“Rockville, CA” Not Quite Up To “Empire Records” Standards

noah | February 24, 2009 12:00 pm
Yet another sign that “indie” is on the wane: The trailer for Rockville, CA, a Web series created by The O.C. brainchild Josh Schwartz that’s set in a totally cool Los Angeles rock club (hence, Rockville—get it????) and brings to mind such culturally deaf end-of-an-era curios as Go and Empire Records. That setting winds up being fodder for jokes about guest lists and the relative hotness of bass players and the relative hotness of tambourine players, as well as more than a few digs at the commercial savvy of music-geek types. (Burn, you guys. Burn.) And drug use! Because it’s on the Web and away from the Standards And Practices-employed Man, so it can be edgy like that. The only thing that helped me watch it in its entirety was the fact that Ryan “Dick Casablancas” Hansen basically played an amped-up, nuance-free version of his character from Veronica Mars, but your mileage may vary. [YouTube]