Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

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

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Curiously (and yet thoughtfully) detached portrait of longtime KROQ disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, a California kid of the suburbs in the 1950s--a child of divorce by the age of three and a target for all the bullies on the block--who discovered the heavenly haven which was Los Angeles in the 1960s and insinuated himself into celebrity circles. Doubling for Davy Jones on an episode of TV's "The Monkees", Bingenheimer's Hollywood cache steadily grew until he was practically discovering all the latest and greatest talents to hit Tinsel Town. This visually and aurally dynamic documentary from writer-director George Hickenlooper exists in a quirky sort of vacuum, focusing totally and completely on Rodney's celebrity conquests while ignoring the tumult which was California in the politically strife-ridden 1960s. Bingenheimer returns to the spot where he had once opened a celebrated discotheque in the '70s, attended by the glitterati of show business, before disco music itself killed off the glitter and glam; still employed by radio station KROQ, Rodney (rather listlessly) goes with the flow of the program managers, not relevant to the times but still commanding respect with classic artists. It's a surprisingly downbeat personal portrait of a man who has spent his entire adult life surrounded by legends (many of whom are interviewed), yet who has very few close friends. The film doesn't have the expected snarl and bite, except for one scary moment when Bingenheimer believes friend and fledgling DJ Chris Carter has just stabbed him in the back (Rodney suddenly comes out of his celebrity-induced stupor and yells at the camera, "F**k you!"). Instead, "Mayor" is mostly a ghostly sojourn to past glories, with all hallowed roads leading backward turning up as bittersweet dead-ends. *** from ****

OK so I thought it showed the human side of Rodney that he had a gift, tho he had little confidence most his life you can tell that. He has perseverance. He defined what Cool was to be up on the Strip. This fella that was ridiculed and made fun of all his life really is someone i think should have respect and recognition at being in the forefront of what was cool in the best of musics era up on the strip. The movie portrayed him for who he was back then and who he is now. There are so many derogatory statements about the movie, I see the points made but I don't agree to many of them. He has had a odd life different then the mainstream. He has mingled with the stars which was his dream and he fulfilled it. The one thing he has not seem to fulfilled is his desire to be in a solid relationship. I think that is all that is missing for him. I mean this is a personal thing and he is a very private person but i know first hand that he has always sought that special person. He dated my sister for a period of time back in the 70s. He took her to the David Bowie concert at the Palladium (ziggy stardust tour if i remember right)in a limousine. She was of course underage like all the young girls back then in the scene. Unfortunately my sister was like a wild cat in a cage, and she left him too. But every time i saw him for many years after he would ask me How's Cindy, tell her to call me sometime. She was special to him there is no doubt in my mind. Myself I respected him and always said hello, my friend Kris and i would sit with him at Dennys many a night back in those days. He was a kind and gentle person. I had no idea about his personal growing up life and this enlightened me. I felt the movie had that tragedy feel and kind of somber because you want to know that he is OK. You want to know that he has built confidence over time but it seemed at the end, he still hadn't found that Happiness he has searched for. He reconciled with his mom after many years but how many people have done this to family members that were not deserving? many many He has had great compassion and a big heart to forgive such a cruel injustice. He has certainly had a terrible time with love interests but has experienced all the benefits regardless. But who can blame him for testing out the waters? Don't we all do that? perhaps on a smaller scale, given the circumstances that he was in that he placed himself in. Camille is and will no doubt remain someone dear to him. She has her own agenda, such is life. I truly hope that Rodney will find what he looks for he is a special person and if you got the chance to know him at any point you'd agree who could not like him he had a odd personality but you just didn't care he was Rodney "Whats happenin?" He should have made millions coining that phrase. Im glad he got a star on the walk of fame he deserved it. I am also glad i got to know him back in the day, in the 70s. I say Long live Rodney! Thanks Rodney for making those days more fun for us.

spoilers this film had a really annoyingly fatuous quality as it smugly attempted to portray RB as a tragic figure because he ain't rich, and has no offspring or real estate. a particularly disgusting moment comes towards the conclusion when the filmmaker asks Rodney "well will this film have a happy or sad ending? it's up to you!" as if anything let's face it not terribly articulate RB could say could possibly compensate for this reductive, extremely condescending hatchet job borne of the choices made by the director. a nauseating example of "documentary"!

If it hadn't already been used, a perfect alternative title for a movie about Los Angeles DJ, Rodney Bingenheimer might have been Almost Famous. Listen to how Alice Copper describes Bingenheimer: `He was accepted by the Rolling Stones, he was accepted by The Beatles, he was accepted by The Beach Boys…' This slightly unflattering choice of words is significant. Not `was friends with,' not `hung out with,' not `partied with,' but `was accepted by.' One critic called the documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip the greatest rock & roll movie ever made. I'd have to watch Stop Making Sense and The Velvet Goldmine again before I could make that commitment, but in my opinion, Mayor isn't even about rock & roll. It's about fame, or the proximity to fame. It's about acceptance. Rodney Bingenheimer's greatest achievement is that, for a generation, he introduced the most influential artists in modern rock to America radio. His second greatest accomplishment was his ability to be accepted. So many larger than life personalities try to force themselves into the spotlight. Meanwhile, quiet, shy, unassuming Rodney Bingenheimer has lived at the edge of the spotlight for his entire adult life. Pamela Des Barres (who appears in the film) is arguably the world's greatest groupie. Bingenheimer is probably a close second, despite the handicap of being male (being a groupie, like being a fashion model or porn star, is one of the few pursuits in patriarchal society where being male is a handicap). But, while Des Barres is a pop icon, published author and happily married to former rocker Michael Des Barres, Bingenheimer is single, lives in a modest home with tattered furniture and has a once-a-week, 3 hour late-night radio show. George Hickenlooper's Mayor of the Sunset Strip is a thought provoking look at Los Angeles and the thin but often uncrossable line between `the famous and the not so famous.' From its opening it seems to ask the question, why is one of the most influential men in American radio not a household name, when so many less deserving souls (cough-Carson Daly-cough) are. From the first frame of the film, I found myself sizing Bingenheimer up to come up with an answer. He's a short, skinny, funny looking guy. He's got what you'd call `a great face for radio.' However, he doesn't have a radio voice and after twenty years on the air he has not developed a radio persona. Perhaps this is why he will never reach the heights of Wolfman Jack, Kasey Casem or Rick Dees (yes, I just used `heights' and Rick Dees in the same sentence. No small feat). He lacks the authority of a Kurt Loader and perhaps was just born too early to take advantage of MTV, the network that can make less-than-handsome music aficionados like Matt Pinfield into TV personalities. Over the span of the film, we see Rodney with the likes of Oasis, No Doubt, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Coldplay and Cher (who Rodney says was like a mother to him, although she looks remarkably younger than he does. Hmmm …). Many of these artists and many more credit Rodney with being the first to play their music on American radio. In photo montages we see old stills of Rodney with Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan, to name a few. We see film clips of Rodney with Jerry Lee Lewis, The Mamas and the Papas and John Lennon. The list is so impressive; if you saw it out of context you'd swear the pictures were fakes. The diminutive Bingenheimer often looks matted into the footage like Woody Allen in Zelig or Tom Hanks in Forest Gump. Before the credits roll we will see Rodney betrayed by his best friend. We will see his unrequited love for a young girl who insists they are `just friends.' In one humorous and painful scene, we see his estranged family searching the house for pictures of Rodney in desperate attempt to look less estranged. Throughout the film two seemingly opposing questions dominate: With all these famous friends, why isn't Rodney more successful? And, why did all the famous people gravitate toward him to begin with?In the end, perhaps the fact that Rodney Bingenheimer couldn't parlay his access to the rich and famous into wealth and fame is not the tragedy of Rodney Bingenheimer. Perhaps the fact that we find anyone who doesn't cash in on their proximity to fame tragic is the tragedy of America. Rodney Bingenheimer is our inner geek, the star-stuck autograph hound in all of us. Hickenlooper's film holds up a mirror to a celebrity obsessed culture, a culture fixated on something 99.9999% its members will never experience. Perhaps this is the tragedy of all our lives. After all, as bad as we may feel for Bingenheimer, the fact remains: WE are watching a movie about HIM, a movie in which he is hanging out with David Bowie, and we are not.