Talk about a mixed bag: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains brings together a 15-year-old Diane Lane, a punk band featuring members of the Clash and the Sex Pistols (fronted by an almost unrecognizable Ray Winstone), and a director, Lou Adler, who also brought us the Mamas & the Papas, Carole King's Tapestry, and Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke. Lane plays Corinne “Third Degree” Burns, one of three bored teenage girls (the others are Laura Dern, then all of 14, and Marin Kanter) looking for a way out of their blighted Pennsylvania factory burg. Opportunity knocks with the arrival of a rock show featuring lame headliners the Metal Corpses (a hopeless lot of glam survivors led by Fee Waybill of the Tubes), and the really rocking punk Looters (with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Pistols and Paul Simonon of the Clash). After the Looters' singer Billy (Winstone) takes a particular interest in Corinne—who comes on like a slut but whose motto is “We don't put out!”—the improbabilities begin to pile up in short order. One of the Corpses dies from a drug overdose, and Corinne's newbie punk band The Stains are invited to join the tour after all of three rehearsals. And then a small-town TV report about Corinne and her pals turns them into overnight sensations, with legions of female fans copping their look (kind of Ziggy-era Bowie, with a stripe of white hair that earns them the sobriquet “skunks”), buying their merchandise, and packing shopping malls to hear them play. Just as quickly, it all falls apart: “You were just a concept,” says their agent. The music (especially by the Looters) is good, Lane is effectively sullen and pouty, and Winstone shows the makings of the real actor he will soon become. But the narrative is weak, the character development poor, and Adler and screenwriter Nancy Dowd's point (something satiric about the perils of media overkill) is ham-fisted. DVD extras include audio commentaries (one by Lane and Dern, the other by Adler), and a photo gallery. Optional. (S. Graham)
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains
Rhino, 87 min., R, DVD: $19.95 Volume 24, Issue 1
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains
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