This engrossing work, at once compassionate and rigorous, comprehensive and succinct, would be the centerpiece of any festival for the way it illuminates the life and times of the enigmatic, diminutive Bingenheimer...

| Feb 10, 2020

A film that critiques our obsession with celebrity while simultaneously exploiting it.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Oct 26, 2007

Wisely switching from film to DV when the setting demands a more subtle camera situation, it's a mature documentary from a veteran of the form.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 21, 2007

By the end, I felt neither happy nor sad for Rodney. I enjoyed being in his presence for 90 minutes, but I can't exactly agree that he has a magnetic personality.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 15, 2006

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 6, 2005

too much in awe of subject matter

| Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 14, 2005

Wistful oddball documentary by George Hickenlooper.

| Original Score: C | Apr 28, 2005

Hickenlooper is admittedly not an obsessive rock 'n' roll fan, which is an advantage and a problem. He's able to see the subterranean L.A. demimonde through fresh eyes ...

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jan 27, 2005

If Hickenlooper's wistful documentary starts with a short subject, heavier concerns drum in the background.

| Sep 3, 2004

Has a commercial reach that goes beyond local hero worship thanks in part to an all-star lineup of interviewees, including Cher, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Gwen Stefani and Courtney Love, to name just a few confirmed Rod-heads.

Full Review | Aug 10, 2004

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 23, 2004

...a nostalgic merry-go-round. It's quaint, charming, and often entrancing. You're riding the best horse on the ride. And the music couldn't be better.

| Original Score: 3.0/4 | Jul 20, 2004

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 11, 2004

Fans of rock music will likely be enthralled by the movie's look at various musical movements.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 4, 2004

[The movie,] by exploiting its subject's celebrity contacts, runs counter to the unassuming way Bingenheimer cultivated those contacts over the years.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 4, 2004

Worth seeing because its odd, self-effacing subject is satisfying by reason of his very emptiness, and more than a little pathetic.

| Original Score: B | May 25, 2004

Bingenheimer seems to have outlived his usefulness. Yet, his life stands as a testament to the idea that an average-looking bloke with a can-do attitude and a dream in his heart can rub shoulders with the folks the rest of us only get to read about.

| Original Score: B+ | May 21, 2004

By the time George Hickenlooper's Mayor of the Sunset Strip is over, you won't know whether to envy or pity the subject of this oddly compelling documentary.

| May 20, 2004

Fascinatingly probes society's obsession with celebrity through the lens of one semitragic figure.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 14, 2004

A fascinating and sometimes sad documentary about a curious little man and America's obsession with celebrity.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 14, 2004