Indy Film Fest - Bootyology
Booty, booty, booty, booty, rockin' everywhere!
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I’m a fan of music mockumentaries along the lines of Rob Reiner’s “This Is Spinal Tap,” Jake Kasdan’s “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone’s “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.” “Bootyology” never remotely hits these heights, but it’s also certainly not without its charms.
“Bootyology” concerns butt-centric rappers brownEye (Chris Lightbody) and sixxxHole (Spencer Yaras), who performed collectively as The Booty Boys. These dudes made a big enough splash touring the Los Angeles club scene in the early aughts that they not only had backup dancer Queen Bootytifah (Megan Duffy), but also accrued themselves a fan/stalker named Kevin (David Theune). The Booty Boys’ success comes to a crashing halt when they’re accidentally locked in a closing bar’s beer cooler and left there, frozen, for the better part of 20 years.
Turns out tech-head Linus Van Lynes (Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.) has invented an algorithm that will tell record companies which artists will break big next. The algorithm fingers The Booty Boys as the next breakout artists despite their disappearance. Capitol Records head Logan Oceanak (Daniel O’Reilly) tasks his underling Kaela Snoot (Alysha Young) with unearthing the missing rappers in hopes of making an album.
“Bootyology” is written by Joe Eddy, Lightbody and Yaras and directed by Eddy, who previously made the Steve McQueen docudrama “Chasing Bullitt.” The movie features cameos from actor/rapper Brian Austin Green as himself and Andy Kindler as promoter Sid Kolchak.
I’ll be honest with y’all – I generally preferred The Booty Boys’ music to “Bootyology” itself. (Go figure. I’m a fan of booties. I’m a fan of rap. Of course, I’m gonna dig booty rap!) There is a subplot about brownEye impulsively marrying fan Becky (Nicole Sciacca) prior to getting frozen and going to live with she and her husband Brock (Matt Hobbie) once he’s unthawed that tickled me greatly. One of the movie’s greatest pleasures is the presence of Steinmiller, a former child actor best known for “Bingo,” “Jack the Bear” and one of my Christmas faves, “The Ref.” I didn’t recognize Steinmiller at first, but once I did I was happy as a pig in shit. (Steinmiller is a member of the electronic music group District 78 alongside Lightbody and Yaras and they composed the movie’s score.)
In regards to “Bootyology” – come for the booty, stay for the tunes – the movie and the laughs therein are incidental.