HIGH BIAS -- DVD reviews

High Bias audio-visuals

DESPERATE TEENAGE LOVEDOLLS
Directed by David Markey
(We Got Power/Eclectic DVD)
Nearly 20 years ago, inspired by the DIY punk rock scene in Los Angeles, budding filmmaker David Markey and his friends got together and made a movie. It didn't matter that they had little experience, money or, for that matter, talent—if their peers could pick up guitars and make bands and records, they could slap together some celluloid. Cobbled together by Markey and his star/co-screenwriter Jennifer Schwartz seemingly from spare parts (bedrooms and public outdoor spaces used as sets, parts played by various relatives, friends and scenesters), with an original soundtrack somehow extracted from Redd Kross, the result of their meager effort is Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, a quick-and-dirty little film that crosses crappy teen delinquent curiosities like Teenage Gang Debs with The Monkees. Kitty (Schwartz) and her best friend Bunny (Hilary Rubens) run away from home in search of rock & roll stardom, killing Kitty's mother in the process. (Best line in the film: "Hey, thanks for killing my mom for me," to which the reply is a very casual, "No problem.") Wandering homeless in the City of Angels, the pair runs afoul of the local girl gang, steals a guitar from a street musician (Redd Kross guitarist Jeff McDonald) and hooks up with sleazeball manager Johnny Tremaine (Jeff's brother Steve, who couldn't have been more than 18 at the time). As the Lovedolls, the pair embarks on a brief run of success before drugs, boredom and arrogance take their inevitably violent toll. The whole thing lasts barely over an hour (some might call that being "mercifully brief"), so the story doesn't fuck around nearly as much as you might think it would, given the musician cameos, including former Bangle, future Blood in the Saddle frontwoman Annette Zilinskas, then-current Bangle Vicki Peterson and former Black Flag singer Dez Cadena in brief roles. The plot moves ahead as efficiently as possible; the story wraps about the time the whole thing starts to become seriously tiresome.

Since its release in 1984 (yes, this glorified home movie actually played in theaters), Desperate Teenage Lovedolls has taken on a reputation of mythical proportions. After all, besides the various scenester cameos, the film also boasts a nifty Redd Kross soundtrack (including a loving tribute/desecration of "Stairway to Heaven"), and its director went on to helm the documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke. In truth, this low-rent version of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is pretty dire, with Super-8 production values that makes today's camcorder home movies look like 35mm masterpieces, and acting that doesn't even rise up to the level of a school play (except for Steve McDonald, whose enthusiasm mostly overcomes his lack of actual ability). The value of DTL lies not in its entertainment factor (the amateurish video for Redd Kross' "Ballad of a Lovedoll," included here, has a higher degree of that) but in its very existence. It captures a moment in time, however imperfectly, and it's a tribute to the DIY spirit of the period. It may not be a great entertainment—hell, it ain't even close#151;but it's a sweet artifact just the same. Don't worry, though—you don't need to watch it more than once. Michael Toland [buy it]