Audience Member
Why the hell does anyone ever go to Los Angeles? Oh, sure, it's supposed to be the "city of dreams" for young actors and the like, but aren't there enough films, tv series and books warning people that actually supporting yourself through your craft is going to be a nearly-inconceivable giant pain in the ass? Do we need a freaking public service message where Corey Haim warns young acting neophytes, "Don't come to Los Angeles. I'm a slovenly, puffy, washed-up has-been at 30 who lives in his mother's basement and sells himself at fan conventions*--and I'm one of the lucky ones."
Of course, it doesn't matter how many warnings people get--they're still going to do stupid crap like going to L.A. to pusue their dreams, try heroin or watch UPN. We can't stop them. This is still America**.
Tod DuPree is one of "the lucky ones," at least in the sense that he's managed to get a career as the director and writer of the TV series "Gordo's Road Show." I don't know what that is, but National Lampoon is involved, and that can't be good, but I'm sure it pays the rent. But DuPree was a struggling actor for years before he landed that, um, choice gig, and that struggling era is chronicled in [i]Rhinoskin: The Making of a Movie Star,[/i] a low-budget flick with distribution and a cult following much lower than it deserves.
The sandy-haired, likable DuPree has just moved to L.A. from Holland, Michigan, straight out of high school and ready for his shot at the big time. He dutifully goes to acting classes and auditions, but never quite gets the break he needs, at least until the climax, where he lands a one-line part on "Doogie Hauser, M.D."
The film wisely uses DuPree as a jumping off point for exploring the riches of Hollywood types ready to make a quick buck off of actors simply trying to be their best. There's a plastic surgeon, a doc who specializes in enemas, a fashion consultant and the like, all of whom give DuPree specific advice on how to be at his best for casting directors. It's a bit like watching an episode of "Penn & Teller's Bullshit!" except that nobody within the film calls them on it, and it's just sort of depressing.
It's admirable that the filmmakers never try to take the movie off the rails by obviously staging sequences with actors doing over-the-top caricatures, so the whole thing has a very real, very vaguely melancholy feel to it. Sure, it's funny, but it's funny in that schadenfreude way where you're glad you're just not as delusional at the lead, but you know you would be if you were in his position.
In the film's most interesting segment, the crew goes back to Holland to talk with the townspeople there about DuPree and Los Angeles in general. Some of the comments are so telling about the ideas that people who live in small towns have about big cities that it's no wonder the press claims the country's just a big political divide, and the fact that the comments seem to rambling to be rehearsed solidified the movie's realistic edge in my mind.
Okay, so the filmmakers can get a bit "cute" sometimes, like the intercutting between DuPree and a girl he has a crush on who doesn't even seem to be aware of him in sequences that seem very staged. Silly editing tricks like that and the habit of cutting to a quick clip whenever certain words are said (DuPree's mention of "mom" gets us a cut to his mother) get old fast, but you can overlook them even if they tend to distract from tone of the film itself.
Rhinoskin is an often funny, often downbeat and frequently both doc that deserves more exposure than it's gotten, if for no other reason than to warn people to stay the hell away from Los Angeles. Though the message may have been more effective if DuPree hadn't continued to work there (most likely thanks to this film) and had instead been found dead at 24, overdosed on sixth-rate cocaine, lying in his own vomit dressed only in a training bra.
[size=1]* -- The last part is just a rumor, but a fun one.[/size]
[size=1][/size]
[size=1]** -- Pending.[/size]
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
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