Possibility. Your own path. Risk being ridiculed. "Happy sad".

Rating: 10/10 (27 May 2016)

It's a few days before the end of May, 2016, and the year in film might already be over as far as I'm concerned. It did not seem that way to me after the first time I saw this film - the "Mary Sue"-ism of the band's progress in quality, the strange appearance of a 1987 song in a 1985-set film (Starship's track at the party towards the end - from the movie 'Mannequin'), me asking myself which characters were responsible for editing the music video for 'Riddle of the Model' so decently / well?, and a couple more quibbles. These minor details became less important by the second viewing, and completely unimportant by the third and fourth viewings. They were replaced by: the girl that inspires your work, the work that allows you to ignore your current circumstances, the "adults", however few they may be, that actually notice what you're doing and encourage you / help you / are happily there for you, the friends you make as a result of putting yourself "out there", the joy of coming up with new material, "who are you, Steely Dan?", the fantastic storyline with Barry - the 'bully' who is incorporated into the group as the roadie with M's "Pop Musik" playing in the background, Brendan and Raphina meeting towards the end of the film, Eamon's mother (hahah), Flash and the Pan's "Waiting for a Train", The Cure on a film soundtrack, "Depech-E Mode", cookies between kisses, and Raphina... and Brendan. When even Adam Levine works perfectly for the film's ending, you know things are clicking.
On a side note: my profile has my location as San Juan, Puerto Rico, but I did not see this film there... since it has not been shown there, and I unfortunately would not be surprised if it ended up not showing there at all before home video (hope I'm wrong).
On a second side note: while in early high school, we tried to make a music video to compete in MTV's make-a-video contest for Madonna's track 'True Blue'... and failed impressively. Hence my immediately noticing the editing in 'RotM' :)