Yahoo News ‘Girltrash: All Night Long’: ‘D.E.B.S.’ Filmmaker’s Lesbian Soft Rock Musical Is a So-Bad-It’s-Good Banger
On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
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Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.
The Pitch: A “Josie and the Pussycats”-Type Spinoff for “The L Word” Crowd
More than a decade ago, “D.E.B.S.” filmmaker Angela Robinson gifted garage band lesbians everywhere “Girltrash: All Night Long.” Too bad most of that delusional target demographic seems to have been too busy obsessing over their ex-girlfriends — and/or future Band Slam prospects — to properly champion this underrated gem from a pioneering voice in queer film. Oh, well! You know what they say: If you want a movie loved right, then you have to throw your own bra at it.
On Letterboxd, only a couple dozen people have labeled themselves as fans of this musical comedy about lesbians in Los Angeles, one that totally works as a spiritual spinoff to the already-popular “The L Word” with maybe even wider appeal. It’s got better word of mouth, but with rough audio editing, some stinkers for songs, and a handful of brutally bad scripting beats, few film lovers could seriously argue that “All Night Long” holds up as a matter of craft. Still, this so-bad-it’s-good adventure in LGBTQ sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll is knowingly joyful in its soapy appeal and wonderfully trashy with its execution. With lines like “C’mon, let her be a gay egg!” ready for a group to recite in unison, Robinson’s forgotten soft rock adventure was made to be enjoyed as a sing-along in a room full of sapphics screaming “Fantasy Crush” like they’re at the world’s saddest, gayest concert.
As a matter of archival consideration, this is also work that’s worth seeing from Robinson who indeed earned writing, directing, and producing credits on Showtime’s flagship lesbian dramedy from 2004 to 2009 and would later work on HBO’s “True Blood” and ABC’s “How to Get Away with Murder.” She also wrote and directed Annapurna’s “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women” — AKA the most famous movie about poly relationships to come out B.C. (that’s “Before ‘Challengers’”) — and she also directed Disney’s “Herbie: Fully Loaded” which, and I can’t say exactly why, but… is also gay, yes?
Directed by Alexandra Martinez Kondracke, who happens to be Robinson’s spouse, “Girltrash: All Night Long” is a prequel to its namesake — an unfinished web series from 2007 created by Robinson that helped launch the now-defunct lesbian social networking site OurChart, as inspired by “The L Word.” “Girltrash!” the show follows many of the same characters we meet in the movie through the (very queer?) criminal underbelly of Southern California. The series reached internet audiences just a few years after Robinson’s debut film about lesbian super spies found success at Sundance; “D.E.B.S.” started as a short screened at the festival in 2003 and was quickly turned into a feature-length favorite by 2004. You’ll notice “All Night Long” dates itself for that reason. All those barrettes and Brangelina jokes you’ll witness inexplicably made in 2014 are in fact a chronological choice, setting up what’s technically a period piece from the mid-aughts filmed less than a decade after the fact.
The events of the online “Girltrash!” never got resolved after OurChart flopped and production on the series ended abruptly. Thankfully, you don’t have to have seen the “original” so long as you’re willing to accept a smattering of disparate elements that are made just a smidge weirder without the context of knowing where these characters were supposed to end up. In the movie, lezzie rockers Daisy (Lisa Rieffel) and Tyler (Michelle Lombardo) have a chance to see their band make it big after they’re chosen to compete in a local music competition. The same night as their show, Daisy’s newly out little sister Colby (Gabrielle Christian) has plans to run into — and maybe hook up with? — Hollywood actress Misty Monroe (Mandy Musgrave) who is running around with her fame-chasing best friend Sid (Kate French).
Some problematic gatekeeping of sexuality from Daisy and toxic dating suggestions from Tyler notwithstanding, everything for the five main women goes relatively fine. That is until the tough-as-nails gangster Monique Shaniqua Jones (a hilariously committed Rose Rollins) gets released from prison and decides to hunt down Tyler to settle a score. Think you’re excited to see Tasha from “The L Word” playing a ruthless criminal who is essentially a modernized take on a Blaxploitation villain now? Oh, baby, you just wait until she raps. Ding-dong, bitch. Ding. Dong. —AF
The Aftermath: It’s Time to Party Like It’s 2007 (Uhh, I Mean, 2014)
I’m a simple man. I turn on a movie named “Girltrash: All Night Long” streaming on Tubi, the official platform for niche homosexual cinema. I watch as a ponytailed butch woman with a regrettable vest barrels into the bedroom of her bestie while she’s in the middle of a hookup screaming about playing something called Band Slam. I smile as she turns to the camera and begins poorly lipsyncing what sounds like a rejected cut from Avril Lavigne’s worst album before her friend’s date asks, “Why is she singing?” Just like that, I’ve found a new favorite disaster musical to adore. After having subjected my friends to one too many showings of 2019’s “Cats,” you better believe that “All Night Long” is getting added to my regular midnight movie musical rotation.
Dropping into Robinson and Kondracke’s trashy lesbian “La La Land” (there’s even a number about Los Angeles traffic!) a decade later with zero knowledge of the lore behind it — There was a web series? Someone turned “The L Word” chart into a social networking site? What? — was a confounding but undeniably fun experience. I spent half the runtime double-checking the release date. Never before has a film so clearly belonged to the pre-iPhone, early YouTube internet as this messy musical with its “Juno”-core cartoon effects and “Dr. Horrible”-esque parody of the genre. It scans that this story was born from existing material: it unspools with the low-stakes charm of a sitcom episode, and the push-pull dynamic between Daisy and Tyler (so blatantly a repackaged version of Katherine Moenning’s “L Word” heartbreaker Shane even a man like me could clock it) is the type of comedic chemistry that could readily support several seasons of misadventures.
The sense of odd chronological displacement extends to the music that (ostensibly) propels the quintet’s night of debauchery and misadventure. As a reformed theater kid who was rehearsing for his school production of “Putnam County Spelling Bee” when “Girltrash!” came out, I recognized the sound as the type of poppy, outdated rock lite style that was popular in theater from roughly 2009-2014, seen largely in Tumblr famous productions like “Next to Normal,” “Heathers,” and “Bare.” Those are musicals where the choreography consists of a lot of purposeful walking rather than dancing. I didn’t like those scores then and I don’t especially like them now. The sound reaches for modern but still feels a solid decade behind the times, forgoing the specificity and nuance that makes the musical style interesting in favor of bland crowd-pleasing platitudes.
I wouldn’t call the music in “All Night Long” good, exactly — although Daisy and Tyler’s final number is an objective bop that has gotten the phrase “as I walk out here’s an ass to kiss” lodged firmly in my head — and yet, for all the questionable singing talent and more-than-slightly corny lyrics on display, I couldn’t help but delight whenever the film lurched into its next number. Part of it is the movie’s lovable streak of raunchiness: clunkers like “By 2 A.M. I hope I’m naked with her/Painted with her, sated by her/By 2 A.M. I’m very acquainted with her” just can’t help but hit when they’re gay, and every song on the soundtrack supplies similar poetry that would do Sappho proud. The regretful audio mixing feels oddly apiece with the film’s cheap DIY internet vibe, which may have seemed amateurish at the time of release but now feels like a window back into a simpler, crunchier time for LGBT cinema.
Feather-light and utterly ridiculous, “Girltrash: All Night Long” isn’t exactly the type of movie that aims to touch you in the soul. And for the most part, its parade of cartoonish gangsters and horny sorority girls doesn’t. But, as a queer relatively new to Los Angeles still navigating the city’s scene, I admit I felt a certain kindred spirit in the film’s true main characters: Colby, a baby gay hopelessly crushing on a dream girl, and Misty, a New York girl disillusioned by the shallowness of her new home. The scene where Colby tells Misty that Los Angeles is “like a treasure chest” filled with hidden gems (“other cities are really slutty, they just have everything out there to see”) is the film’s unexpectedly sweet centerpiece, a moment of connection that briefly captures what makes the city special. Then again, “All Night Long” in general is an underrated great LA film. Part of what makes it such a ludicrously enjoyable watch is that it provides the type of chaotic, beautiful, life-changing night out on the town that I’m stuck looking for pretty much every single weekend.
Sure, there’s a lot of criticisms you can lobby at the film. It’s cheesy, it’s stilted, and its musical numbers are mostly mush. To all that I have to say: don’t shit on my dream, it’s just my fantasy. —WC
Those brave enough to join in on the fun can stream “Girltrash: All Night Long” free on Tubi. IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight movie recommendations at 11:59 p.m. ET every Friday. Read more of our deranged suggestions…
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