Many of us who were alive in the 1980s claimed not to listen to heavy metal or its almost indistinguishable twin, hard rock. But we did listen, or at least we heard it — it was unavoidable, an omnipresent aural beast slithering out of car radios, grungy bars and retail-establishment stereo systems. Even if you were more attuned to punk or jazz or just about anything else, it was part of the background noise of your life whether you liked it or not. If nothing else, Rock of Ages — adapted from the Broadway show of the same name, in which ?80s metal hits from the likes of Def Leppard, Foreigner and Night Ranger were woven into a rudimentary boy-meets-girl love story — reminds us just how good many of those songs we were pretending not to listen to really were. The picture has a good-natured, if self-conscious, spring to its step, at least until you-know-who shows up in a bejeweled devil?s head codpiece. The movie almost doesn?t survive his slurpy tongue bath.
Seeing Tom Cruise swathed in leather pants and fake tattoos, as Axl Rose-style metal god Stacee Jaxx, is supposedly Rock of Ages? big draw. But the movie is much more fun when he?s not around, partly because the story has been retooled from the stage show to give his character a dose of much-needed redemption. Why can?t he just be bad? The appeal of rock?n?roll is that it?s supposed to be disreputable. The rejiggered plot of Rock of Ages also involves a family-values crusader, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, who vows to make the streets of Los Angeles ?safe for teenagers? by killing the most popular rock club. That?s a tangled irony the writers of the exceedingly…
Eva Longoria Eva Mendes Evangeline Lilly Eve Fergie Foxy Brown Freida Pinto FSU Cowgirls
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