China Kantner Movies

Illeana Douglas delivers a superb performance as Denise Waverly, a fictional singer and songwriter whose life bears more than a passing resemblance to that of real-life pop star Carole King. Edna Buxton, the daughter of a Philadelphia steel tycoon, aspires to a career as a singer, and when against her mother's bidding she sings a sultry version of "Hey There (You With the Stars in Your Eyes)" (instead of Mom's choice, "You'll Never Walk Alone") at a talent contest, she wins a recording contact and moves to New York City. She cuts a record and gains a new stage name, Denise Waverly; however, she soon finds that girl singers are a dime a dozen in the Big Apple and her career as a vocalist goes nowhere. But she has a knack for writing songs, and eccentric producer Joel Milner (John Turturro) asks her to pen some songs for his upcoming projects. Teamed with Howard Caszatt (Eric Stoltz), a hipster songwriter who wants to express his political and social ideals through pop tunes, she finds both a successful collaborator and husband. While her work with Howard gains Denise writing credits on a string of hit records and respect within the industry, their marriage falls apart, and she becomes involved with Jay Phillips (Matt Dillon), the gifted but unstable leader of a popular West Coast surf music combo. Students of pop music history will have a ball with the various characters modeled after real-life rock legends, and the 1960s-style song score includes numbers written by Joni Mitchell and J. Mascis (of the band Dinosaur Jr.), as well as one-time King collaborator Gerry Goffin; a collaboration between Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, "God Give Me Strength," led to a full album written by the two great tunesmiths. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Embracing the supposed nihilism and cynicism of the "slacker" generation, S.F.W. (1995) caused nary a blip on the media-saturated cultural radar screen that it criticized. Stephen Dorff stars as Cliff Spab, an aimless, hard-drinking youth. Spab becomes a national hero when he is one of several people held hostage by gun-toting terrorists in a convenience store. He doesn't care much about his own life or anything else, and his attitude of "So f---ing what?" translates into debates with his terrorist captors and gloomy pronouncements that charm viewers. After a month-long siege, a crisis erupts when the store runs out of beer and junk food, so Cliff finds himself a free man whose celebrity image is emblazoned on t-shirts and whose presence is requested at a rock concert where he is required to do nothing other than appear. In the meantime, Spab's girlfriend Wendy (Reese Witherspoon) becomes a ubiquitous talk show guest. Ostensibly a satire of the celebrity-obsessed culture of the 1990s, the film was withheld from distribution for a year because of thematic similarities to Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Airheads is a variation on Dog Day Afternoon, as well as a comic look at the trials and tribulations of both the music business and Generation X. A hapless rock trio consisting of Chazz (Brendan Fraser), Rex (Steve Buscemi), and Pip (Adam Sandler) hits a brick wall with their attempts to get their demo tape played by record label executives. Chazz, on the edge since being thrown out by his girlfriend (Amy Locane), decides it's time to take more serious action, and he leads his bandmates on a mission to invade the local "alternative" rock station, KPPX, and hold it hostage to get the band's tape played on the air. The station staffers don't realize that they're being held with a water gun, and when they finally agree to play the tape, it gets eaten up by a faulty machine. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi