The Naked Brothers Band - The Movie (DVD Only)
The Naked Brothers Band is a kid rock band that performs surprisingly catchy original songs written by 9-year-old Nat Wolff and performed by Nat, his 6-year-old brother Alex, and young friends Cole Hawkins, Allie DiMeco, Joshua Kaye, Thomas Batuello, and David Levi. Contrary to its name, the band performs fully clothed. The Naked Brothers Band--The Movie is a mockumentary comedy that blends the story of Nat and Alex's sudden and sometimes difficult road to stardom with a satirical take on the popular rockumentary genre with its requisite focus on the stormy, sordid details of the lives of famous musicians. Produced by Nat and Alex's mother Polly Draper (thirtysomething) and jazz musician father Michael Wolff (The Arsenio Hall Show"), the movie follows Nat, Alex, and the other band members through home footage of the band's early preschool days (when they did indeed perform mostly naked and simply banged away on whatever was handy to make "music") to more professional footage of current day concerts which highlight a remarkably poised group of young musicians performing increasingly popular songs like "Crazy Car" and "Got No Mojo." Interview footage makes up the bulk of the program and is immensely satirical, featuring exaggerated scenes that detail Nat's uneasy habit of speaking to Rosalina (Allie DiMeco) with a fake accent to cover his attraction to her, Alex's development of a lemon-lime soda addiction that lands him in a rehabilitation Soda-holics at Sea program, and Alex's tendency toward inappropriate "potty-mouth" remarks. Obviously, guest stars like Arsenio Hall, Cyndi Lauper, and Uma Thurman found the parallels to the extreme behavior of famous adult personalities humorous, but what speaks to some as a funny spoof on the Hollywood rockumentary genre is so over-done that other viewers will find it distasteful, offensive, and/or inappropriate for children. (Ages 9 to 13) --Tami Horiuchi
