May 14, 2012 – Back Seat Producers

Part 4 of our 5 part Rock ‘n Roll series

Release date: 9/7/2001

Warner Bros.

Directed by

Stephen Herek

Produced by

Robert Lawrence
Toby Jaffe
George Clooney (executive)
Mike Ockrent (executive)
Steven Reuther (executive)

Written by

John Stockwell

Cast

Mark Wahlberg

Chris “Izzy” Cole

Jennifer Aniston

Emily Poule

Dominic West

Kirk Cuddy

Initial comments by the hosts:

Darrell points out that this movie was inspired by what happened with Judas Priest when they replaced lead singer Rob Halford with Tim “Ripper” Owens (who had been in a Judas Priest and Pink Floyd tribute band.)

The consensus from all three hosts was that the movie was… okay… filtered, lackluster, problematic in how the story was told. The basis of the story was less about realizing your dream than it was in living someone else’s fantasy.

David wasn’t thrilled with Jennifer Aniston’s performance, but Darrell and Tony both thought she wasn’t all that bad. Their complaint was in how the character was written. Emily (Aniston) seemed completely oblivious to the “rock star” life and her reactions to hers and Izzy’s life were very unrealistic. The movie seemed to be pandering to much less of a rock ‘n roll audience than a mainstream audience.

Tony listened to the commentary track after watching the movie and stated that some of the most interesting parts of the movie seemed to have been cut out, including one scene in which Emily’s character had taken drugs with some of the other rock wives and girlfriends. The movie appeared to be designed to make Izzy’s character sympathetic so that the audience would approve of Izzy and Emily getting back together at the end.

Their biggest complaint was not in the acting or the actors, but in the editing, writing, deleted scenes. Tony would have liked to have seen Izzy’s character be a bit darker, which would have fit more into the story. They all thought Aniston was miscast in this role. She was still doing Friends at the time and they thought that having Aniston portray any type of unpleasant character might not have gone over well with fans of Friends.

One of the other issues the hosts brought up was that in Izzy’s life, there was no conflict; he liked his day job, he loved his music and his family and friends were supportive of what he did. Even when Emily broke up with him, there was no conflict! The only time Izzy faced any kind of opposition was when he brought some of his own music to Steel Dragon and they dismissed him. This is what ultimately caused Izzy to leave Steel Dragon (in the same way he joined Steel Dragon).

Many of the musicians in the movie are actual musicians:

Mark Wahlberg – Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch

Jason Bonham (Steel Dragon drummer) –Bonham, and he is the son of John Bonham (Led Zeppelin)

Jeff Pilson (Steel Dragon bassist) – Dokken

Zakk Wylde (Steel Dragon guitarist) – Black Label Society, and he played with Ozzy Osborne

Blas Elias (Blood Pollution drummer) – Slaughter

Brian Vander Ark (Blood Pollution bassist) – The Verve Pipe

Nick Catanese (Blood Pollution guitarist) – Black Label Society

Stephan Jenkins (Black Babylon singer) – Third Eye Blind

Your Producers for this episode were: