THE MOVIE

Imagine being seventeen again and looking forward to the biggest might of your life, a night that you feel you were born to experience. Then imagine losing your ticket to this night. What would you do to try save this night? That is what this movie is about. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hawk (Furlong), Jam (Huntington), Trip (DeBello) and Lex (Andrews) are teenagers that seem live for one thing only-KISS. They've got tickets to their concert in Detroit, and have everything planned out. Well, not everything. When Jam's religious anti-Kiss mother (Shaye) burns their tickets, they do what ever it takes to get to the concert and see their heroes live.

I watched this film with two devout Kiss fans, and thought this was great fun. They didn't mind that Kiss wasn't in it enough, they didn't mind that we only see Kiss perform one song at the concert, they didn't mind that this was a harmless flick about what it would be like to be 16 again. Adam Rifkin has set out to make a teenage film for people that wish they were that age again, or to remind them what it was like in an idealised way. Well, this is what Gene Simmons from Kiss wants you to think, because he helped to get it made and is listed as a producer. On this basis, it works just fine. Read too much into it, however, and you're just not going to have a good time for all the wrong reasons. Sink a few beers, break out the munchies and turn the sound to 11 and you'll have a great time laughing at the hopelessness and the antics of our four losers.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Another good transfer from our friends at Village. Rest assured that any apparent lack of crispness and definition is fully intended stylistically by director Rifkin. A listen to the commentary reveals his reasoning behind this. Essentially, he was after the look of films made in the seventies, when film speeds were slower and the resultant look was a bit softer and diffuse. To achieve this, he used filters which softened the look of the picture and removed the crispness and clarity that we associate with modern film images. There you go, you learn something new every day. See, commentaries are useful. Anyway, colours are also good and vibrant within the contraints of this film technique, and have reasonable shadow detail. Only a few minor artefacts are visible, being of the small black or white fleck variety. Generally, a quite good transfer that shouldn't disappoint you.

Audio:

We are treated to a nice dynamic audio job on this disc to match the style of the film wonderfully. The opening credits are a good example of this with lots of front/back panning to make it more alive and interesting. This continues on for a short period in the film with the interesting split screen cuts emphasised with lots of exaggerated "whooshing" type noises etc. Further in, things calm down a little, occasionally kicking again to enhance to on screen effect. At one point I thought my rear speakers had decided to die on me, with a final burst of feedback, and I freaked at the prospect of spending anymore money on my system, when I realised it was actually a surround effect that caught me by suprise. Then I was happy again at the prospect that everything was fine and I didn't have to spend any more money on something that I couldn't drink. The dialogue is all fine and clear, as is the general soundstage. Worth mentioning is the absolute killer of a soundtrack used during the film. Thumping killer songs not just from KISS, but a whole bunch of great bands. I screamed "I've gotta buy this F**king soundtrack!" right after the film, partly because I was going deaf by the end and partly because it was so good.

THE EXTRAS

Well, we get a good selection of extras here to choose from. This would be called a Collectors Edition if there were any industry standards to go by. Along with the standard features such as Bio's and a trailer, we are also treated to Deleted Scenes, Two Music Videos by The Donna's performing "Strutter" and Everclear performing "The Boys Are Back In Town". Next we have two commentaries, one by director Rifkin which isn't bad and another with Kiss which isn't really a commentary at all. Consisting of four seperate segments in which each band member talks about KISS and not really the movie, with a brief exception by Gene Simmons, it is still a good addition, and shows some consideration in the overall compilation of the DVD. It is unfortunate that we miss out on the third commentary by the cast, alluded to towards the end of Rifkin's commentary, though. Still, we do get a multi-angle version of the final concert song to play with, with four angles to choose from, focusing on each member. Finally, we have a 37 minute Behind The Scenes Feature which isn't that good, but is something to watch, I guess.

SUMMARY

This isn't going to be to everyone's taste, but my guests and I enjoyed it. Hey! While I'm writing this, the radio just started playing "The Boys Are Back In Town"! Damn! What a cool song! That makes it hard for me to be objective. A fun film with a good transfer and lots of extras. What more do you want?