Eddie and the Cruisers (1983)

not horrible nor great

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Released in 1983 and directed by Jon Amiel, "Eddie and the Cruisers" is a rock drama about a TV reporter (Ellen Barkin) who picks up the story of a legendary early 60's rock band that prematurely ended when their charismatic leader, Eddie Wilson (Michael Paré), died when his Chevy went off a bridge, although his body was never recovered. The newswoman interviews the living band members 18 years after their heyday and tries to track down the missing tapes to their never-released avant-garde second album. The band members are Frank (Tom Berenger), Joann (Helen Schneider), Sal (Matthew Laurance), Kenny (David Wilson) and Wendell (Michael "Tunes" Antunes), while their bullcrappin' manager is Doc (Joe Pantoliano).This was the inspiration for 2009's "The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll" but both movies have their distinctions, as well as pros and cons. "Eddie" is about a band from the early 60s whereas "The Perfect Age" is about a Guns N' Roses-type band whose heyday was in the 80s. Each film starts out shaky as the story is set-up, but they progressively get better. Both films feature charismatic frontmen with diametrically opposed styles, but also very similar when you think about it. Each feature revealing chats amongst the characters with "Eddie" shining in the final act when it unveils Eddie's youthful place of solitude, Palace of Depression (which is an actual place in southern New Jersey, Vineland; a building made of junk built by the eccentric George Daynor, a former Alaskan gold miner who lost his fortune in the Crash of '29). Growing-up, my gang had several hidden spots where we'd meet, each with a name known only to us; I even had a personal "My Place" in the woods behind my parents house on a lake where I'd often go for private reflection. When I was 15 I planned to commit suicide there, but thankfully didn't go through with it. The movie gets points for including such an existential element.Was Eddie still alive or did he die in 1964? The ending reveals the truth and the way it's done is superlative.So which movie is better, "Eddie" or "The Perfect Age"? They both shoot for greatness and in some small ways attain it. Disregarding the rockin' performances, "Eddie" is more location-bound and therefore dramatically sedentary whereas "The Perfect Age" is a road movie in disguise and therefore seemingly more eventful. In my opinion the music's better in the latter, but then I prefer the heavier side of rock/metal over the Bruce-Springsteen-in-the-early 60s style of "Eddie" (which is good for what it is, don't get me wrong). "Eddie" stands out for including the Palace of Depression angle and contains superb lines in the final act, but "The Perfect Age" soars in its own way, like Spyder & Eric's brouhaha in the rain and the blues bar sequence (featuring cameos by legends Sugar Blue, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Bob Stroger). Then there's the powerful climatic scene in "Perfect Age" at Spyder's ritzy mansion with Jane's Addiction's "Three Days" playing in the background, which just so happens to rank with the all-time best cinematic scenes utilizing rock songs, like the close of 1998's "Buffalo '66" with Yes' incredible "Heart of the Sunrise." The songs by the fictitious Eddie and the Cruisers were composed/performed by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. The main song, "On the Dark Side," became a #1 hit for the band and "Tender Years" was a minor one. Most of the cast weren't musicians, although Matthew Laurance (Sal) learned how to play bass for the movie. Only Michael "Tunes" Antunes, the sax player for the Beaver Brown Band, and Helen Schneider (Joann) were professional musicians.Speaking of whom, I can't close without mentioning how Helen really shines here. No, she's no Meryl Streep, but she's great for her role in "Eddie." You could say she's The Perfect Rage of Rock 'n' Roll (sorry, that was just DUMB). I should also add that it's interesting to see Berenger, Barkin and Paré when they were so young.The film runs 95 minutes and was shot entirely in New Jersey with the exception of the college sequence, which was filmed just across the Pennsylvania border at Haverford College.GRADE: B+

... and I don't care how seductively Ellen Barkin wraps her lips around a cancer stick or her legs around a chair, I'm just not buying her theories and I'm just not buying The Cruisers as a group that would eclipse the Beatles or anybody else in music in 1963-1964, had Eddie lived, and she is out to determine if Eddie is still alive, since his body was never found after his car went off of a bridge in 1964.Nor am I buying that although the cruisers have seemed to move on, as in they are making a living doing something else, that ALL of them seem to be stuck back in 1964, right down to "Eddie's girl", Joann Carlino, who after 19 years still has the outfits she wore back in the day, even more amazingly she fits in them. You'd think at some point her biological clock would start ticking - after 19 years you'd think the alarm on that clock would be ringing like crazy. Actually, Eddie was not very nice to any of the other Cruisers, so I could never really get why they were so stuck in the past.Joann is so stuck in the past that when it appears that Eddie's car drives up into her driveway, she just dresses the way she would have dressed twenty years before and goes downstairs to find - well, watch and find out.Yes, "The Dark Side" is good music, but it is obviously 80's music - even more obviously over 30 years later - and Michael Pare as Eddie is obviously lip syncing the vocals.

I grew up in South Jersey during the 60's. (To us natives it is either North Jersey or South Jersey) and actually played in a garage band during high school.I lived down the street from where they filmed Doc's apartment and spent many summers "Down the Shore". I remember almost all the locations in the film. Anyway, for me this movie is a trip down memory lane. There are really very few goofs and the producers got it right for the 60's in Jersey. I first saw this in 1985 on video. I am currently looking at it 26 years later. Still tugs at the heart strings as it did a quarter of a century ago!

Eddie and the Cruisers is a incredible time capsule of a movie. It captures the era so incredibly and it gives us a mystery story as well. in 1961 Eddie Wilson formed his band the Cruisers after playing beach bars and other Jersey establishments they meet Frank Ridgeway a drop out from college tending bar.Frank captures Eddie's attention because Frank is smart he's educated and he can write songs like nobody else is doing. Eddie wants to be great and he sees that with him and Frank writing the songs the Cruiser's making the music that they'll go places and be Big. When frank joins things start breaking big for them one of their songs ON THE DARK SIDE is a hit. Satin records wants more and so Eddie goes back into the studio with the Cruisers and makes a record Satin considers horrid .Eddie storms off and the next day his car is fished from the ocean the viewpoint is Eddie is dead. Flash forward 20 years later Eddie and the Cruisers are white hot their music is in a revival and interest in Eddie is mounting. When Frank now a teacher starts exploring their history he finds out that someone is looking for the lost tapes and murder might be a option for them to get their hands on the tapes. the movie is told in flashbacks mixing it with the present and giving us a wonderful gem of a movie that rocks.