Down & Out With The Dolls

Writer-director Kirk Voss's third foray into the world of struggling musicians — his first without BORDER RADIO (1987) and SUGAR TOWN (1999) director Alison Anders — is more than a little reminiscent in tone and style of '80s artifacts SMITHEREENS and LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS: Scrappy, scruffy and more energetic than polished. The same could be said of the Paper Dolls, the all-girl Portland, Ore., band whose brief rise and ignominious fall it chronicles. Guitarist-songwriter Kali (Nicole Barrett) has a drummer — bisexual doper Reggie (Kinnie Starr) — and a bass player, Lavender (Melody Moore), but needs a lead singer to make the g...