Eddie and the Cruisers
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DVD details
Actor: Helen Schneider, Joe Pantoliano, Matthew Laurance, Michael Paré, Tom BerengerBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-09-04
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Eddie and the Cruisers
DVD Review: Nostalgia From Nostalgia: The Past As We Wish It Was
Summary: 4 Stars
Released in 1983, EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS received generally poor reviews and was pulled from theatrical distribution after a few weeks. That would have probably been the end--but HBO picked up the film as filler, and audiences suddenly discovered it. To this day it is far from a critical darling, and certainly the film is flawed and artistically reckless, but even so it manages to tap into a nostalgia for the early 1960s, when the world still seemed innocent on the surface but increasingly dark underneath.
The plot concerns an early 1960s band which had popular success with their first album but self-destructed on their second, with the lead singer and star (Michael Paré) dead in a car accident before the second could be released. Now in 1983 the surviving band members are very startled to find find their old recordings top of the charts in a sudden nostalgia craze--and they are not necessarily happy about it. Lyricist Frank (Tom Berenger) is particularly reluctant to be drawn into a television documentary about the band; nonetheless, he begins to look up his old band mates. What he discovers in the process is the deception of memory, a good deal of personal pain, and the fact that the tapes for the second album have gone missing. The home of each of the band members has been ransacked: clearly, now that the band is hot once more, someone wants those tapes, which would be very valuable in the wake of renewed interest in the band.
The film flashes back and forth between the bands glory days of the early 1960s and the disillusionment of the remaining band members as they exist in the early 1980s. Doc has become a DJ; Sal is working an "oldie but goodies" lounge act; Kenny, perhaps the best adjusted, is dealing blackjack in Atlantic City and has no illusions about the past. And then there is Joanne (Helen Schneider), Eddie's girl and a back up singer in the band. Not only has her house been ransacked, somebody has been stalking her, somebody who drives what looks like Eddie's old car, who knows details of their romance. Is it Eddie? Is he still alive?
Much about the film is sloppy. The script is predictable; the music, although beautifully performed by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, is about as far from 1963 as one can get; and the whole notion of French poet Arthur Rimbaud being an influence on the band (a notion lifted from Jim Morrison) and the question of whether or not Eddie is dead or alive (lifed from no less than Elvis Presley) don't mesh well with the overall plot. But weirdly, impossibly, the damn thing works.
This is largely due to the chemistry between the actors: their lines might be mundane, but they play them out with memorable sincerity, with the chemistry between Eddie, Joanne, and Frank particularly memorable; Sal (Matthew Laurance) is also a standout. A great film? No. A memorable one, in spite of its excessive simplicity? Absolutely. And when the band lines up for songs like "Wild Summer Night" and "Tender Years," it really is something special. This is the past not as it was, but as we wish it was, a nostalgia for a nostaligia that never existed--but which is touching and beautiful just the same.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Description of Eddie and the Cruisers
They say rock 'n' roll never dies, but one dark night in 1963, Eddie Wilson's car took a dive off aJersey bridge with the troubled rock idol at the wheel. His body was never found. Tom Berenger (Platoon), Michael ParÃ(c) (Streets of Fire) and Ellen Barkin (Sea of Love) star in this cool, compelling classic that really rocks! Twenty years after the lead singer (ParÃ(c)) of"Eddie and the Cruisers" disappeared, the band's songs are hotter than ever. And renewed interest in the band leads TV reporter Maggie Foley (Barkin) to pursue a tantalizing mystery: What if Eddie isstill alive? The circumstances surrounding his death are just shadowy enough to make it a distinct possibility, and someone (could it be Eddie?) has been ransacking the homes of surviving band members in a desperate search for tapes of the group's visionary, never-released album. As Maggie interviews the former "Cruisers," the pieces of the puzzle start to fit...but only until still deeper mysteries begin to surface.Perhaps best known for its faux Springsteen soundtrack, the 1983 Eddie and the Cruisers is a rock lover's fantasy run wild. The story finds a reporter (Ellen Barkin) tracking down rumors of an unreleased album by a band whose charismatic leader (Michael Paré) allegedly died years before. As she approaches surviving members--who have since gone on to other things--she gets different points of view on Eddie's life and artistic drive, and the mystery about that album deepens. The trouble with the film is simple: it's impossible to accept. Michael Paré is far from suitable to play a Jersey shore rocker with thematic pretensions toward Rimbaud that go back to the '60s, and the soundtrack by John Cafferty sounds like a hack's rendition of E Street Band magic. An all-around embarrassment. --Tom Keogh
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