There are tons of spoilers ahead. This blog is intended for those who saw the movie and will probably not get around to reading the book.

As luck would have it, a friend gave me a copy of "The Dirt" a long time ago. I just had it lying there so I picked it up a couple of weeks ago and raced through it, not even finishing the final chapter until I saw the Netflix movie. So, keep in mind I did rush through it, but some of it is pretty fresh in my mind.

So, what did the movie skip over that was in the book? First off, the guys were grittier, nastier, meaner, rougher, sleazier and more insane than the movie. The movie "sugarcoated" the story. The movie was "these guys were scamps" where the book was, "we were lowlifes and when we got money it got worse".

Let's get to things other than "tone" though. First off, if I say the words "Tommy Lee" to you, what's the first thing that pops in your mind? Well, most red-blooded American males would say Pam Anderson and she didn't make the movie. Pam also was the woman that Tommy may or may not have hit and/or restrained resulting in his arrest. He also suspects that it was Pam who called him in for a ticky-tack parole violation which resulted in his prison time (which also makes up a big chunk of the book. Tommy also got a lot of the blame for Vince leaving/getting kicked out and for a lack of focus musically for the band in later years.  Interestingly enough, those who took issue with the movie mostly took issue with Machine Gun Kelly's performance and I can tell you that you're wrong. MGK played Tommy as a big dumb puppy dog and that's what you get from the book as well.

Next up is the portrayal and story of Mick Mars. The movie basically plays him as a guy who hangs out in the shadows then delivers a big wacka-wacka punchline when needed. Mars is dark, like suck the light out of a room dark. Also, I believe it was on the same night that Vince got in the crash, Mick got drunk, walked out into the ocean and passed out, only to wake up like a beached whale the next day (meaning that was almost the end of Mick Mars too).

I guess I can let most of the other stuff go, I just felt like Tommy and Mick got the short-end of the stick on the movie, but maybe they wanted it that way, I don't know. The book, "The Dirt" came out in 2001 too, so with the new movie they were able to come up with a little fairy tale coda at the end (and they live happily ever after playing twenty more years of shows)

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