Curiously (and yet thoughtfully) detached portrait of longtime KROQ disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, a California kid of the suburbs in the 1950s--a child of divorce by the age of three and a target for all the bullies on the block--who discovered the heavenly haven which was Los Angeles in the 1960s and insinuated himself into celebrity circles. Doubling for Davy Jones on an episode of TV's "The Monkees", Bingenheimer's Hollywood cache steadily grew until he was practically discovering all the latest and greatest talents to hit Tinsel Town. This visually and aurally dynamic documentary from writer-director George Hickenlooper exists in a quirky sort of vacuum, focusing totally and completely on Rodney's celebrity conquests while ignoring the tumult which was California in the politically strife-ridden 1960s. Bingenheimer returns to the spot where he had once opened a celebrated discotheque in the '70s, attended by the glitterati of show business, before disco music itself killed off the glitter and glam; still employed by radio station KROQ, Rodney (rather listlessly) goes with the flow of the program managers, not relevant to the times but still commanding respect with classic artists. It's a surprisingly downbeat personal portrait of a man who has spent his entire adult life surrounded by legends (many of whom are interviewed), yet who has very few close friends. The film doesn't have the expected snarl and bite, except for one scary moment when Bingenheimer believes friend and fledgling DJ Chris Carter has just stabbed him in the back (Rodney suddenly comes out of his celebrity-induced stupor and yells at the camera, "F**k you!"). Instead, "Mayor" is mostly a ghostly sojourn to past glories, with all hallowed roads leading backward turning up as bittersweet dead-ends. *** from ****
Review of Mayor of the Sunset Strip
