Roadie DVD/blu-ray

Ron and Bobby peeping Peppi

(magnolia pictures) First things first: a few minutes into this film the hero, a washed-up roadie (which is apparently not an oxymoron) enters a Queens dive bar, and sitting at the end of the bar is Peppi Marchello of the Good Rats! Though he doesn’t have a speaking part, nor does he appear again, DeNiro, couldn’t have looked up from his newspaper with weary indifference any better than my man, Peppi! And if that ain’t enough, when the roadie (for B.O.C., btw, so the film has lotsa their music on the soundtrack) gets his high school girlfriend back to his old room at this mother’s house, they actually pull out a Good Rats LP and play a few songs! I was flipping out! Thusly, I am highly recommending this movie on the basis of Rat-titude alone. As far as the film, Ron Eldard, Lois Smith, Bobby Cannavale, and Jill Hennessy (the Law and Order ADA who did not get chopped up in a car trunk) do a pretty nice job with the acting (granted, I don’t know what a Forest Hills accent is supposed to sound like, so maybe they’re embarrassing themselves), and the story is definitely decent. After decades on the road with Blue Oyster Cult, the fired roadie un-triumphantly returns home and feigns triumph as high school bullshit bubbles up again, culminating in chaotic hotel room coke party. But hey, even if that’s not your cup of cocaine, I hope you and everyone sees this, and it shows on continuous loop on cable…Peppi could use the royalties!