The
Top! Few crooners made it, because Bobby Shore pretty well had the big time teen
idol racket sewn up. But from the North, there was a talented ingĂ©nue vocalist—and
she had a dream. Perhaps all that didn’t make any sense to you, but it seems
like a new Canadian retro sci-fi musical would dearly love to be compared to
Jonathan Paizs’ Crime Wave, so there you have it. Of course, it cannot possibly match the indescribably bizarre vibe
of Paizs’ cult classic, because how could it? Regardless, there ought to be
more lunacy in Jeffrey St. Jules’ Bang
Bang Baby (trailer
here),
which releases today on VOD.
Stepphy
Holiday has the golden voice and the innocent look to go far, but she is stuck
in Lonesome Pines, her nowheresville Canadian small town. She wanted to compete
in a New York talent show, but her drunken codependent father wouldn’t let her
leave. However, things might work out for the best when heartthrob Bobby Shore
and his very German manager Helmut find themselves stranded in Lonesome Pines
(but don’t count on it).
Like
clockwork, Shore starts romanticizing Holiday and making her big career
promises. Her embarrassing father is a bit of stumbling block, but they could
probably work around him. Unfortunately, the town-wide mutations resulting from
a chemical spill at the local planet will be a different matter. Rather
awkwardly, Holiday will become macabrely preggers when she has no reason to be.
On the other hand, it will probably be the best opportunity the torch-bearing
Fabian will ever have to win her over.
BBB sounds like
absolute lunacy, but St. Jules’ execution is not nearly as off-the-hook crazy
as it should be. Frankly, he seems to have fallen in love with these
characters, because he spends a disproportionate amount of time on their hopes,
dreams, and personal relationships, while hardly ever showing us any mutants.
Playing it straight is a defensible strategy, but he still needs to bring the
madness. Instead, BBB just feels
restrained.
Nonetheless,
Jane Levy deserves credit for her lead vocals and her earnest energy. Justin
Chatwin’s Shore comes across like a refugee from a 1990s John Waters movie, but
that’s not necessarily wrong. As Helmut, Kristian Bruun cranks the exaggerated
German accent up to eleven in a performance that is refreshingly unrepentant in
its snottiness, but Peter Stormare is largely underemployed as the self-pitying
George Holiday.