When actor/writer/ director Bobcat Goldthwait revealed earlier this year at Sundance that his next project would likely be a musical adaptation of The Kinks’ 1976 album Schoolboys In Disgrace, we thought, “wow, ambitious,” but we also assumed we’d never see the project come to fruition in our lifetime.
Further doubt on the film was cast when a competing, “ass-kicking” Western called “Rio Male” was announced. But lo and behold it’s happening, it has Ray Davies’ blessing (the Kinks founder is an exec producer) and it has the producers of “Last Chance Harvey” and “World’s Greatest Dad,” — Goldthwait’s Sundance 2009 hit.
Disgrace is a concept album that follows the coming-of-age story of a young, trouble-making schoolboy who, after being severely punished, turns into a hard and bitter character realizing he would forever be pushed down by the Establishment. That young boy grows up to become Mr. Flash — an antagonistic, capitalist overlord featured in the band’s rock opera, Preservation: Act 1 and Preservation: Act 2 (yes, the Kinks really got into their concept albums in the early ’70s).
“It’s the genesis story of a super villain set to music,” Goldwait says in a press release picked up by THR. “It’s the story of the world’s most charming criminal and a realistic high school musical for all the kids who hate sugary, sweet, unrealistic high school musicals.”
Goldthwait wrote the script and producers said the original Kinks songs would be “re-recorded by the eventual cast members, with the album being released to coincide with the movie’s release.”
Goldthwait’s “World’s Greatest Dad” was an underrated gem and while not perfect, boasted tons of uber-dark hilarity and extreme un-PC-ness — and both Robin Williams and Daryl Sabara were tremendous in the little indie.
While the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and The Who got all the British Invasion ink in the ’60s, people are finally waking up the pop genius of the Davies brothers and the Kinks.
Julien Temple, the man behind rock movie classics like “The Great Rock & Roll Swindle,” “The Filth & The Fury” and most recently “Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten” is making a biopic/dramatic feature based on the notoriously fractious and fisticuffs-happy band (mainly its embattled brothers Ray and Dave), and there’s also a documentary in the works called, “Do It Again.”
A Kinks musical film. We never thought we’d see the day, especially in the midst of 3D mania. Maybe some cinema gods do exist. Now all we have to do is hope the film doesn’t turn out to be like recent British-backed music films like the extremely piss-poor, “Sex & Drugs & Rock N’ Roll” or the not-even-released-in-the U.S. picture, “Telstar: The Joe Meek Story.”
great album