Get Crazy

Allan Arkush's 1983 American film is a music comedy turning around the preparations for a New Year's Eve concert. A small venue operator resists a giant promoter who wants to take the hall; the plot is a pretext and the film is built as a carnival of rock culture. Arkush had actually worked at the Fillmore East, and the film's detail comes from there: the technicians, the backstage chaos, the ticket takers. Malcolm McDowell's parody of Mick Jagger and Lou Reed's parody of himself are its most cited passages. The narrative is entirely scattered, and deliberately so; the humour is loud and of its period. It failed commercially and later became a cult film. Who it's for: viewers who like eighties cult comedy and rock culture. Who it's not for: anyone wanting an orderly story, or who will find the drug jokes excessive.