Funny seize the day and forget about the rest

Rating: 8/10 (18 November 2010)

It's a comedy about real young people from the Rock 'n Roll planet in the early 1960s. It's funny but also typically American. There are so many sharks going around looking for young teenage would-be rock stars that it is impossible not to be noticed by one, one day, not to become some one overnight and not to dissolved as soon as the top is reached. To stay at the top is really difficult. A band in those days, and in the USA, was the normal way for anyone who wanted to do some music on the stage to go around but bands did not last long. Everyone is not the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, you know. This is the story of the short-lived Wonders and yet the four boys and the one girl who were there at the first public appearance in the boonies, all eventually did something with their skin and their brains, if they had any, both skin and brains. Today that adventure still exists in the USA but it has also taken names like Myspace music, Youtube, Daily Motion and some others. Permanence of course is nothing in that business in 99% of the cases, but chance is also essential for those who have something in their veins. A career is often 50% talent and 50% chance, some would say opportunity. But the film is funny, though so banal that it should be a warning to anyone who wants to imitate these young teenagers. As the old Paxton would say: look after your money, women and a few other things of that type. Yesterday is a sure thing that existed but tomorrow is as brittle as an egg shell in front of a bulldozer. And the world is full of bulldozers crushing many eggshells down into the ground and powder. Dust to dust mind you.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID