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Nonureva Really Surprised!

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

FrSallyBowles Let's not argue about what is and isn't punk, it's very unpunk.This is a superb documentary that deserves to sit beside Jon Savage's book England's Dreaming as thorough punk rock history, well researched and presented. The study of the interplay between NY and London illuminates much of why things happened as they did even if it does tend to prejudice NY punk over the more politically charged London punk.This doco should have appeal to anyone interested in social and cultural history. For the enthusiasts, an amazing array of talking heads bring their own take on those years and the archival footage used is an absolute treasure.Punk remains an important moment in history that is still little understood and subject to very many prejudices. This documentary is an important foundation stone in understanding where punk came from, why it seemed to go so badly off the rails and how much a little chaos effected the world we inhabit today.SPOILER: Siouxsie Sioux looks more gorgeous than ever. ;-]

jburke69 The one major problem I had with this film was that, while it did a more than adequate job of covering the already well-documented early days of punk (the Velvets,MC5, Stooges the CBGBs scene), in covering punk of the 80s, it completely dropped the ball. It fails to detail the very localized American post-punk movement of the 80s that actually set the stage for bands like Nirvana, the grunge movement and the "alternative" music of the 90s. No mention of Husker Du, The Minutemen, X, the Pixies or The Replacements? What's up with that?!! Yes, I liked Sonic Youth in the 80s. But to canonize a band who stopped mattering over ten years ago yet still inflicts their painfully uninspired noodling today and not even mention the aforementioned bands that really did have a profound impact on punk (and who knew when to quit) is criminal.And then to close it up with Sum 41 and those other corporate punk forgeries?!I wanted to puke at that point. God, if they really wanted to use a current example of today's punk, couldn't they have used a more credible band like The Hives? The 80s was such a great time for punk and underground rock, but you sure wouldn't know it from this documentary.

mouseclicker33 Obviously making a documentary on the history and progression of punk rock is very difficult- many people debate where it started, how it started, who started it, etc, etc. Punk: Attitude manages to crystallize, utilizing and excellent array of interviews with figures who were actually part of the scene, all the different strains of punk into one solid, cohesive unit and gives a very accurate and insightful look into just what punk is and what it means.The documentary starts off with the menagerie of punk influences, from the Stooges and the Velvet Underground to MC5 and the New York Dolls, covering not just the bands and artists who musically influenced what would become punk but the people that set the punk aesthetic. They pay due respect to a whole host of seminal punk bands, starting in the New York scene and shifting to the British scene, all the while analyzing how the music was changing and what it was saying. It then gracefully moves into American hardcore punk with bands like Black Flag, Agnostic Front, and the Dead Kennedys, also paying respect to such hugely influential bands as Minor Threat and Bad Brains. It all starts to fall apart, though, when they mention Nirvana pulling together bits and pieces of the last decade of punk rock and creating a product that the public could stomach. From there they give passing mentions to Green Day, Blink 182, Sum 41, and Rancid, acting as if that's all there is to the current punk scene. The documentary completely fails to recognize bands like Bad Religion, the Descendents, the Circle Jerks (although they interview its singer about different topics), NOFX, Operation Ivy, the Offspring, and all of recent punk bands gaining popularity. Modern punk is not just Green Day and Blink 182, and is arguably far more diverse and fully formed than ever before. It was disappointing to see the documentary turn a cold shoulder to the current crop of punk bands when it handled punk's history up until then so well.Overall, though, the point of the documentary is to look at the impact society had on punk and conversely the impact punk had on society, and in this respect, it excels. It looks at countless facets of life this abrasive form of music has affected and really opens your eyes to the truth that punk rock is so much more than just a bunch of kids screaming. Highly recommended despite its shoddy coverage of punk's current phase.

Matt Wall I have no doubt that future cultural historians and music cognoscenti will appreciate this competent and fairly broad-sweeping history of the original punk "movement" of the 1970s. But I have to say, as a forty-something who was "there" at the end of the 1970s, there's something unnerving and vaguely depressing to seeing a bunch of fifty- and sixty- somethings waxing nostalgically about their great good old days. I mean, my god, weren't we making fun of the hippies for growing up and going mainstream back in the day? There's nothing more unpunkrock in some ways than a documentary film about punk. Come to think of it, I think punk may be safely said to have died the instant they started filming it, and Letts' own 'The Punk Rock Movie" was the original culprit. Taking the DIY attitude and transforming it into the mindscreen of the cinema, with all its implications for mass consumption, is a way not so much of preserving the original punk spirit as diluting it.This is to say, that if anybody has a right to make a film about the scene way-back-when, it's the old-school Letts. (Although it was a bit awkward when he manages to let some of his interviewees refer to him in the third person.) As a documentary, it's a standard mix of stand-up interviews and old stills and footage from the period, which tells the "story" with the reflective blinkers of thirty years of hindsight. So I can't fault this as a movie qua movie.Whoever takes credit for originating the phrase, "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture", they had it right. I had a hard time finishing watching this movie not because it was a poor telling of the tale -- far from it, my memories coincide with it exactly -- but because it seemed like a far better use of my time to dust off the vinyl of my collection and just listen to the music. Or maybe, even better, go out and find some new music by the current generation of snot-nosed rebels, which will prevent me from wallowing in nostalgia and kick my rear into gear. There's something about the genre of the film documentary that seems to add layers of dust to music and music culture, or sprays them with a preservative that may keep them for future generations but which seems stale as a living thing.The one moment I loved above all in the flick was the appearance of the now-middle-aged and delicious Poly Styrene, who manages to come off as honest and fresh as she did in X-Ray Spex. But in general the shock of seeing virtually all the (surviving) great bands of the era in paunchy, balding, reflective -- dare I say, mature? -- late middle age made me wince. In about 2015, there'll be a similar documentary about old-school rap, followed ten years later by nostalgic flashbacks about techno and ecstasy...and so on.