Garage Days (2004)

DVD

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Journal Entry 6: Garage Days

Hey, Kids! B. Alan Orange here with this week's DVD pick! Gather yourselves around the warm glow of that monitor so I can tell you all about Garage Days!

One word review: Semi-Okay.

I love the stylistic choices Alex Proyas takes with this one (working small here right before doing it up Big Willie style with this Summer's I-Robot). He sprinkles interesting edits and CGI tweaks like salt, kicking a tasty spice over this otherwise mundane narrative. The story's not a necessarily new one. A rock band tries to make it big. That's it. That's the main through line. Luckily, for the bored viewer at home, this otherwise ordinary script is dealt a swift hand to the cheek. Call it five-fingers of love; the open-faced slap...

Its fun to watch, and never tedious in its execution, but I feel that somewhat hurts the over-all quality of Garage Days. It's supposed to be, more or less, somewhat realistic. It should be gritty and loose. Instead, there's a glossy, fake, turpentine sheen covering its thin wood veneer. And that jerks away some of its credibility. And cred is what a movie like this needs. It's punk, man! It's Rock & Roll...

No, actually, it's a quaint soap opera wrapped in the trappings of a Rock Opus. There's not just a love triangle, there's a love octagon going on here. And it is distracting the band from their intended goal of recording a demo and playing that most important of all gigs...The first one.

Freddy, the lead singer, is in love with Kate. Kate is currently dating Joe, the guitarist. Joe is having an affair with some scary Goth Chick. Freddy's girlfriend, Tanya, the bass player, is jealous over Freddy's feelings towards Kate, and decides to sleep with their drummer, Lucy (a man despite the name). Lucy gives the girl her first real orgasm. Kate is pregnant with Joe's kid. And the duration of the film is spent untangling this huge, salty pretzel.

We're working with a cast of mostly unknowns. They're all pretty good at kicking up the teen angst. The real reason to see the film is Maya Stange as Kate. She all but steals the show with her C-pregnancy, love triangle plotline. She's just got that winning spirit and a face so lovely it'll make you want to puke. I fell in love with her right off the bat, and if the movie had of sucked, I would have kept watching it just for her sole presence alone.

There are some inspired, comedic highlights that push this one above the Direct-to-Video waterline. Joe, trying to convince Kate that he wants to be a father, adopts a melon and cares for it as if it were a real baby. Lucy gives the rest of the band Acid right before an important dinner. Freddy revolts against the dreaded Pokie machines that have invaded his local pub (this takes place in Australia...I guess I should mention that.)There's some good stuff here...

The big kicker comes in at the end. The band, after all it's after-school special meandering, gets to play its first real gig. And guess what? They suck. That's the big joke of the film. And it works. (I'm not really giving this away, it says so on the front of the DVD sleeve)...

I hate when you have to flip the disc over to get to certain Special Features. Some are on the Full Screen side. Some are on the Wide Screen side.

Since I only like watching the Wide Screen side, I'm more bound to stick to these meager offerings than actually get up and turn the thing over. Here, we have Deleted Scenes. 6 of them. They all hold pretty true to the spirit of the film, but are generally unnecessary.

Also included on the WS side are a bunch of bloopers. Outtakes and Goofs is what they call them. Funny stuff. Not too exciting.

If you're enthusiastic enough to get off the couch and check out the Full Screen side, you'll find a commentary track by director Proyas, which is pretty insightful. It's worth a listen. He talks about casting, filming, the characters, and the gestation of the script itself.

There's a "Backstage Pass". It's basically just a 4-minute "making of" mini-doc that's fairly passable. You can pretty much skip this if you have more DVDs on the floor that you want to get too.

Also included is a separate 7-minute interview segment with the cast. See Maya talk! It's awesome!

My verdict: Buy the DVD! It's not very realistic, instead decidedly living in the fairytale world of a big budget Hollywood movie. So what, though? It's an entertaining time killer. And I'm in love with this Maya Stange chick. I want her to come over to my house and flip over my DVD!