Theme Song: Ry Cooder-ish twangy harmonica stuff credited to Doug Maynard.
Interesting Dated References: Enough slang terms for sexual intercourse to make a construction worker blush. “Choppin’ some stray beef”, “Jammin’ some gash”, and plain old “Choppin’ beef” are just a few uttered by main protagonist Billy Regis (Chris Mulkey, Quiet Cool, Supertramp “Brother Where You Bound”, K-9000). The crass language was considered such a problem in Patti Rocks that the movie was given an X-rating by the MPAA (later appealed to an R-rating).
Social Context: Despite the language and the general chauvinistic dispositions of Billy, Patti Rocks is a strong statement on feminism and female empowerment. Essentially a road-trip movie following two old friends from Minneapolis, Minnesota to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, on their way to convince a woman Billy has impregnated to get an abortion. It ends up being the pregnant female who becomes the voice of the movie, shining a light on the male shortcomings and contrived ideologies.
Summary: As mentioned, Billy is a piece of shit and womanizer. He’s a drunk and married, and recently got a woman named Patti Rocks pregnant.
After some coaxing and references to past escapades, Billy convinces his more straight-laced white-collar friend Eddie to join him. Patti has stopped taking his calls and he needs to let her know he’s married and can’t have the kid.
Billy drinks while he drives the entire trip as the two friends ramble and rant about life and love. They arrive at Patti’s apartment and Billy can’t bring himself to confess that he’s married.
Eddie eventually goes into Patti’s bedroom to help move things along. There’s great back and forth between Patti and Eddie about marriage and family, but then the entire scene tanks when consensually, Eddie starts choppin’ Patti’s gash in a very ’80s soft-core, multi-position, saxophone (okay, harmonica)-laden sex scene.
Billy walks in and he and Eddie start fighting, but Patti declares her independence and proclaims that neither man owns her decisions. It’s pretty affecting, so maybe it’s the way the overly-stylized, male-gaze sex scene was filmed that killed the indie-empowerment mood of the whole thing.
Then they all have breakfast during another affecting scene where Patti engages Billy about his family. On the ride home, Billy immediately falls back into misogyny and suggests a pay-as-you-go sex system between men and women.
Overall it’s top-flight indie filmmaking through and through. The performances are sincere and it’s a real shame this one has fallen through the cracks.
Worth Mentioning:
– Filmed in and around St. Paul and Minneapolis.
– Patti was played by Karen Landry, who was married to Chris Mulkey at the time and until she died in 2015.
– The characters of Billy and Eddie appeared previously in director David Burton Morris’s first feature Loose Ends (1975). It’s also worth noting that writing credits on Patti Rocks go to Morris, Mulkey, Landry, and John Jenkins (who played Eddie), inferring that a lot of the dialogue was improvised or at least collaborative. This gives a little extra insight into the comfortable nature in which the three leads talk with one another.
Poster and Box Art: The theatrical run poster for Patti Rocks was vague but works for a quiet indie-dramedy.
There’s also a nicely stylized foreign poster.
Unfortunately, things went wrong with the home video release. It was decided to market the film more toward the sex-crazed comedy audience and it’s definitely not that kind of a movie.
