Eddie and the Cruisers (I and II), a love affair
When all is said and done, "Eddie and the Cruisers," may be my favorite movie of all time, and I'm not joking. I'm pretty sure I saw it at the Crest theater in Westwood, with my best friend, Josh Davis, and we were excited to see it, because we were huge Doors fans and loved Jim Morrison, a real L.A. hero, our hometown. "Eddie" was a kind of Morrison story but not quite, because he wasn't as realized as Morrison, yet realized just enough to be glimpsed as immortal, like Cobain, but he didn't exist yet. I completely loved the movie at 15 but I think that I realized it was trash, but such beautiful vintage trash, that it may as well have been the best movie ever, because many directors have had tried to simulate movies like "Eddie and the Cruisers," through the filter of high art, and I'm not sure that ever works. There will never be another movie that is both as insightful and appalling as "Eddie and the Cruisers," especially for anyone into the Sixties vision of the rock star as a kind of shaman.
It was our generation's movie and I ate it up as a kid because I knew it was made just for us, even if this wasn't the intent. It wasn't "Ordinary People," a serious drama, that I also liked; "Cruisers" was an unbridled guilty pleasure with an amazing run on cable, when cable was new, that vaunted it to a whole other level. In some ways, "Eddie and the Cruisers," was ahead of its time in the marketing department, because it may have been one of the first movies that flopped at the box office, but did well in cable, so well that it became a staple of my generation. I liked it a lot when I saw it in the theater but admittedly it wasn't my favorite, just a good one, but when I got to watch it a million times over on cable, where "Eddie" all but reinvented himself, I was overwhelmed, by what a great movie it was about art, the Sixties, politics, racial relations, the music business, etc. It was one of the those movies that fearlessly covered all the bases and chose to look at an artist ahead of his time, that died a fatal death, making his best record ever, never to be released, kind of like Brian Wilson with "Smiley Smile," that missed its moment, and never made the impact everyone predicted. In a way, Eddie was a Brian Wilson and a Kurt Cobain before his time, or a Buddy Holly - he was the past and future of rock n' roll, all in one person, singing songs that sounded a lot like Bruce Springsteen, peaking when the 'film' was released, and making the comparison all too clear, and yet the songs were originals from the early Eighties transposed onto 1964, further changing the meaning of "The Dark Side." It sounded like Springsteen from 1964, but it was "John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band," and that made song completely new, and a big rock hit. I'm pretty sure the "Eddie and the Cruisers," soundtrack defied the music industry at the time because it didn't become popular until the cable release when lots of teenage dilettantes like myself were watching it in the late afternoon imagining ourselves Eddie, the latent undiscovered genius in all of us.
"If you don't want to be great you shouldn't bother playing music," say's Eddie.
"We're not great," said Sal, the bassist, "We're just some guys from Jersey."
Dramatically, the screenplay was compelling because it had a TV crew looking into Eddie from the perspective of 1983, as the great Jim Morrison that never was, or the Elvis that could have been, if he had read Rimbaud. True to the film's over the top screenplay, Eddie's great lost tapes were called, "A Season in Hell," after the Rimbaud poem, but I think that's where I learned about the 19 year old French poet that was a great influence on the Beats and I'd argue all of contemporary fiction, whatever that amounts to. The movie was really incredible because in some ways it was the story every 15 year old American boy in was told about rock n'roll... that it started out with Sal and 'just some guys from Jersey," doing something crazy with the groove, making kids dance, but it evolved to something more poetic and refined. Shit, I read a poetry book in 7th grade English called, "Reflections on a Watermelon Pickle," in Katie McGovern's class, the mother of Elizabeth McGovern, from "Downton Abbey," that I saw "In the Skin of our Teeth," at Oakwood, and everyone knew she was going to be a star. I'm pretty sure they had John Lennon's "In my Life," in "Reflections on a Watermelon Pickle," one of the best lyrical songs ever, but the point was that the rock stars of the Sixties were more than musicians, but visionaries given the academic stamp of approval. It was the myth we were raised on and "Eddie and the Cruisers," must be the best fictional telling of it of all time, bar none, and that's no small achievement. Yes, there have been other great movies about rock stars, and "Spinal Tap" quickly comes to mind, but that wasn't an earnest telling of the rock star as mystic, but a sarcastic one, whereas "Eddie" took itself completely seriously, like all awful movies. But what a fearless topic it chose, to show the self-destructive and violent life of a Jersey visionary kind of like Springsteen, or the Jim Morrison to come, or Eddie Cochran, all in one. His ghost was followed by a news reporter on the story of her life, Ellen Barkin, trying to unveil Eddie's tormented soul in real time.
I watched "Eddie and the Cruisers," the first summer I started getting high, and though I didn't buy the album, I knew every song by heart, because it was one of those rare movies that bonded almost every male member of my peer group, and I'd imagine some females too, because the movie was just too pertinent to us and defied the criticism of the day, no matter how right it was, because make no bones about it, "Eddie and the Crusiers," is a failure, and you couldn't be a self-respecting critic circa '83 and come to any other conclusion. I'm sure if I was a boomer critic I would've seen "Eddie" as some kind of retarded nightmare, and yet all of these critics missed the essence of the movie, and how it was going to relate to us, because it was a representation of the rock star myth that we were raised on, both romanticizing and ridiculing. Well, "Eddie and the Cruisers," does both in one fell swoop, and after watching it at least thirty or forty times, at many different points in my life, it never lets down, never. It's just too multi-layered and complex.
I didn't know "Eddie and the Cruisers II" existed until a couple of weeks ago, when Josh Mills, of FB fame, called me out for it, and said we should see it together. Well, it randomly came on TV at 9 in the morning when Jenny was going to work, and uncharacteristically I stayed up to watch it, because I felt like I'd been waiting my whole life for this moment, like Phil Collins sang about, around the time "Eddie" was released. True, I didn't know it existed until two weeks ago, but if any was ripe for it, it was me, and I watched like a real movie addict, foregoing my life, or any rational thought, for the joy of lying in bed and watching a movie, enjoying the decadence, and the sequel didn't let down. The critic in me should really let it sink in because I realize it was an important viewing, and I may never have one like it again. It caught me completely off guard, and I showered in the middle of it, to enjoy the second half, and sort of took an intermission, but only missed a segment between commercial breaks.
Don't get me wrong, movie fans, it's horrible, and you have to start off knowing that, but it's even worse than the 1st, but it had to be, and that makes it one of the best sequels I've ever seen, I really think so. I mean, I've waited my whole life to see "Eddie and the Cruisers II," because Lord knows, the first sets it up perfectly, but I never thought anyone would actually have the audacity to do it, and yet someone did, and they did it right. The 'critic in me' could make fun of this movie for a million years to come starting with the pretext that Eddie is an anonymous construction worker, driven crazy by watching the cult of 'Eddie,' on TV, wondering what he's doing with his life. We're supposed to believe he's as famous as Elvis in a sort of unbelievable way, and yet no one ever seems to recognize him, even though he looks almost exactly like Eddie Wilson (after Brian Wilson, and Eddie Cochran???). The conceit becomes even more implausible in the second act when 'Eddie' starts playing with a hair band and not only looks like Eddie Wilson but sings like him too; making it even stranger his record company is promoting this idea to sell the "Season in Hell" sessions, but lo and behold it's actually happening, and they don't even know about it!
The movie is actually a perfect sequel. In "Eddie and the Cruisers," we're presented with a Jersey guy that dreams of being great, much to the chagrin of some of his band-mates, but predicting the poetic-musical-revolution of the Sixties. In "Eddie and the Cruisers II," Eddie seems to embrace his working class roots, and instead of thinking himself great, the message is that you've got to practice, and just sort of put it on the line, not expecting much. It's a stripped down Eddie, true to a mid life crisis, only highlighted in Eddie's case, because he's forced to watch images of himself as a brilliant young man, without even being able to take credit for it. He's haunted by himself like we all are in middle age, but as a hard-hat construction dude tying one on.
I guess the message of "Eddie and the Crusiers II," was to overcome fear, but that was the message in "Eddie and the Cruisers I" too, and in each case the fear had to do with mediocrity. In the first film Eddie wanted to by great, not just a 'guy from Jersey,' in the words of Sal. In the sequel, Eddie didn't want to be great, but simply wanted to be, living in pure devotion to the music, without fearing the epic consequences of his "Season in Hell" visions. He just wanted to play guitar again and get in front of an audience and perform, without the guilt or shame, of being the late great Eddie Wilson, symbolizing all that rock had come to, and could have been, if he wasn't tragically killed in a car accident on a bridge, though his body was never found. Maybe it's the 'detective story' level at which "Eddie and the Cruisers" lives that makes it so fantastical, because Eddie is treated almost like we treat aliens now, as some sort of sacred creature that may or may not exist, like Hitler or Morrison, or any famous or infamous person that ever lived, but was never buried. I'd argue that 'Eddie Wilson' as a fictional character could have only exited after J.F.K. but before the alien conspiracy genre that took over the Nineties, right before "Roswell, New Mexico," the "X Files," and "Independence Day," overwhelmed the American box office, there was a brief moment in time that the boomer hero/avatar, the rock star, had his moment in the Sun, and though Tommy tried to be the movie that defined this for our generation, since it did for our parents, it was "Eddie" that sealed the deal. We were able to imagine Eddie Wilson like he was Ziggy Stardust, even though he sounded like Bruce Springsteen. Maybe the movie was trying to say that "the Boss" would've been considered a revolutionary talent in 1964, but instead became the working class hero in 1989, the long forlorn years of Pappy Bush, baiting us into Iraq.
It was our generation's movie and I ate it up as a kid because I knew it was made just for us, even if this wasn't the intent. It wasn't "Ordinary People," a serious drama, that I also liked; "Cruisers" was an unbridled guilty pleasure with an amazing run on cable, when cable was new, that vaunted it to a whole other level. In some ways, "Eddie and the Cruisers," was ahead of its time in the marketing department, because it may have been one of the first movies that flopped at the box office, but did well in cable, so well that it became a staple of my generation. I liked it a lot when I saw it in the theater but admittedly it wasn't my favorite, just a good one, but when I got to watch it a million times over on cable, where "Eddie" all but reinvented himself, I was overwhelmed, by what a great movie it was about art, the Sixties, politics, racial relations, the music business, etc. It was one of the those movies that fearlessly covered all the bases and chose to look at an artist ahead of his time, that died a fatal death, making his best record ever, never to be released, kind of like Brian Wilson with "Smiley Smile," that missed its moment, and never made the impact everyone predicted. In a way, Eddie was a Brian Wilson and a Kurt Cobain before his time, or a Buddy Holly - he was the past and future of rock n' roll, all in one person, singing songs that sounded a lot like Bruce Springsteen, peaking when the 'film' was released, and making the comparison all too clear, and yet the songs were originals from the early Eighties transposed onto 1964, further changing the meaning of "The Dark Side." It sounded like Springsteen from 1964, but it was "John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band," and that made song completely new, and a big rock hit. I'm pretty sure the "Eddie and the Cruisers," soundtrack defied the music industry at the time because it didn't become popular until the cable release when lots of teenage dilettantes like myself were watching it in the late afternoon imagining ourselves Eddie, the latent undiscovered genius in all of us.
"If you don't want to be great you shouldn't bother playing music," say's Eddie.
"We're not great," said Sal, the bassist, "We're just some guys from Jersey."
Dramatically, the screenplay was compelling because it had a TV crew looking into Eddie from the perspective of 1983, as the great Jim Morrison that never was, or the Elvis that could have been, if he had read Rimbaud. True to the film's over the top screenplay, Eddie's great lost tapes were called, "A Season in Hell," after the Rimbaud poem, but I think that's where I learned about the 19 year old French poet that was a great influence on the Beats and I'd argue all of contemporary fiction, whatever that amounts to. The movie was really incredible because in some ways it was the story every 15 year old American boy in was told about rock n'roll... that it started out with Sal and 'just some guys from Jersey," doing something crazy with the groove, making kids dance, but it evolved to something more poetic and refined. Shit, I read a poetry book in 7th grade English called, "Reflections on a Watermelon Pickle," in Katie McGovern's class, the mother of Elizabeth McGovern, from "Downton Abbey," that I saw "In the Skin of our Teeth," at Oakwood, and everyone knew she was going to be a star. I'm pretty sure they had John Lennon's "In my Life," in "Reflections on a Watermelon Pickle," one of the best lyrical songs ever, but the point was that the rock stars of the Sixties were more than musicians, but visionaries given the academic stamp of approval. It was the myth we were raised on and "Eddie and the Cruisers," must be the best fictional telling of it of all time, bar none, and that's no small achievement. Yes, there have been other great movies about rock stars, and "Spinal Tap" quickly comes to mind, but that wasn't an earnest telling of the rock star as mystic, but a sarcastic one, whereas "Eddie" took itself completely seriously, like all awful movies. But what a fearless topic it chose, to show the self-destructive and violent life of a Jersey visionary kind of like Springsteen, or the Jim Morrison to come, or Eddie Cochran, all in one. His ghost was followed by a news reporter on the story of her life, Ellen Barkin, trying to unveil Eddie's tormented soul in real time.
I watched "Eddie and the Cruisers," the first summer I started getting high, and though I didn't buy the album, I knew every song by heart, because it was one of those rare movies that bonded almost every male member of my peer group, and I'd imagine some females too, because the movie was just too pertinent to us and defied the criticism of the day, no matter how right it was, because make no bones about it, "Eddie and the Crusiers," is a failure, and you couldn't be a self-respecting critic circa '83 and come to any other conclusion. I'm sure if I was a boomer critic I would've seen "Eddie" as some kind of retarded nightmare, and yet all of these critics missed the essence of the movie, and how it was going to relate to us, because it was a representation of the rock star myth that we were raised on, both romanticizing and ridiculing. Well, "Eddie and the Cruisers," does both in one fell swoop, and after watching it at least thirty or forty times, at many different points in my life, it never lets down, never. It's just too multi-layered and complex.
I didn't know "Eddie and the Cruisers II" existed until a couple of weeks ago, when Josh Mills, of FB fame, called me out for it, and said we should see it together. Well, it randomly came on TV at 9 in the morning when Jenny was going to work, and uncharacteristically I stayed up to watch it, because I felt like I'd been waiting my whole life for this moment, like Phil Collins sang about, around the time "Eddie" was released. True, I didn't know it existed until two weeks ago, but if any was ripe for it, it was me, and I watched like a real movie addict, foregoing my life, or any rational thought, for the joy of lying in bed and watching a movie, enjoying the decadence, and the sequel didn't let down. The critic in me should really let it sink in because I realize it was an important viewing, and I may never have one like it again. It caught me completely off guard, and I showered in the middle of it, to enjoy the second half, and sort of took an intermission, but only missed a segment between commercial breaks.
Don't get me wrong, movie fans, it's horrible, and you have to start off knowing that, but it's even worse than the 1st, but it had to be, and that makes it one of the best sequels I've ever seen, I really think so. I mean, I've waited my whole life to see "Eddie and the Cruisers II," because Lord knows, the first sets it up perfectly, but I never thought anyone would actually have the audacity to do it, and yet someone did, and they did it right. The 'critic in me' could make fun of this movie for a million years to come starting with the pretext that Eddie is an anonymous construction worker, driven crazy by watching the cult of 'Eddie,' on TV, wondering what he's doing with his life. We're supposed to believe he's as famous as Elvis in a sort of unbelievable way, and yet no one ever seems to recognize him, even though he looks almost exactly like Eddie Wilson (after Brian Wilson, and Eddie Cochran???). The conceit becomes even more implausible in the second act when 'Eddie' starts playing with a hair band and not only looks like Eddie Wilson but sings like him too; making it even stranger his record company is promoting this idea to sell the "Season in Hell" sessions, but lo and behold it's actually happening, and they don't even know about it!
The movie is actually a perfect sequel. In "Eddie and the Cruisers," we're presented with a Jersey guy that dreams of being great, much to the chagrin of some of his band-mates, but predicting the poetic-musical-revolution of the Sixties. In "Eddie and the Cruisers II," Eddie seems to embrace his working class roots, and instead of thinking himself great, the message is that you've got to practice, and just sort of put it on the line, not expecting much. It's a stripped down Eddie, true to a mid life crisis, only highlighted in Eddie's case, because he's forced to watch images of himself as a brilliant young man, without even being able to take credit for it. He's haunted by himself like we all are in middle age, but as a hard-hat construction dude tying one on.
I guess the message of "Eddie and the Crusiers II," was to overcome fear, but that was the message in "Eddie and the Cruisers I" too, and in each case the fear had to do with mediocrity. In the first film Eddie wanted to by great, not just a 'guy from Jersey,' in the words of Sal. In the sequel, Eddie didn't want to be great, but simply wanted to be, living in pure devotion to the music, without fearing the epic consequences of his "Season in Hell" visions. He just wanted to play guitar again and get in front of an audience and perform, without the guilt or shame, of being the late great Eddie Wilson, symbolizing all that rock had come to, and could have been, if he wasn't tragically killed in a car accident on a bridge, though his body was never found. Maybe it's the 'detective story' level at which "Eddie and the Cruisers" lives that makes it so fantastical, because Eddie is treated almost like we treat aliens now, as some sort of sacred creature that may or may not exist, like Hitler or Morrison, or any famous or infamous person that ever lived, but was never buried. I'd argue that 'Eddie Wilson' as a fictional character could have only exited after J.F.K. but before the alien conspiracy genre that took over the Nineties, right before "Roswell, New Mexico," the "X Files," and "Independence Day," overwhelmed the American box office, there was a brief moment in time that the boomer hero/avatar, the rock star, had his moment in the Sun, and though Tommy tried to be the movie that defined this for our generation, since it did for our parents, it was "Eddie" that sealed the deal. We were able to imagine Eddie Wilson like he was Ziggy Stardust, even though he sounded like Bruce Springsteen. Maybe the movie was trying to say that "the Boss" would've been considered a revolutionary talent in 1964, but instead became the working class hero in 1989, the long forlorn years of Pappy Bush, baiting us into Iraq.
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