Modern Life is Rubbish / We Are Your Friends / American Satan TRIPLE THREAT!!!!

[alan nagsworth]

Yes, this past weekend, myself and two friends decided to abuse our bodies chemically and artistically by getting ridiculously pissed and watching three absolutely dreadful films that are about music. We did it for science. We did it for humanity. We did it for a fucking good laugh, and we certainly got plenty of those. Here's my account of the evening in brief, fleshed out with reviews of the films.

I arrived at my friend's house at around 8pm, a carrier bag loaded up with ingredients for the meal I'd be cooking - a crowd-pleasing Moroccan stew with butternut squash, cavolo nero (or black kale if you're simple) and topped with feta, lemon zest and toasted fennel seeds - and two bottles of Fat Bastard merlot, which I would be drinking to myself. Friend A was on some fancy looking rose, and we'd both almost finished a bottle each before Friend B returned from Sheffield, armed with a bag of assorted craft beers. We ate the stew and at around 10pm, we got started on the films.

Modern Life is Rubbish

As advertised on here in the "This'll be shit I reckon" thread, I knew this one was going to be a particularly stinking mess, and it delivered so much. An aspiring musician mansplains Blur to a pretty girl in a record shop because she's eyeing up the Best Of, and bizarrely enough she falls in love with him off the back of it. Not only that, but they move in together and she packs in her dreams of being a designer to get a decent paying job in Canary Wharf to support the two of them while he sits about getting stoned and getting fucking nowhere with his shit band, Head Cleaner.

The band comes across a bloke called The Curve, who has numerous rock 'n' roll success stories attributed to him, and promises to aid them in their rise to stardom. But fuck all happens, the girl ends up resenting him - you know, for all the pissing obvious reasons - and they split up. Cut forward some time, Head Cleaner gets a gig supporting Foals, it's actually going well but then he starts singing the song "Liquorice Allsorts Girl" he wrote for his ex and he starts crying and storms off stage. Footage of it goes viral on YouTube. Then the chap, who at this late stage in the film has been nothing but a self-pitying fucking arrogant moron for the entire duration, gets a haircut and makes a mixtape and WINS HER BACK AND THAT'S THE END OF THE FILM.

MLiR was honestly dreadful from beginning to end, but the scenes are all so shit and The Curve (oh yeah, played by Ian Hart, lol) is such an unconvincing character, and the endless shoehorning of patter about Radiohead and Blur (after whom the film is named and yet hilariously contains none of their music) is so amusing that it made for a great drunken hate watch.

7/10

We Are Your Friends

Zac Efron's film about becoming a successful EDM producer/DJ was easily the most drab, unentertaining film of the three. I really can't remember much of it, possibly owed to the fact I was most of my way through the second bottle of merlot at this point, but I am sure of the fact that it was just a lazy, dumb mess. Much like Modern Life is Rubbish, though, it was extremely macho masturbatory and it also ended with a very abrupt 'this doesn't seem to be going anywhere, what the fuck's the point of this? OH LOOK THEY HAVE SUCCEEDED IN THE LAST FIVE MINUTES'. It was absolute toss with practically nothing to write home about.

4/10

American Satan

Since it was around 2am at this point and we were completely blotto, we sensibly decided to call it a night and crack on with this one the next day. I crashed on their sofa, we got up around 10am, went out for breakfast and came back with a couple bags of Clapton Craft beers, eager for what we would soon discover to be easily the best film of the three. I'd pored through about 300 films on IMDB's "music" category and, clocking this recent flick starring the singer of screamo/glam metal/whatever band Black Veil Brides as, uh, a hell-raising frontman of a, uh, screamo/glam metal/whatever band, who uh... makes a pact with the ... fucks sake, with the devil... well, I couldn't resist.

It's brilliant in its complete lack of common sense. The devil chap has very little convincing to do in making the band set a fucking van on fire with the singer of rival band Damien's Inferno locked inside. Like, he literally is just like, 'you should do this' and after about 30 seconds of soul searching, they do it. Then really quickly they get the reputation of being the most dangerous band in L.A., they're shagging 17 year old groupies and their mothers, and doing heroin, and stabbing people to death in bar brawls, and they're just getting away with all of it. I'm serious. There's very little comeuppance for their rampant wave of destruction.  This film also completed the triptych of wanton misogyny, not least of all with the frontman's charisma turning their lesbian bass player into a woman absolutely frothing for his penis during one such wild party.

There is so much other absurd bollocks flying at blistering speeds through this film that makes the plot a completely tangled, chaotic mess, and such a fucking great ending, that I won't spoil here because I genuinely think this film is worth seeing. It perfectly fits the "so bad it's good" category, I was compelled and shocked by the sheer absurdity of the entire thing. Seriously it's fucking great.

8/10

Did we call it a day after that? Nah, did we bollocks. We went out and bought more beer and watched Spinal Tap and about three episodes of The Sopranos. It was an incredible session. I got home about 11pm last night absolutely steaming and my guts felt fucking wretched today, but it was worth it.

Has anyone seen these films? I'd like to hear what other people think of them. Personally though the lad in the shop in Modern Life is Rubbish earnestly yelling 'I JUST FUCKING LOVE BLUR' in the poor girl's face was the best bit of the lot.

[Better Midlands]

My 18 year old daughter watches a lot of shite films on Netflix and on more than one occasion has commented on how poor We Are Your Friends is.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've obtained American Satan so it better be as good/bad as you say it is or I'm going to come round and cut your toenails in to irregular shapes.

[alan nagsworth]

I've obtained American Satan so it better be as good/bad as you say it is or I'm going to come round and cut your toenails in to irregular shapes.

Trust me it's an absolute belter. You won't believe the shenanigans they get up to!