When Rodney Bingenheimer was just a teenager -- a diminutive, long-haired kid who was picked on a lot -- his mother, a divorced autograph hound, dropped him off in front of the home of actress Connie Stevens and essentially said, "Good luck." Stevens was on location shooting a movie and Bingenheimer says he didn't see his mother again for five or six years after that. The Mayor of the Sunset Strip, a documentary by George Hickenlooper (Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse), tracks
Bingenheimer's rise from the 1960s, when he was a groupie -- eventually landing his first show-business job as a double for Davy Jones on The Monkees -- through stints as a successful club owner and influential DJ to his current status as a fading musical icon. The film takes us from the innocent pop of Brian Wilson and Sonny & Cher through the raucous heyday of L.A.'s punk scene and beyond. Hickenlooper also delves into Bingenheimer's relationships, showing him mourning his neglectful and unbalanced, but beloved, mother and visiting with his father, who never attempted to make contact with Bingenheimer after his mother abandoned him. He also pines for a close friend, Camille Chancery, and helps out a seemingly hopeless middle-aged wannabe rock star, Ronald Vaughan. While Bingenheimer used his skills as a consummate hanger-on and his genuine enthusiasm for rock & roll to become a central figure in the L.A. music scene for a couple of decades and is lauded in the film for his good taste and good nature by celebrities from Cher to David Bowie to Gwen Stefani, his current life is shown to be somewhat sad and lonely. The Mayor of the Sunset Strip is chock full of cameos and features a star-studded soundtrack. It was shown at the 2003 New York Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
Has a commercial reach that goes beyond local hero worship thanks in part to an all-star lineup of interviewees, including Cher, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Gwen Stefani and Courtney Love, to name just a few confirmed Rod-heads.
Captures Bingenheimer in all his celeb-fondling glory. But it's a forlorn sight, one the film doesn't turn away from as it arcs from giddy inclusion to lonely pathos.
At first a wryly comic study of a real-life, shag-topped Zelig ... Hickenlooper's nuanced documentary shifts into far deeper and darker emotional territory once it starts revealing Bingenheimer's heart-wrenching backstory.
By the end, I felt neither happy nor sad for Rodney. I enjoyed being in his presence for 90 minutes, but I can't exactly agree that he has a magnetic personality.
Hickenlooper is admittedly not an obsessive rock 'n' roll fan, which is an advantage and a problem. He's able to see the subterranean L.A. demimonde through fresh eyes ...
...a nostalgic merry-go-round. It's quaint, charming, and often entrancing. You're riding the best horse on the ride. And the music couldn't be better.
Rodney Bingenheimer is more of a 'lucky charm to the stars' rather than a 'fame-fucker' like the detestable sexual vampire that is Pamela Des Barres or the egomaniac with a questionable past that is Kim Fowley - Although I quite like Fowley, he's just not as nice as Bingenheimer. Bingenheimer has both the temperament
and mannerisms of Andy Warhol and he also is the epitome of Warhol's philosophy, 'famous for 15 minutes' if you will. This is an interesting look into the world of a man who hung around with music legends and possibly influenced them to a degree. It's hard not to like the film because Bingenheimer himself is just so likable.
what an odd duck of a doc.
Following around this odd charactor who somehow managed to get in with the in crowd back in the 60's - full of so many flat moments (the father and stepmother scenes are enough to make you grind your teeth to nubs; and yes I understand that it is a juxtaposition shining a light on social
whatsits - but a little goes a very long way!).
I'm sure that patching together all the archival footage of Rodney hanging out with EVERYBODY who was somebody was a daunting task - but really, these glimses and interviews with the famous are the only interesting bits.
Following Rodney to England as he castes his mother's ashes to the sea, and then the final "what do you want the ending of the film to be" question, are just.... too personal and really not rewarding at all - kind of like the film itself.
There are too many moments where the camera focuses on Rodney as he says... nothing! The scenes with his girlfriend (who stares at the camera as if it's her mortal enemy) are creepy - he talks about her as if she isn't there, and then when she finally speaks it's to inform one and all that she and Rodney are just friends and that she has a "boyfriend" - it all comes off so shallow, especially in light of how the film set her up as the light of his life.
The insights about the music/radio business were just perfect however - what a dog eat dog industry - and I will give Rodney credit that, in this day and age where it's all about payola (money given by the record companies to get air time for a band), he seemed to rise above it - creating superstars simply because he liked what he heard - altruistic and the way it should be - but sadly is not.
It's sad how he now seems to be religated to the back burner - as if the scene has passed him by - the corporate scene perhaps, but not the musical one - and that's what he apparantly is staying true to.
An odd film about an odd man.
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