Search - Hollywood Rocks! on DVD

Incomplete, amateur rockumentary

Justin Gaines | Northern Virginia | 08/23/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The Hollywood Rocks documentary DVD is a companion piece to the book and CD box set of the same name from Cleopatra Records. Like the book and box set, the DVD attempts to chronicle the rise and fall of the Sunset Strip hair metal scene. Unfortunately the DVD fails to live up to the quality of the book and box set.

Unlike the book and box set, the Hollywood Rocks DVD focuses on a select few artists from the scene, most of which are lesser known acts. The only "A-listers" that participate are Warrant's Jani Lane, C.C. Deville from Poison, Quiet Riot's Kevin Dubrow (RIP), Tracii Guns from L.A. Guns, and Great White's Jack Russell. The rest of the commentary comes from members of Jetboy, D'Molls, XYZ, Keel, Hollywood Rose, Odin, and other minor players in the scene.

If the DVD focused on these guys and what they had to say, it probably would have been a lot more effective. Instead, a huge chunk of time was spent on pointless, repetitive close-up shots of photos from the Hollywood Rocks book with cheesy, Powerpoint-lite special effects. The soundtrack is also weak, relying on what seemed like the same half dozen songs over and over. We get it; Cleopatra released the Hollywood Rose demos. Enough already! The 4-disc Hollywood Rocks: Audio Companion box set was loaded with great songs from the era. You'd think they could have used a few more here. There was also a bizarre amount of recent unrelated footage (of strippers mostly), absurd commentary (calling hair metal bands' lyrics introspective is laughable), and a downright ridiculous montage of MLK/Civil Rights era footage set to Warrant's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

The Hollywood Rocks DVD is worth 2 stars for the interviews with the musicians involved in the scene. If they had stuck to that and maybe some rare concert footage and music videos, it would have been a lot more effective. Unfortunately it fails on just about every other level. I can only recommend this DVD to the most die-hard fans of the Hollywood hair metal scene, and even they are unlikely to get much out of this amateurish release.
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Save Your Money

Mitsy Moore | MO | 06/01/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I bought this used and didn't pay much for it but will likely try to re-sell it on ebay. I don't plan on keeping it. It was a big disappointment. There were scant few interviews with any big name hair/metal bands from the 80's. Jani Lane did some interview footage, but since he's been kicked out of Warrant, the interview is sort of pointless. I'm a huge Cinderella fan and the only one they interviewed was drummer Fred Coury who I love, but he had little actual talk time and there were no other interviews talking about Cinderella or any clips of their videos or songs. There was not a lot of time spent on Poison either. If they could have cut out all the x-rated clips of naked women dancing, there would have been more time to have put in footage of things that people would have actually wanted to have seen and heard. It did seem very poor quality overall. It was a waste of time to watch actually. I'd give it no stars if I could."

Glitz , Glamour Low Low Budget!!!

Jason Pennisi | 08/27/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Be warned this dvd is not what u might think .... Although the box looks Awesome the contents are very different .... This dvd looks to me to have been made with a camcorder and someone running around L.A filming whoever and what ever looks 80s hahah... at one point the camera holds on a Girl .( and im thinkn who is she ? ) no context whats so ever ... Dont buy this if u have already seen A HEADBANGERS JOURNEY because u will be very disappointed... this will go into the back of the collection.
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