The 100 Greatest Rock & Roll Movies of All Time: #70 – #56
70. Down ’cydeWhat’s Up, Fatlip? (1999)
After the Pharcyde booted Derrick “Fatlip” Stewart for his cocaine habit, the L.A. MC sank into obscurity. In 1999, Spike Jonze filmed a video for his single “What’s Up Fatlip?,” then shot this brief documentary. Tender and funny, it also teaches viewers how to pee while wearing a clown suit.
Best musical moment: Fatlip explains how he got a blow job from a transvestite — inspiring the Pharcyde’s “Oh Shit.” (18:21)
Did you know? Two members of the Pharcyde still tour. Once, Fatlip tried to climb onstage and join in, but they kicked him off.
69. Glamorama
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
The story of glam rock’s ’70s heyday — rewritten, fan-fiction style, to make the rumored Iggy Pop–David Bowie affair fact. Bowie analogue “Brian Slade” fakes his own death in a camp spectacle of lurid clothes, exhilarating music and characters who talk in Oscar Wilde epigrams.
Best musical moment: Ewan McGregor channels an Iggy stage performance, waving his penis at the audience. (34:00)
Did you know? When Slade sings Roxy Music’s “Ladytron” and “2HB,” it’s actually Radiohead’s Thom Yorke you hear.
68. Perfectly suitedStop Making Sense (1984)
Sense, filmed over a three-night sold-out stint in Los Angeles, finds the Talking Heads at the zenith of both their creative and commercial success — one of the great art school bands putting on the biggest exhibit of their career. The show builds slowly, with David Byrne taking the stage by himself, eventually opening the stage up to his bandmates, multimedia visual displays, moving sets and, of course, the famous big suit.
Best musical moment: The joyous nine-person rendition of “Burning Down the House.” (21:18)
Did you know? In a promotional clip for the film, Byrne, made up as a black journalist, interviews himself.
67. Death cabaret for cutie
Moulin Rouge (2001)
If you like your musicals garishly over-the-top and seemingly filtered through the aesthetic sensibility of a mad-genius drag queen, this is your Citizen Kane — a doomed romance set in turn-of-the-century Paris using a radically rethought covers of pop hits to tell its story, to sometimes brilliant effect.
Best musical moment: The staring “Heroes” and “I Will Always Love you” — quoting duet between Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman. (49:00)
Did you know? Cat Stevens refused permission to use “Father and Son” — he objected to the film’s sexual content.
66. Making Bacon
Footloose (1984)
In the town of Bomont, dancing has been banned for fear of “spiritual corruption.” Urbanite new boy Kevin Bacon rolls into school blasting Quiet Riot and is soon fooling around with the preacher’s daughter and organizing a big shindig. Entry-level antiestablishment material boosted by the Kenny Loggins title track.
Best musical moment: A game of chicken — in tractors! — goes down to Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero.” (28:00)
Did you know? Bacon nearly didn’t get the part because a female studio executive said he wasn’t “fuckable” enough.
65. Wigout!
Hairspray (1988)
John Waters’s first family-grade movie sees bighearted, big-boned Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) trying to end segregation in ’60s Baltimore through teen dances like the roach and the Madison. Bursting with hormones and tooth-rotting rock & roll, it also features stage mom Debbie Harry in a wig taller than husband Sonny Bono.
Best musical moment: Tracy does the bug in a dress with cockroaches on it. (1:20:00)
Did you know? Lake rapidly lost weight because of dance training and had to “eat like crazy” to maintain her figure for the part.
64. Harlem nights
Sparkle (1976)
Before Glitter, even before Honey, there was this original R&B fairy tale. Irene Cara stars as Sparkle, a poor teenager in 1950s Harlem who dreams of being a star. With help from her manager boyfriend and a killer soundtrack by funkmaster Curtis Mayfield, she tackles obstacles big (a drug-addicted sister) and small (sharing her name with a My Little Pony) en route to a happy ending.
Best musical moment: Sparkle brings down the house opening for Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall. (1:33:00)
Did you know? The screenplay was written by director and notorious Batman ruiner Joel Schumacher.
63. Blemish free
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1982)
The Stains are a proto-feminist rock band made up of working-class teens who dye their hair, pick up guitars and cause a riot among disaffected teenagers everywhere. Touring with a world-weary gang of British punks (including ex–Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook), they lose their innocence and idealism.
Best musical moment: The first big show, in which they play the sparse “Waste of Time.” (29:00)
Did you know? Paramount, fearing the movie wouldn’t go over with teen audiences, never released it.
62. Totally tripindicularValley Girl (1983)
Before Nic Cage went all A-list, he earned his stripes in this teen-angst comedy playing Hollywood punker Randy, who crosses musical and socioeconomic lines to fall in love with a mall rat. Director Martha Coolidge comes off like John Hughes with rock cred, with ample screen time devoted to new wave asterisks the Plimsouls and Josie Cotton.
Best musical moment: Cotton’s medley at the high school prom, with limp-wristed choreography to accompany “Johnny, Are You Queer?” (1:26:00)
Did you know? Coolidge was required by MGM to show female breasts at least four times.
61. They don’t need no education
Rock ’N’ Roll High School (1979)
The Ramones’ fast-and-fun ethos is all over the cartoonishly simple plot here, as they help giggly vixen Riff Randell (P.J. Soles) rise up against her stodgy principal. It’s goofy and schlocky, but surprisingly wholesome — and a reminder that no matter what the decade, there’s no greater social liberator than loud music and tight jeans.
Best musical moment: Randell spinning “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” over the school PA, nearly causing a riot before the credits begin. (03:59)
Did you know? The film was originally offered to Cheap Trick.
60. Dick moves
Plaster Caster (2001)
While the typical groupie is content to fellate her favorite rock star, Cynthia Plaster Caster took fandom to a new level, famously producing plaster molds of band members. This doc shows the dotty Chicago artisan, now well into her ’50s, still immortalizing local musicians as she readies her first-ever gallery exhibit.
Best musical moment: The Demolition Doll Rods's guitarist earns his way into Cynthia’s display case with a behind-the-back solo. (39:30)
Did you know? Jimi Hendrix had an enormous cock.
59. Whiskey a-go-go
Laurel Canyon (2003)
Reversing her hopelessly square role in Almost Famous, Frances McDormand is Jane, a ress-loving, whiskey-swilling rock producer coming to terms with her uptight son and his bookish fiancée. Set in the L.A. hippie enclave that birthed a ’70s folk movement — you can almost smell the sweet leaf.
Best musical moment: Kate Beckinsale performs an awkwardly hot striptease to Serge Gainsbourg and Bridgette Bardot’s “Bonnie and Clyde.” (1:25:00)
Did you know? The Jane character was partly inspired by mellow-rock queen Joni Mitchell.
58. Bette your lifeThe Rose (1980)
A film that renders moot the still-proposed Janis Joplin biopic. An Oscar-nominated Bette Midler excels as a scared kid trapped in the body of a boozy, foulmouthed, voraciously bisexual superstar.
Best musical moment: Just seconds after agreeing not to say “motherfucker” onstage, Midler greets her fans with a screamed “Hiya, motherfuckers!” (14:00)
Did you know? Director Mark Rydell pressured Midler to deliver during the live scenes by ordering the audience of extras not to applaud if she was no good.
57. Whole lava love
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (1980)
Only a bunch of overeducated Brits could get away with filming a concert in the ruins of an ancient amphitheater. But get away with it Floyd do, showcasing their pre–Dark Side canon while director Adrian Maben wisely pays as much attention to the architecture as he does to the Floyds’ visages.
Best musical moment: Roger Waters gets it on, banging a gong. (28:00)
Did you know? Nick Mason, who in the movie orders a “fruit pie and cream,” would later, for charity, make the world’s biggest crumpet.
56. Holiday spirit
Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
“This picture is honest,” said Motown’s Berry Gordy, Lady’s executive producer, “but it’s not necessarily true.” Yet while the biopic of incomparable vocalist Billie Holiday may fudge some details of her rocky rise — from scrubbing whorehouse floors to singing at Carnegie Hall — it gets her tragic fall sadly right.
Best musical moment: Billie, jonesing and dejected, belts out her signature tearjerker, “Good Morning Heartache.” (1:23:00)
Did you know? Diana Ross earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Holiday, but lost to Liza Minnelli.
THE BEST ROCK AND ROLL MOVIE
