Sadly Over-hyped

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

From about the same time as The Buddy Holly Story, American Hot Wax is another story of the renegade nature of rock and roll. It features an impassioned performance by the late Tim McIntyre (who was the saving grace in Robert Aldrich's imperfectly awful The Choirboys), a slew of solid rock hits, and a general feel for the greatness of the breakthrough musical genre of the late 1950's.I haven't seen AHW since USA showed it on their old "Night Flight" movies in the '80's--remember the state-of-the-art computer animation of flying over a dazzlingly lighted city? I saw the movie and loved it when HBO showed it ten years earlier and enjoyed it just as much the second time around. If you can find a copy, watch it for the nostalgia, regardless of historical accuracy.Back to McIntyre. He was a wonderfully menacing chameleon who could play bad guys on TV, then turn around and nail a renegade disk spinner like Alan Freed. McIntyre holds the movie together and you would be wise in finding a copy of American Hot Wax to add to your video--and music--collections.

Late, great, sorely undervalued character actor supreme Tim McIntire, who supplied the stingingly sardonic voice of the vicious canine Blood in the sci-fi post-nuke pip "A Boy and His Dog" and was also a singer/songwriter who did several flavorsome folk ballads for the Western "Jeremiah Johnson" before he died of a heart failure at the shockingly young age of 42, excels in a rare starring role, delivering a fabulously moody and sharply delineated portrayal of pioneering 50's rock'n'roll disc jockey Alan Freed. Freed was one of the first genuine rock music rebels (he was constantly at loggerheads with killjoy censors and unsympathetic radio station executives), the man largely credited with coining (or at least popularizing) the expression "rock'n'roll," the key player who initially made allegedly "forbidden" music recorded by black artists accessible to white middle class kids, and, sadly, one of rock's early untimely victims who took a heavy fall during the notorious 1960 payola scandal and subsequently degenerated into a lonely, forgotten, penniless alcoholic. Director Floyd Mutrux's vibrant, loving, sweetly nostalgic cinematic valentine to Freed and the electric, joyously innocent 50's rock scene recreates this magical era with meticulous care and tremendous affection. William A. Fraker's bright, sparkling cinematography imbues the lively proceedings with an eye-filling array of hazy colors. Fran Drescher as Freed's loyal, irritable secretary and Jay Leno as Freed's always joking wiseguy chauffeur provide broadly funny comic relief. Lorraine Newman gives an endearing performance as a Carol King-like aspiring songwriter. Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis all appear as themselves in the raucously thrilling concert finale. "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" author Cameron Crowe, veteran session vocalist Brenda Russell, and New Orleans rhythm and blues singer Frankie "Sea Cruise" Ford pop up in cameo roles. Granted, the film does suffer somewhat because of John Kaye's erratically plotted and historically inaccurate script (50's and 60's rock songs and performers are all meshed together into a rather preposterous mishmash), but that's a minor debit in an otherwise fine and hugely enjoyable rock movie biopic.

Floyd Mutrux is a golden god of American film making. "Hollywood Knights" is the greatest movie ever made, and this (American Hot Wax) may be the second. If "American Graffiti" can make it to DVD, this can.I would imagine the reason it hasn't yet been released is licensing of all the songs, the reason the Hollywood Knights disc was delayed for so long. Everyone is greedy these days, but isn't a little something better than nothing at all? Let it go, people!It is a great movie about a great time not only in America, but music. This is the 'big bang' of rock n'roll. Chuck Berry wears the exact same clothes from his very own closet as he did in '56, in this movie. The reason the RnR Hall of Fame is in Cleveland, is because that's where Alan Freed started - and he coined the phrase "rock n'roll". In this movie, like the aforementioned HK movie, Mutrux's eye for talent brings to the screen for the first time actors/actresses that would become luminaries in the future. Leno, Drescher, who knew? GET THIS MOVIE TO DVD NOW, thank you. :)

Amusing look at Hollywood's version of the birth of rock n' roll. Some good old tunes were played throughout, the acting was good, the radio station looked like the real thing, but some of the picture didn't ring true [and I don't mean Chuck Berry's lousy acting]. Those rabid anti-rockers were so far out with their "rock music will end civilization" rant as to be totally hilarious; although there were some back then that held that opinion. I liked the film, the doo-wop harmony singers were great, McIntyre played his character to the hilt, and it just felt like going back in time to re-live the events all over. The old timer rockers should go for this one.