Of the three movies I’m reviewing this weekend, this was the one that I was looking forward to most; and it’s the only one of the three that’s bad.
As a kid obsessed with music, I’d listen to my albums and 45s (kids, you can look up what a 45 is), and while the songs were playing, I’d pour over the liner notes from the record sleeve. The 45s didn’t have sleeves (well, there were picture sleeves, and I thank The Knack [My Sharona] and Pat Benetar for giving me something nice to stare at).
I remember wondering how Elektra Records was able to sign my two favorite bands – Queen and The Doors. I wondered if Pat Benetar signed to Chrysalis Records because they had a butterfly for a logo? (hey, that’s 10-year-old kid logic).
I had a 45s from Captain Beefheart, Gladys Knight, and James Cotton – all on Buddha Records. I thought it was a weird name and logo for a record company, and such different sounding artists.
Imagine my surprise to find out that one of the big cheeses behind Buddha Records, took a big gamble and went out on his own to form Casablanca Records. I had a few of their records, but didn’t even realize the guy was named Neil Bogart. How clever (well, his real name was Neil Bogatz, but if you’re going to change your name, that’s a good one to pick).
It’s interesting that Bogart’s two kids (one a filmmaker, another a songwriter, who has written songs for people like Beyonce) gave us this story, warts and all. And it’s rather clever when we hear him break the 4th wall early on to tell us: “You’re just going to have to believe all of it because every single bit of it is true. Even the parts that weren’t.”
My wife and I didn’t realize that within 10 minutes we’d be sick of looking at his ugly face, with big curly hair, and annoying voice. And when there’s two hours and 17 minutes of him, that’s a lot to take.
We see Bogart has a poor childhood growing up in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. They had no money and what little they had, his dad was often gambling away (which made me angrier when Bogart starts making money, and losing money, but still keeps giving his pops money to blow on the ponies).
It was interesting to find out Neil Bogart actually had a brief career as a pop singer. It reminded me of the terrific documentary on Doc Pomus 10 years ago (he started out as a blues and rock singer, but polio made it hard for him to stand on stage; so he pivoted into a songwriter who wrote some of the biggest hits of the ‘60s).
I realized the film would have problems when the story begins with Bogart negotiating with a preacher at a church, so he can record their choir singing “Oh Happy Day.” Watching them sing was great, but seeing a suitcase of cash handed over, with the preacher taking stack after stack out, just looked ridiculous. It would be the least ridiculous thing I saw in the film.
One thing that didn’t make sense is how, after leaving a successful career at Buddha Records, he starts his own label, but is constantly borrowing money from the mob (a typecast Vincent Pastore). Just as it didn’t make sense handing money to his dad to gamble, it didn’t make sense that the mob would keep giving him money when he owed them six figures already.
The stories would be interesting to find out, and could have made for a great movie. For example, the first record Casablanca does flops. Ya know what it was? A comedy album by Johnny Carson. Who knew he ever had an album?
When Bogart is intrigued by a few fellow Jewish guys that wear make-up on their faces – KISS – he takes a gamble. And guess what? That flops, too. Although it’s a bit of a spoiler alert for everyone watching, because we know at some point they will become the biggest band on the planet.
Bogart is married to a woman named Beth (Michelle Monaghan), and for some reason Bogart is furious that KISS wrote a song called Beth. I couldn’t follow that logic. Bogart starts to kiss, the manager of KISS (Lindsy Foncesca), and his wife sort of looks the other way as the affair happens on tour.
It was crazy how he was able to get the Isley Brothers to sign, and I’m not sure if it’s really true that Barry Gordy then sent thugs to stick guns in his face because of it.
It was interesting to see how he flew to Germany to get a session singer named LaDonna Adrian Gaines to change her name to Donna Summer. And like with KISS, she wasn’t a hit at first. It wasn’t until her sexy song “Love to Love You Baby” was re-recorded and made longer, and clubs started playing it. In this idiotic movie, he’s practically having sex with her while she records it, to make her moans sound authentic. And when he plays it at a party at his mansion, everyone at the party starts having sex. It made me wonder if his kids who wrote this movie were still teenagers when they wrote the script.
It was terrific seeing Bogart sit at the piano with Gladys Knight, and listening to her complain about the song “Midnight Train to Houston” and wanting to change it to “Georgia.”
Actor Dan Fogler reminds me of Jake Black in a way. He always cracks me up in everything he’s in. So it was nice to see him and SNL alumni Jay Pharaoh, although they didn’t do much that was funny as Bogart’s business partners.
As a music lover, I thought the Isleys (Doron Bell and Jason Derulo) were great, and I was glad a nice chunk of time was devoted to seeing George Clinton (Wiz Khalifa) and Bootsy Collins and the rest of Parliament-Funkadelic. And, you thought Spinal Tap was pissed about the small Stonehenge – well, Bogart was pretty upset he needed to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for the band to have a spaceship on stage.
It was weird that so many of the other musicians didn’t look or sound enough like who they were portraying. Some of the others featured include Bill Withers and the Village People.
The movie also never shows us his relationship with his four kids, and it’s a bit confusing that his ex-wife’s sister was still employed at Casablanca.
Neil Bogart is just too unlikeable to enjoy watching all his shenanigans. I shouldn’t have been spending half the movie hoping the mob takes him out so I could be done with it all.
This won’t even work for the hardcore music lovers.
0 stars.