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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Staying In / Classic Is Punk Rock (In Movies) Dead?

Posted by Travis Ritter on Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 11:52 AM

It occurred to me last night, while watching Penelope Spheeris' awesome 1983 flick, Suburbia, that the only good movies about punk rock were made in the 1980s (see also: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains). While Suburbia is rife with bad acting (provided by the cast of LA street punks who had little or no prior acting experience), it's one of the few films that covered the many facets of punk life: the squatting, the vandalizing, the drug-using, the harassment, and suburban garage-raiding that delinquent, disaffected youth runaways did to survive (and die for). While the drama features three LA punk bands at the time (D.I., T.S.O.L., and The Vandals), aside from the concert scenes, the movie barely has much of a soundtrack. Perhaps because it really doesn't need one: the real soundtrack to LA punk rock was already documented in Spheeris' documentary about LA's punk scene, The Decline of the Western Civilization, that showed how those natty punk rockers we now call legend lived and worked back then. (Darby's wasted! X give themselves tattoos! Black Flag live in a church!)

Aside from those films that incorporated "punk rock" main characters, like Valley Girl (key line: "I like tacos and my favorite color is magenta"), no one has made a movie quite like Suburbia, where punk rockers made the choice to abandon all of life's luxuries and live happily in squalor. What about SLC Punk, the movie preaching anarchy, giving the middle finger to society, and not selling out, that in the end, ends up selling out? That movie wasn't punk rock. It was a movie about a privileged kid, living in a spacious apartment with Black Flag lyrics tagged on the wall, who partied and dictated what anarchy was, thinking he was some God-send existentialist that felt punished for living in Salt Lake City 1985 instead of London 1977. Yeah, that movie was terrible (as if casting Matthew Lillard as said punker wasn't evident enough.)

Have there been any other films about the true punk rock lifestyle, and I don't mean the glorified bio-pics of Darby Crash, or Sid and Nancy, or on any one particular punk band? Or are punks just left to characterize themselves on the city streets?

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Their music didn't really fit, but I thought that "No One Knows About Persian Cats" movie about bands in Iran was punk as fuck.

Posted by Ezra Ace Caraeff on February 23, 2011 at 12:00 PM

punk is dead

Posted by A Fucking Wizard on February 23, 2011 at 12:06 PM

A little trivia: Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers was in Suburbia. I actually have this recorded on VHS from long, long ago when there was a "Z Channel" on cable, and it was still the 80s.

Posted by LaFemmeMonkita on February 23, 2011 at 12:23 PM

A little trivia: Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers makes his debut in "acting" in Suburbia.

Posted by LaFemmeMonkita on February 23, 2011 at 12:29 PM

@3 Yep! he's credited as Mike B. the Flea! Also, they just released it last year on DVD.

Posted by Travis Ritter

on February 23, 2011 at 12:41 PM

"Smithereens" was the best punk film ever made. Richard Hell, Feelies soundtrack, van living. God, that movie is great.

Posted by virginia mason on February 23, 2011 at 12:43 PM

I just got this book, and it's been a shit ton of fun!
http://www.punksonfilm.com/

Posted by Kelly O on February 23, 2011 at 12:51 PM

@6 HOW HAVE I NEVER SEEN THIS?! I loooooooooove the Feelies. I'll seek it out, thanks!

@7 I requested this book from the publicist! IT NEVER ARRIVED!

Posted by Travis Ritter

on February 23, 2011 at 1:07 PM

Wow, I forgot about the word "punker".

Posted by very bad homo on February 23, 2011 at 1:25 PM

Ha ha I was just watching Decline Part II

Posted by Jason Baxter on February 23, 2011 at 1:42 PM

@7 my roomie got me that book for my birthday, good stuff

+ bonus points that it was birthed in Seattle with the help of Scarecrow

Posted by Andy_Squirrel on February 23, 2011 at 2:18 PM

Kelly O, the book is great, but really should have "Over The Edge" in there. A "punk movie" is more than just a cop flick where the bad guy has a mohawk. Or a John Hughes movie with a "Duckie."

Posted by Estey on February 23, 2011 at 3:03 PM

I can't believe no one has mentioned the movie that just played at Northwest Film Forum all last week, based on a zine, that became a book, about a made up genre of Muslim punk, that actually spawned said genre.

The Taqwacores:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1kDYlbQg…

And a recent documentary on the genre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTkaqHhmp…

Posted by dan10things

on February 23, 2011 at 4:43 PM

Also, in the 2000s were some decent punk movies:

American Hardcore
Afro Punk
The Joe Strummer and Ramones documentaries
The Filth and the Fury
The Runaways
We Jam Econo
Wassap Rockers

Posted by dan10things

on February 23, 2011 at 4:49 PM

I think documentaries and fictionalised punk movies are different things.

Also that SLC punk probably is just as representative of a lot of people's "punk" experiences as many of the others.

Posted by gi on February 23, 2011 at 5:47 PM

I reviewed the fictionalized version here, Dan:

http://blog.kexp.org/blog/2011/02/12/mov…

But I hadn't mentioned it because I was just responding to the omission of "Over The Edge" from the Destroy All Movies!! book. I like many that are on your list. (We really have had some goods docs in the '00s.)

Posted by Estey on February 23, 2011 at 6:04 PM

Repo Man.

Posted by DOUG.

on February 24, 2011 at 12:04 PM

Travis... DI, TSOL and The Vandals were all Orange County bands, and Suburbia was very obviously filmed in Garden Grove or Orange or Westminster or some awful north county suburb. give us some fucking credit.

and I totally agree with you on SLC Punk. that movie was a recruiting tool funded by the Young Republicans and the LDS.

Posted by LEE. on February 25, 2011 at 3:32 PM