offbalance | Jun. 18th, 2016

So, I finally watched Roadies. I get why my friend who works on stage crews was angry. There are two levels of supreme badness in my mind - so bad I was angry, and so bad that I was impressed. So bad that I was angry, well, that just shows me how much opportunity was missed on a potentially good concept. But this was the latter - the premise was likely a dog from the start (although I think would make a great documentary if you spoke to actual road crews about their experiences and day-to-day), and things just went downhill from there. Cameron Crowe’s “women problem” is writ large here - you have three female characters, all that fall into the archetype of Mother Figure (Carla Gugino, who still manages to be good in this somehow), Maniac (the stalker girl, who was Penny Lane tipped into psychotic parody), and the Moron (the Wide Eyed Manic Pixie Blonde Dreamgirl [WEMPBD] we’re supposed to align ourselves and root for). Every next turn of the story had no interest in credulity - and when it attempted to step into those waters, the turns of plot were impressively dated (likely back to the 1980s and the last time Crowe was part of a tour as a journalist). The male characters weren’t much better - there was the POC there just to provide Wisdom to the WEMPBD,there was the sad manwhore who just can’t manage to do his job, some guy with a man bun who I think was supposed to be edgy, and the dude who had a fake British accent because funny? Maybe? And of course, everyone get ready to boo and hiss at the EVIL BUSINESS DUDE who wants to make sure THINGS ARE PROFITABLE! WHO WANTS TO DO A JOB TO MAKE MONEY, AMIRITE? ISN’T IT ALL ABOUT FEELINGS? (I mean, I know that’s why *I* go to work everyday. Not the paycheck that allows me to pay rent or anything). Roadies took the most eye-roll-inducing moments of Jerry Maguire (ones that you wrote off because you figured it was Tom Cruise Cruising) and Almost Famous (which you wrote off because you figured it was a nostalgia piece from the perspective of a 15-year-old), and mashes them together into a giant saccarine stew. (They accuse the old road dog of a horrendous, horrendous crime, but the WEMPBD feels bad for him getting fired and indicted because of his comb over? I nearly threw my ipad across the fucking room.)

While Vinyl had the potential to be good but was squandered by egos, bad writing and the most spectacular overacting this side of William Shatner (Bobby C, I love you mang, but what works on stage does not work on the little screen), Roadies is, in my mind, one of the most spectacular train wrecks of the year. I will likely watch a few more episodes just to see how much worse it gets. Because it’s horrible, terrible, no good and very bad. So bad that I want Showtime to get a few road crew members together to comment on it during episodes in the style of Statler and Waldorf (or MST3K, whichever is your pleasure).

As my friend