Telling Lies in America

1997 "Just don't get caught."
6.2| 1h41m| en| More Info
Released: 02 August 1997 Released
Producted By: Kuzui Enterprises
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

A 17-year-old boy becomes friends with Billy Magic, the radio DJ he idolizes, and eventually slips into the payola and corruption of the entertainment world.

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spj-4 I thought this movie was okay but not excellent It had the makings of excellence but didn't deliver mastery. 'Frustrating' is a word that comes to mind for my opinion of it.I liked its music, even its plot, & innocence of some of its characters. I liked too, the underlying moral dilemmas of a young man of sincere & genuine character struggling with the plight inflicted upon him & them in broader prospectives.But it has unimportant matters glossed over, without explanation or rationality, except for naivety for the gullible. Like the DJ Bacon character & his protégé (& others supposedly exacting this scenario in other cities) but so detached from the reality of their situations.LIES is the underlying motive of integrity in situations anything but far from black & white. So it could have been the title of a film disguising lies. But it was not guilty of that by truer assessment.So what about layers of LIES??? Are little white lies beyond a couple of persons, not surely to be distinguished from blatant & career or character destructive lies, layer upon layer, lawyer upon lawyer, judge upon judge, to be evaluated as lies??? So a movie that is 7 out of 10 is neither 5 or 9 out of 10!
helpless_dancer Interesting and well done look at the American pop scene in the sexy sixties. Featuring a oversexed, insecure loser named Karchy who teams up with another oversexed loser disc jockey intent on preying and playing just one more gig in the nowhere business of top 40 music. The charismatic DJ, a burned out cynic, has a history of using unpopular teens to make illegal profits or to cheat them in business deals; which, of course, continues as he rolls into a new town amid a flurry of excitement and adulation. As the rollicking DJ and the impressionable teen play out their drama, another is occurring as Karchy tries to woo an older woman who, for some reason, shows an interest in the love struck teen. Different from most of the gunk coming out today: well worth seeing.
feversUSA It seems some people consider this a neglected "gem," a little movie that got lost among the blockbusters. Could it be it just seems good because it was written by Hollywood hack Joe Eszterhaus and is therefore superior to the trash that usually bears his name?That's what I think, anyway. Being from Cleveland, I looked forward to seeing this especially since I even observed it being filmed on Superior Avenue on the steps of the courthouse there (and I did see it--on video, because it never got an official release, not in these parts, anyway). Watching Kevin Bacon and Brad Renfro film one scene over and over and over again completely demolished any thoughts I had about the movie business being exciting and glamourous. It looked boring and monotonous to me. I also find this movie rather boring. Kevin Bacon's excellent performance keeps it afloat at times, but his efforts are sunk by Brad Renfro who is never convincing and is even somewhat insulting when he attempts what is supposed to be the younger Eszterhaus's Hungarian accent. He sounds like a half-wit instead of an Hungarian. Maximillian Schell as the father is just dull, and should make the director regret his decision not to hire Charles Bronson for fear that it was "stunt casting" (Eszterhaus relates this in his book "Hollywood Animal"). Schell may have an Oscar, but Bronson was just as good an actor, and unlike Schell, had presence and a box-office name that might have gotten this movie a distributor.It was nice to see the old CTS buses that I remember from my childhood, and I grinned when I heard the reference to my alma mater, Cleveland State University. But except for Bacon, this movie is lifeless. There is one other point in its favor: it seems to be sincere, something I could never say about anything else Eszterhaus has written.
Bob-45 Why this little gem didn't get major studio distribution is a real mystery. One terrific performance (Kevin Bacon)four very good ones (Maxmillian Schell, Calista Flockhart, Paul Dooley)and a solid, if not totally convincing one from Brad Renfro (where's the TRACE of an accent?) coupled with a right on script by Joe Eszterhas (rarely has the era been so well captured) makes for a surprisingly entertaining and accessible movie. No where does the movie cop out. The ending is convincing and slightly bittersweet. The dilemmas faced by the underpaid, exploited disc jockeys (in fact, most members of the musical profession) of the era is thoroughly examined. This is a great movie. Can you believe I got it as a bonus with my DVD MPEG Decoder card?Hey, see it for the CARS if nothing else?