Customer Reviews

Rage - 20 Years of Punk Rock, West Coast Style

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you are well-versed in the history of the late 70's/ early 80's west coast Punk scene, then the interviews in this documentary are going to seem really redundant and uninteresting.

If you know very little about the history of the late 70's/ early 80's west coast Punk scene, you will find the interviews either confusing or mired in sappy nostalgia.

Don Bolles, Gitane Demone, and Duane Peters all provide commentary that is more annoying than enlightening, and will have you trying to decide whether to hit "fast forward" or stick around to see what inane thing they'll say next.

Jack Grisham and Keith Morris come off as an interesting characters and Jello Biafra always has something interesting to say, but much of the banter seems rather pointless and directionless.

Speaking of direction, the direction is clunky and annoying (i.e. the camera lingering on the names of the interviewees for inordinant lengths of time, cheesy MTV style "shaky cam" work, no apparent flow of meaning... the viewer asks himself over and over: "where are they trying to go with this?")

If I didn't already have all those old TARGET VIDEOS, I'd be really angry that the makers of RAGE only give us like 2 second bits of live footage of THE SCREAMERS, DEAD KENNEDYS, and FLIPPER. Live footage, as such, could have been the highlight of such a documentary... but instead we only get tiny VH1 style snippets which are interupted by boring old talking heads babbling incessantly about "anarchy". Duane Peters chattering will make you want to throw a shoe at the TV screen... even to the point where it seems the film-makers even thought so too: during one of his monologues, they fade down the audio of him talking and fade up some cheesy music.

This movie would be an intersting rental, but I wouldn't suggest paying full price to own it. Buy the HARDCORE CALIFORNIA book and the first DEAD KENNEDYS and BLACK FLAG LP's instead.

...... The interviewer in "Rage" jabbers and babbles his way through every interview in the film, often interrupting his subjects to insert such riveting bon mots as "yeah, I know" or "right, right." Worse yet, the obvious intent of his jabbering was to ensure that viewers saw him as an insider. He was definitely on the scene during the good old days. No trend hopper, this guy. Aside from butressing his credibility he had no good questions to ask and nothing interesting to say. As a result, famously verbose and interesting characters like Keith from Circle Jerks, Jack from TSOL and Jello Biafra were actually kind of boring. A quiet guy like Don Bolles didn't stand a chance. You know he's got some incredible stories to tell (he was in the GERMS, fer ....) but you won't hear any of them in this movie. Duane Peters and Gitane Demone were both downright annoying. This film was an ill-conceived, amateurish, status-conscious waste of time. Wait for the "Decline..." movies to be re-released or go make your own, but don't pay for this .... (like I did).

The people interviewed here are a pretty diverse bunch, Jello Biafra of DK, Grisham of TSOL, Morris of the Circle Jerks. A lot of the interview's are interesting (but some are plain stupid), but that in itself is it's problom. Besides a few short clips, it's entirely interviews. This lack of music, in my eyes, defeats the point of the early punk movement, in which the music really spoke for itself. It's nice too see what the people have to say, but unless you have a great intrest in that, you may want to pass on this.

I bought this DVD for $10 Australian dollars which would be about $US6, and I wouldn't pay anymore than that.
I won't rubbish the documentary too much, but, it is pretty bad.
I'm guessing they didn't have the biggest budget hence the dodgy editing, camera work and bad story telling in general (okay, maybe I am rubbishing it just a bit), but it could have been a LOT better.
If you had people like Keith Morris, Jack Grisham, Jello Biafra, Duane Peters etc, you would figure they would have something interesting to say, but they seem to just bore everyone. Not that they were boring, but that this was edited really badly and had no structure. The interviewer butting every few seconds does not help either.
I pressed the fast forward button for about 90% of it. Disappointing.

after you watch this dvd, you're probably going to wonder "why wasn't _____(fill in the blank) interviewed". it's because either the person wasn't located or wanted money for the interview.

this film was self financed; according to the producer, henry rollins wanted $50,000 for an interview!

this is worth having on dvd so that you can instantly skip past gitane demone's inane banter.

The working title for this movie should have been "Punk twenty years ago". This a poor representation of a powerful, and influential music genre. Focusing NOT on the West coast punk movement; but rather on a few select figures who with the exception of Jello Biafra have very little to say. Sadly there is very little archival footage and the film manages to leave out more bands than it includes.
If you are a fan of bands like... "X", D.I., The Vandals, Mike Watt, The Dils, The Eyes, Social Distortion, A.F.I., Rancid, and The Cramps, or venues like The Whiskey-A-Go Go, Fenders ballroom, The Country Club, The Golden Bear etc. Don't look for them here, because you won't find them.

I only bought this DVD so I'd look cool to other middle-aged and paunchy men and women. Seriously, all these LA punk rockers are still treating punk like a high school clique and whining about who is commercial and how lame the music is today. Only they have to knock what the kids listen to today because they are no longer in the right age group. I would have thought they would gain enough perspective with age to realize that the music you listen to doesn't really define you. Anyone still listening to these old punk groups could hardly be a poseur. I actually bought this DVD for the rare glimpse of Gitane Demone. I like deathrock and goth and anything dark because I like my music dark but I don't dress in black.