts. Hawk is like Paul Stanley and gets the supermodel. Trip is like Ace Frehley and gets the spacey girl. Jam is Peter Criss and gets Beth (Beth is a popular song sung by Criss). Lex is like Gene Simmons and gets Christine. Besides "Christine Sixteen" being one of Gene Simmons' most popular songs, Gene also dated Cher in the late seventies, which might explain why Christine is a disco stella.
[edit] Soundtrack Album
Track Listing:
- "The Boys Are Back In Town" performed by Everclear
- "Shout It Out Loud" performed by Kiss
- "Runnin' With The Devil" performed by Van Halen
- "Cat Scratch Fever" performed by Pantera
- "Iron Man" performed by Black Sabbath
- "Highway To Hell" performed by Marilyn Manson
- "20th Century Boy " performed by Drain STH
- "Detroit Rock City" performed by Kiss
- "Jailbreak" performed by Thin Lizzy
- "Surrender (Live)" performed by Cheap Trick
- "Rebel Rebel" performed by David Bowie
- "Strutter" performed by The Donnas
- "School Days" performed by The Runaways
- "Little Willy" performed by Sweet
- "Nothing Can Keep Me From You" performed by Kiss
