The Nightingale
1084 N Milwaukee Ave
This event has passed.
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- When
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Sunday Feb 28, 2010 (7pm)
- Where
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- Price
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Donation $7-10
- Links
Covering everything from LARPers to air guitarists, the aughts' boom of wacky-subject-matter docs was inching toward insufferable when The Rock-afire Explosion hit the festival circuit in 2009. The film chronicles Chris Thrash, a roller-rink DJ obsessed with the titular, creepy/cool animatronic band so many of us remember from Showbiz Pizza, and Aaron Fechter, the developer behind it. It quickly sidesteps I Love the '80s nostalgia to offer something much more impressive. Just as King of Kong was about clashing worldviews as much as it was about a Reagan-era arcade game, Rock-afire is more an ode to hopeless dreamers and a clarion call against easy cynicism than anything else. And it's as meme-worthy as Thrash's own loving Rock-afire resurrections.
