Parents' Guide to Taurus

This woozy, self-indulgent, and overly familiar story about an obnoxious music star fails to generate much interest or sympathy, except maybe sympathy for those who are forced to endure him. Many, many movies have told stories of the pitfalls of fame and the fast-paced, self-destructive nature of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. And, indeed, it just seems irresponsible for a millennial like Machine Gun Kelly -- credited here by his legal name, Colson Baker -- not to have had some warning. Watching Cole go through all of this stuff in Taurus while generally being a jerk most of the time is very hard to forgive, given that he probably should have known better. Moreover, it's hard to know what keeps an assistant like Ilana -- who's quite likable -- coming back for more abuse.

Writer-director Tim Sutton keeps Taurus feeling either off-kilter and unfocused, as if on a drug bender, or hazy and sickly, as if hung over. It's not even a rise-and-fall. It's a flatline, going from one disconnected event to another while featuring very little music (Cole works on one song throughout the movie) and never offering much in the way of hope, suspense, or even despair. When Cole offends and pushes away a fan who just wanted a photo, he suddenly becomes enraged and rushes off on a drug bender, and nothing is learned. It's just emptiness, and it ends perhaps the only way it can, with a thud, a fall off of a cliff. Scoot McNairy provides some color as a record executive who, wearily, seems to understand the soullessness of the business. And Baker's famous girlfriend Megan Fox appears in a scene as his ex.