Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll

No one should come away from 1991's SEX, DRUGS, ROCK & ROLL with any doubt that Eric Bogosian is a considerable talent.  That his monologues, performed as ten wildly different characters, are not at times brilliantly insightful.  Often very funny, but he's not always going for the laugh.  Bogosian creates personas filled with recognizable life and vigor, and folks that would likely prompt you to cross the street if they approached.  They're loud, crude, paranoid.

In the early scenes of this concert film, I wondered how much I could stand.  Could I make it through ninety-six minutes straight of listening to these assholes? Would I be sufficiently intrigued to stick it out? Impressed with Bogosian's wit? When I finished the movie, I concluded that maybe it would work better if one watched it in ten minute or so segments.  Maybe just take in one character and then come back at another time.  I still believe I would give SEX, DRUGS, ROCK & ROLL higher marks if I had seen it that way.

Yet, a certain groove occurs as you drift from one soul to another.  You of course see how much they have in common.  How no matter their social strata, they're all wrestling the same demons.  Don't stop the presses on that thought, but Bogosian's monologues do fit together in way that director Robert MacNaughton's film feels like a long form poem.  Or at least some sort of urban cabaret.

Thinking back on the movie, I like to imagine that I'm strolling a city street after I've met Bogosian's first role - a subway panhandler.  Later I meet other another vagrant, one obsessed with pollution.  Then I work my way into the hovel of an artist, who believes the government is using microwave ovens in a plot to control (and ultimately kill) Americans.  In between I'll meet an obnoxious English rock star who thinks I care about his epic drug use.  A redneck who brags about his sexual prowess.  A neighborhood punk who shares his misadventures about bachelor parties. An older guy bragging about his swimming pool.  An executive barking into a cordless phone.  By the end of the journey, I've been given food for thought and have become (even more) thoroughly disenchanted with the human race.

Bogosian, who I first observed in 1988's TALK RADIO, which he adapted from his play, never fails to entertain or immerse himself in his characters, but his British and Southern accents are not entirely there.  They would pass muster at a party, but on stage, eh.  This is ultimately a small carp, as soon we forget this and become engrossed.  McNaughton, aside from a few curious and unnecessary close ups, does a nicely unobtrusive job (along with cinematographer Ernest Dickerson) of capturing these performances, shot over several nights in Boston in 1990.

Bonus - we get a Dokken song over the opening credits and a Jane's Addiction song over the closing.