It is with great trepidation that I embark on this week's movie, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It is a movie which I am watching mainly so that Netflix will keep throwing it up as a front page recommendation, as it has been doing for some time. The last time I did this the resulting movie was just 2 hours of a little girl handling really really gross and unpleasant things, putting some in her mouth. This movie here of course is a cult classic, evidently, which means good things for you, the reader, it can be safely assumed, but also gives it about a 20-80 chance of being great or torturous on my side of things.

OK, we're starting off with the 60s-psychedelic opening credits at war with the main-character-and-band of the title making some attempt at 80s glam rock. I'm not a fan here, and as I have betrayed in a fair number of these, I'm pretty darn big on 80s glam rock. After this, we take time to establish that they're a washed up one-hit wonder, and that a former band member covering that one hit is way more successful than them, and that the main character had a sex change, and that the most prominent other band member, who she sleeps with and kinda has the whole Jack Sparrow deal going, is apparently either a pre-op transexual, or at least a cross-dresser.

And now we cut to some crude animation of childhood drawings and weirdly lit childhood flashbacks. Apparently the crudely animated kids drawings are a big thing here. As is the mediocre faux-80s rock. This here new song/animation sequence though at least has this weird pan-religious creation myth deal going on... also a whole bunch of crudely animated nudity. The general gist of it is that love is the byproduct of humans originally having 2 lines of symmetry and then being sliced in half.

Now we're back to weird flashback vision with freaky east-german-torture-mom vs. America-fan kid-Hedwig. And now the flashback narrative is just kinda losing cohesion... and we're jumping around a lot visually, with this now becoming a story told to the sole attendant of an outdoor concert, and we're getting into this whole weird scene of nude pre-op sunbathing in a crater next to the the Berlin wall pining for McDonald's and getting Gummy Bears from a Ving Rhames-ish American soldier with really overt sexual overtones. Also the superiority of Gummy Bears to their flavorless East German equivalent, gummi baren. Then they have off-camera sex as we transition into the song version of this story... sung in a restaurant where all the patrons are very old. Meanwhile, in the past, Ving Rhames is proposing to pre-op Hansel and planning to whisk him/her to America. Unfortunately, this plan only works with an official sex change. As the next song (which doesn't suck for once) explains, in a manner I don't understand and hope not to have properly explained, was botched in some way. While singing this song a riot breaks out and we suddenly get into a crazy slow motion stage dive.

I'd like to take this time to point out that this movie tends to change scenes abruptly, and with no warning, quick constantly. So yeah, we have now stage dived back into flashback land, where Hedwig and Ving are in America one year later... and the Berlin wall is coming down making the whole sex-change plan a really bad idea in retrospect... and we're singing about it again. We're staying in flashback land though. Very Elton John this time around. Of course, the modern band has wandering into the flashback to play in incongruous manner... but finally we transition into full surreal music video land instead... and get a bouncing ball (well wig) sing-along of the chorus.

Back in the present, Former Bandie is ripping off this song too. Wow, we seem to actually be growing a plot in the form of regaining credit for these songs. Also, Jack Sparrow is pondering leaving the band to go on a tour doing Rent. Anyway, now it's more story time with small but growing numbers of fans, no concert now, just getting drunk on an old tire pile. Evil song-stealing ex was apparently a huge dork met some time after divorcing Ving Rhames, who looks a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio. And the first version of the band was apparently just Hedwig and a bunch of random Korean housewives, and did Phil Collins covers. Anyway, eventually Leonardo replaces the Korean girls and mild band-progress is made. Plot progress meanwhile grinds to a halt for a bit, as we spend way too much time on these two falling in love. So, sappy sappy sappy sappy "DUDE WTF IS UP WITH YOUR CROTCH!?!" and Leonardo runs off screaming.

Meanwhile, back in the present, Jack Sparrow is indeed touring with Rent, and divorcing Hedwig. Anyway, Hedwig is now hooking on the street, gets picked up by Leo, they reconcile, and she freaks out about his cover of the pan-religious song said Cyrus instead of Osiris. And then they crash into a truck, and this makes the tabloids... and we're still in flashback land in theory, but getting pretty close to the present. Here would be the tabloid stories which have been floating around leading to a resurgence of popularity. So really, we're about at the start of the movie I'd say. Anyway, we're back into a concert, wherein Hedwig is just kinda generally freaking out and stripping to reveal a lack of boob job, and raiding Leo's concert next door. We transition into Leo playing with Hedwig's band, sans Hedwig, but with Jack Sparrow still, another crude animated bit of weirdness, and then close the movie out with Hedwig just kinda strutting away from the camera down a dark alley totally naked. And that's the end of the movie.

So uh... not sure where to stand on this one as a final verdict. I am generally not a big fan of pretentious artsy movies that just kinda meander along for a while and then have a non-ending, and this is no exception. It made an attempt at a plot of course, albeit just a character arc that ends in the gutter more or less at least. There's also honestly a fair bit of amusing wittiness that I totally failed to convey except for the gummi baren scene. One must also factor in that this is actually a musical, which scores bonus points with me by virtue of it being so hard to find a musical that isn't aimed at little kids these days... but I really was not particularly into the soundtrack despite being into what it was paying homage to. I'm going to have to go with ambivalence. I did not enjoy this movie, but it failed to fill me with any righteous fury towards its creators of supporters. In other words, "meh."