Maybe the worst movie of 2008. You didn't get a feel for the time at all. The characters weren't interesting in the least. They took a facinating story and drained it of anything interesting.
I am shocked that Pat Smear endorsed this movie. It is God awful.
i don't know if it was bad enough to declare it the worst movie of 2008, but i'll agree with you, this was pretty bad. at the time of seeing it, i didn't know that shane west had taken the role of lead singer when the germs reunited. i haven't seen his performances, but i wonder if after being in this movie, he was able to pretend he was darby crash.
from reading marc spitz's book, i got the impression that the germs, like a lot of others in the early LA punk scene, were a bunch of goofy kids. some of them, angry kids. but naive, angry teens nonetheless. if darby crash was alive, i could see him just laughing at this crap.
Shoot me, Dragon!
Shane West was the very least of this movie's problems. With a better script and director he would have been fine.
They took this dirty, squalid punk story and turned it into a sub par after school special.
Shane West DID do a terrible job anyways. He was nothing like Darby Crash. If you want just a little peek at how Darby really was and acted, listen to the REAL KROQ Germs interview. And BTW, I haven't watched the movie, but from what I've seen the KROQ interview in the movie is nothing like the movie, Darby is alot less serious.. ALOT less.
shareyeah, they made him into some kind of deranged prophet. from the snippets of interviews i read in "we got the neutron bomb" he seemed more like a silly kid. you'd have to be, to get up on stage and smear yourself with mayonnaise.
Shoot me, Dragon!
Absolutely. It does not resonate in ANY way to the book.
shareI agree that it was badly acted, it had all the charisma of an After School Special. And on top of this, I had to look up information about the Germs online, because this movie didn't tell me much about them.
I also hated the fake documentary feel of it. Either have just a movie or a movie with comments from some of the real people now...like Pat Smear or Lorna Doom, instead we get the same young actors in the movie.
It was like it was trying hard to be a Sid and Nancy type film, but though I didn't like Sid and Nancy that much, at least Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb actually acted in the film.
I was hoping for a documentary of the Germs, not what MTV thought 25 and younger people would like in a film.
Plus, it makes it seem like Darby Crash is so intellectual yet he only read that one Nietzsche book, so how does that make him deep? I felt forced to see his "poetry" and suicide as high art, it came off self-indulgent and stupid.
I was also shocked Pat Smear endorsed this movie. Maybe he was told this movie would be something that is wasn't.
I'd rather watch Jubilee than this and Jubilee was a horrible movie, but at least Adam Ant was in it. The real one.
I agree! The acting was horrid. The guy who played pat smear was wretched. I think he's one of the worst actors around. All the actors were just wretched. I can't even articulate how bad it was.
The only saving grace this movie had was the soundtrack.
"Plus, it makes it seem like Darby Crash is so intellectual"
I wouldn't say intellectual, but he wasn't an idiot.
And Vertigo if ya listen to the Rodney on the ROQ interview (the real one) you'll see that he is just a silly kid.
darby would be rolling in his grave .... *beep* hell this is a pile of garbage
Leisure Rules
The most un-punk film ever to be portrayed as punk.
The script was a list of overly-wrought slogans delivered by wooden puppets.
The faux documentary style, which was a goo idea, was undone by perfect three point lighting, making the film so insincere.
A really lame movie about punk.
Makes Sid and Nance look like a masterpiece. Actually the New York sections of Sid and Nancy are really good. Go watch that movie instead of What We do is Secret.
Dictated, but not read.
I saw a preview for this on a DVD of another movie a while back and it didn't look very good. The comments here confirm that but the review on the main page suggests it's a masterpiece hahaha... "What director Rodger Grossman has finally achieved after some fifteen years of trying to bring this story to the big screen is worth the time of those interested in how the alternative music world was before MTV came along and changed things forever. I met Grossman after a screening of this in July 2008 at the Fantasia festival and the good man indulged the other questions I had about his creation after the Q & A session finished. Meeting a filmmaker after first seeing their work is not always the smoothest introduction, but Grossman's passion for his subject is infectious and made me want to learn a lot more about the Germs.
Shane West proves he's really the only man for this assignment, with what I think is the best portrayal of a music legend since Gary Busey in "The Buddy Holly Story". Darby Crash was probably a mystery to even those who knew him the longest. His approach to performing is kind of like those football players running through a paper image. He came along and the rest of the picture was left in tatters. The Germs were not well liked, to put it politely, by most club owners in LA. Darby's antics thrilled and annoyed audiences, depending on who one asks the opinion of. He died way too young and the passing was overshadowed by the biggest celebrity death of the post-Elvis era, John Lennon's murder.
The wonderful actors in the bandmate roles, Bijou Phillips, Rick Gonzalez and Noah Segan, did as great a job as only people in the shadow of an exhibitionist can (Lorna, Pat and Don must have wondered what the hell Darby had up his sleeve at any given time, if he'd end up getting the band banned or just yelled at and attacked). Their taking the time to learn how each musician played and then playing themselves is quite impressive in a lip sync era. West's anguished vocals conjure up the spirit of his role's model, like Busey did over thirty years earlier."
Hey it was worth a laugh..could have been done so much better. Or better yet, not done at all.
sharesaw it yesterday, i thought it was one of the worst punk rock movies i have ever seen.
And i am usually pretty openminded and reserve judgement,also trying to find any redeeming qualities of the movie.The only redeeming quality i could find,was the performance of rick gonzales.Thats about it.
I am not even joking this movie was awful.