Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 75
Fresh: 65 | Rotten: 10
A fascinating, poignant look at the cult of celebrity.
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Critic Reviews: 27
Fresh: 25 | Rotten: 2
A fascinating, poignant look at the cult of celebrity.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 1,523
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
Mar 26, 2004 Wide
Aug 17, 2004
First Look Pictures
All Critics (84) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (66) | Rotten (10) | DVD (7)
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.
Creepily entertaining.
Feels like an elegy for an aging rock pixie.
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.
Occasionally laughable, often sad, and profoundly evocative of the way we live now, adrift in a culture saturated with celebrity and obsessed by fame.
a great doc but sad as hell
A film that critiques our obsession with celebrity while simultaneously exploiting it.
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.
too much in awe of subject matter
Wistful oddball documentary by George Hickenlooper.
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 ...
If Hickenlooper's wistful documentary starts with a short subject, heavier concerns drum in the background.
...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.
Fans of rock music will likely be enthralled by the movie's look at various musical movements.
[The movie,] by exploiting its subject's celebrity contacts, runs counter to the unassuming way Bingenheimer cultivated those contacts over the years.
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
February 16, 2011Super Reviewer
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
February 8, 2010
Super Reviewer
| 35% | The Hangover Part II |
| 25% | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Par... |
| 81% | Kung Fu Panda 2 |
| 44% | Cowboys & Aliens |
| 83% | Rise of the Planet of the Apes |
| 25% | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Par... |
| 88% | Lady and the Tramp |
| 69% | A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas |
| 21% | Fireflies in the Garden |
| 45% | The Rebound |
Journey 2 Not Worth the Trip
What are his 10 best movies ever?
See the all-new action-packed trailer!
Five new Marvelous pictures