SYNOPSICS
Roadie (1980) is a English movie. Alan Rudolph has directed this movie. Meat Loaf,Kaki Hunter,Art Carney,Gailard Sartain are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1980. Roadie (1980) is considered one of the best Comedy,Music movie in India and around the world.
Down home Texas boy Travis W. Redfish falls hard for Lola Bouilliabase, a glitter-spangled groupie determined to lose her virginity to Alice Cooper. Hoping to woo her, Travis signs with a travelling rock band and soon finds himself celebrated as the greatest roadie of all time. Between concerts, Travis uses his wits to make sure that the show goes on, no matter where, no matter what. This does not take long for Travis to realize that, compared to the great rock circus, there's no place like home. However, Lola's date with destiny (and Cooper) to become the greatest groupie of all time looms. Can true love survive rock 'n' roll?
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Roadie (1980) Reviews
Should be a cult classic
This was a great movie and if you're into American pop music culture and history I think you would enjoy this movie greatly. Meatloaf stars as Travis W. Redfish, an engineering genius who ends up being a rock and roll roadie and gaining the reputation as the greatest roadie that ever lived. He ends up in this situation when the bus carrying groupie Lola Bouilliabase breaks down on a stretch of road near Travis' home town. Art Carney is wonderful as Travis' father and junkyard owner and the movie is full of cameo appearances by the likes of Debbie Harry, Roy Orbison, Alice Cooper (who Lola is in love with) and has music from a wide variety of 80's artists. I was so impressed when I saw this movie I went out and bought the soundtrack, which is a double fold out album with pictures and some background information. I also liked the movie slogan "The Bands make it rock, but the Roadies make it roll" I think "Roadie" is deserving of cult-classic status, but unfortunately I don't think very many people saw it. I have not seen it in a video store to buy or rent in over 10 years. So if you do see it, grab it! (and tell me where you found it!)
FUN MOVIE
Roadie is a fun movie with a chance to see some rock and rollers on the screen. Meatloaf stars and plays a roadie (big stretch there) who is great at fixing stuff and inventing things. A talent he picked up from his Dad played by the unforgettable Art Carney (the one and only Ed Norton from The Honeymooners). Well Meatloaf hits the road and helps the likes of Debbie Harry and her band Blondie, Alice Cooper, Hank Williams Jr among others. Blondie really sound great singing Ring of Fire. The movie is fun and humorous.
A bonafide B-movie cult classic
I'm probably one of about 5 people in the world who actually saw this in the theatres back in 1980, and I am absolutely thrilled it's now out on DVD. The film is a bonafide B-movie cult classic. Anyone who has ever lived in Austin, particularly in the pre-90's high-tech boom, will treasure the asthetics of the film. It has all the elements that make Austin the weird, unique town that it is. It totally stereotypes Texans, which makes it all the more funny to this Texan. People who don't understand Austin (or Texas) won't get the film, and probably won't like it. High points of the film include a Hank Williams Jr./Roy Orbison duet singing "The Eyes of Texas" (the school song of the University of Texas at Austin) to break up a bar brawl; a high-speed chase through downtown Austin involving Austin police, a Lone Star Beer truck, and a limousine; and an outdoor rock concert, the "Rock N Roll Circus", featuring Blondie singing a cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire". Notice the racetrack to the above right of the stage, which is supposed to be located somewhere in Idaho. Austinites will recognize it as Manor Downs. I recommend the film to anyone who enjoys a mindless, entertaining movie. Brain power is not needed to see this film, and is actually discouraged.
What You Really Want From A Cult Movie
As an "old guy" with a nervous disposition who has enough trouble sitting through many movies once, the ultimate tribute I can give this great "on the road" rock'n'roll saga is that I watched it numerous times when it was on cable in 1981, I have watched it several dozens of times on VHS, and now that it's on DVD, I have watched it several times again. You can put a lot of mileage on this road movie. The film has a rock'n'roll backdropa backdrop we rarely see from the workingman's eye the way we do here. The movie gives us what amounts to real-world views of several 70's favorites (Meatloaf, Alice Cooper, Blondie, etc.). It has a great premise, the howling self-reliant "Everything Works If You Let It" theme. It also enjoys a background soundtrack that fires on all twelve cylinders. But what keeps me watching the film is that it is really funny in an honest, straight-forward way that we have enjoyed far too seldom since Hollywood started grinding out its cookie-cutter farces in the wake of "Airplane." The dual surprises of the film are the really solid performances put in by Alice Cooper and Meatloaf in their respective roles as rock star and roadie. I am unqualified in my admiration of this movie, but I will tightly qualify the people to whom I would suggest the film. This is a "cult" movie in the most real sense of the word and anyone who is made nervous by rock music, farce that is outside of the "Scary Movie" mainstream, or three-hundred pound leading men (Meatloaf) should avoid this movie at all costs. Also, there is a certain good IL' boy mentality at work here that will not play for some parts of the audience. But to the core audience of the film, these are not qualifications, they are recommendations. The thing I am saddest about is that the movie's soundtrack is no longer available. The soundtrack was worth having simply for the long and messy "Brainlock" which plays during one of the few really funny car chases in the history of film.
A wonderfully raucous'n'rowdy rock'n'roll riot
Sheer, unbridled, let it all hang out somethin' crazy lunacy is the order of the day in this raucous rock'n'roll comedy which features the almighty Meatloaf in a disarmingly sweet and robust performance as Travis W. Redfish, a naive, innocent, but eager, resourceful and quick-thinking Texas hillbilly whose natural skillfulness with electronic equipment gets him a gig as a dependable roadie supreme on a frantic traveling rock show. Redfish's off-beat initiation into the sprawling fracas of the manic, anything-goes nuttiness and rootlessness of the peripatetic rock'n'roll lifestyle hooks him up with flighty underage aspiring groupie Lola Bouillabaisse (an endearingly daffy'n'dippy portrayal by thin, perky, squeaky-voiced "Porky's" film regular Kaki Hunter), who wants to surrender her virginity to Alice Cooper. Artsy-fartsy art-house pic maestro Alan Rudolph's uncommonly boisterous, freewheeling, wild-spirited direction allows the skimpy plot to spiral delightfully out of control, punctuating the goofy, insane and increasingly surreal mayhem with mondo destructo car chases, frenzied barroom fights, divinely asinine dope humor, and hilariously crude dumb redneck gags. Besides the two terrific leads, the excellent supporting cast includes Art Carney as Redfish's cranky inventor pop, "Soul Train"'s Don Cornelious as a mean promoter, Joe Spano as a sleazy manager, Gailard Sartain as a rowdy truck driver, and Sonny Carl Davis (Cowboy in the splendid seriocomic indie sleeper "Last Night at the Alamo")as a perpetually inebriated hanger-on. Moreover, there are uniformly outstanding musical appearances by Hank Williams, Jr., Roy Orbison (in one of the movie's funniest moments Roy and Hank pacify a brawling tavern audience by breaking into an impromptu a cappella duet on "The Eyes of Texas"!), Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Asleep at the Wheel, Blondie (who do a great thrashy New Wave rave-up rendition of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire"), and, of course, Alice Cooper. In short, this gloriously gaga, sometimes downright bizarre, and frequently berserk romp certainly has the correct right-on rambunctious rock'n'roll attitude, thereby making it one of Alan Rudolph's breeziest, more accessible, most unpretentious and hence quite hugely enjoyable pictures that he's ever made.