Bang Bang Baby

It's 1963. Stepphy (Jane Levy) is a small town Canadian teen desperate to break into the music world. She records a song demo and sends it to New York City. She gets accepted into their contest. Her dad George Holiday (Peter Stormare) refuses to allow her to go. The local chemical plant accidentally releases a toxic gas. After a bad school dance with Fabian, she gets picked up by her singing idol Bobby Shore (Justin Chatwin) and his German friend Helmut. Fabian tells her that the chemicals may cause mutations.

This is a weird little Canadian indie musical. I like Jane Levy although she's not a top singing talent. Her singing is good show tune level. The old fashion crooning does get tiring which slows down the pacing. Filmmaker Jeffrey St. Jules seems to have quite a few ideas although they need to be sharpened into something with a bigger punch. I like the first half hour with its surreal touches but it descends into surreal dream chaos. It goes from cute weird to crazy melodramatic weird. It's not crazy enough to be outrageous but it is crazy enough to be non-traditional. It's weird and interesting. It's not cohesive enough as a story.

Stephanie (Jane Levy) wants to be a singer and gets a chance to perform for a talent show in New York City but her dad prevents her. She also idolizes an actor Bobby Shore (Justin Chatwin). An accident happens at the chemical plant in town and people start to mutate. Bobby Shore arrives and meets her. More crazy stuff happens after that but I don't want to give the story away.

The movie has a David Lynch feel to it and also has musical numbers which entertaining as well. I have to wonder if some of La La Land was not inspired by this movie but I doubt it.

Worth watching if you get the chance.

It's really interesting... Bt casting is not so good..hope for the best

When I heard this was an absurdist musical with mutants, I assumed it was going to be a comedy. It's not. This movie had some interesting ideas and played with what is real and fantasy, but the whole thing is just so miserable to watch. I don't know who I would possibly recommend this to.

This is a fun movie for Jane Levy fans. Otherwise I can see how others may get up and leave, like my wife did after about 25 minutes. We watched it on Amazon streaming movies.

Levy is Stepphy Holliday, a small town Canadian girl who aspires to singing and/or acting fame. She does her own singing for a number of songs and even though she is just a passable singer it sort of fits the time period, 1963, when many of the popular female singers were just "passable" but became popular. I was 18 in 1963, I remember it well.

Anyway the gimmick here is a local chemical plant has an operational upset, a purple haze permeates the area, locals begin to develop an assortment of abnormalities, usually a growth where one doesn't belong. After seeing the movie it is not clear to me why the purple haze was necessary, the story develops along an unusual path and when it was over I thought "so what!"

I like Jane Levy, she is very entertaining in her role, had it not been for her I would not have enjoyed this very quirky and unusual movie. My rating is "5".