''Groove'' is a 2000 American film directed by

Greg Harrison Greg Harrison (born May 4, 1969, in Michigan) is an American film director and editor. He graduated from Michigan State University where he got his early film experience with MSU Telecasters. He has directed films such as ''Groove Groove or ...

. It portrays one night in the

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

underground

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

scene. Through a single

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

, the word spreads that a huge rave is going to take place in an abandoned warehouse.

John Digweed Thomas John Digweed (born 1 January 1967) is a British DJ and record producer. ''DJ Magazine'' voted him World No 1 DJ in 2001. As well as achieving success as a solo act, he has collaborated with Sasha as Sasha & John Digweed, and with Nick M ...

has a cameo as himself and also contributed to the soundtrack with

Nick Muir Nick Muir is a British musician, songwriter and electronic music producer. He is best known as one half of the electronic music duo Bedrock, which consists of himself and DJ John Digweed, although he also found success as a solo artist. Career ...

, under their production alias

Bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...

Plot

''Groove'' tells the story of an all-night rave. The film is broken up into segments according to which DJ is spinning and features real-life DJs Forest Green, WishFM, Polywog, and Digweed. Introverted aspiring writer David Turner is reluctantly dragged to a rave at a warehouse by his brother Colin. David takes ecstasy for the first time and makes a romantic connection with fellow raver, Leyla, who has newly moved to the Bay Area from New York.

Cast

Production

After being turned down by studios for funding, production costs were met by selling shares of the film to investors similar to

angel investment An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

of a startup company. The film was shot in the San Francisco area and included scenes at Pier One,

Fillmore Street Fillmore Street is a street in San Francisco, California which starts in the Lower Haight neighborhood and travels northward through the Fillmore District and Pacific Heights and ends in the Marina District. It serves as the main thoroughfare an ...

China Basin San Francisco, in the US state of California, has both major, well-known neighborhoods and districts as well as smaller, specific subsections and developments. While there is considerable fluidity among the sources, one guidebook identifies five m ...

, and the Bay Bridge. Principal photography took place in 24 days in August and September of 1999.

Release

''Groove'' premiered at the 2000

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

, where it was acquired for distribution for $1.5 million by

Sony Pictures Classics Sony Pictures Classics Inc. is an American film production and distribution company that is a division of Sony Pictures. It was founded in 1992 by former Orion Classics heads Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom. It distributes, produc ...

. It was given a limited theatrical release on June 9, 2000.

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 57% based on 51 reviews, with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating of 6.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Though high on energy and great techno tunes, ''Groove''s characters and plotlines are too clichéd to be engaging." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 54 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". At the

16th Independent Spirit Awards The 16th Independent Spirit Awards, honoring the best in independent filmmaking for 2000, were announced on March 24, 2001. It was hosted by John Waters. Winners and nominees Special awards John Cassavetes Award ''Chuck & Buck'' * ...

, ''Groove'' was nominated for the

John Cassavetes Award The Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award is presented to the creative team of a film budgeted at less than $500,000 by the Film Independent, a non-profit organization dedicated to independent film and independent filmmakers. It is named after ac ...

References

External links

* *{{AllMovie title, id=187018, title=Groove 2000 films 2000 directorial debut films 2000 drama films 2000 independent films Films about drugs Films set in San Francisco Films shot in San Francisco American LGBT-related films LGBT-related drama films 2000 LGBT-related films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films