Been Watching: Rock Of Ages (2012)

The story:

 Young Sherrie Christian arrives in LA hoping to become a singer. She meets barman and aspiring rocker Drew Boley and winds up working alongside him at the famous rock bar The Bourbon Room and having the sort of montage-friendly relationship you get in musicals..

 As it happens, The Bourbon Room is verging on financial ruin and the owner is relying on a special farewell gig by rock superstar Stacee Jaxx to save his bacon. Assuming he remembers to show up, that is. 

 Meanwhile, the Mayor and his ambitious wife are hoping to make a name for themselves by cleaning up the infamous Sunset Strip once and for all. 

 Can true love conquer adversity? 

Will the Power of Rock defeat The Man? 

Will Stacee Jaxx ever manage to reunite his alcohol addled brain with the rest of Planet Earth? 

How many 80s Rock Songs can you squeeze into one film and how many of them are a UK audience likely to know? 

 What the hell is the deal with the baboon anyway?

Been Watching: The Hangover Part 2

 Hapless Dentist Stu and his mates - plus Alan -  travel out to  Thailand for a wedding. Naturally it all goes tits up. Waking up the next day in a Bangkok fleapit, with no memories, some ...interesting souvenirs..and a monkey, The Wolfpack find themselves once again retracing their steps trying to find out 1. WTF happened the previous night and 2. the bride's teenage brother who was with them when they started the evening...
Now I enjoyed The Hangover a lot  so I was curious to see how the sequel panned out. I'd class it as "OK but..."
 Without giving too much away, the formula runs very close to the original except the law of diminishing returns means it doesn't work so well this time around. Camp gangster Chow makes his return and I'm not entirely sure that was such a good idea. While I'm at it,  manchild Alan comes across as an unlikeable dickhead too much of the time.
 On the plus side, everybody puts in a decent performance and to be fair, it's an entertaining way to pass an evening. I just think it could have been better.
 One final thought: Think about it. Three guys lost in a strange part of the world, their mate is missing and they keep bumping into some very alarming people.
 At the risk of sounding weird, I thought some parts of this film could be dropped into a thriller or a horror movie without changing a single line.