Showing posts with label CBGB movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CBGB movie. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Some early thoughts on the CBGB movie



The "CBGB" biopic makes its U.S. premiere tonight at the Sunshine as part of the CBGB Music and Film Festival. (The movie opens Friday in theaters.)

So far, some of the reviews of the movie starring Alan Rickman as CBGB founder Hilly Kristal haven't been so kind, putting it mildly. (To date, there are four "rotten" reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes.)

At the Voice, Brian McManus turns in a review accompanied by the headline "The Year Punk Bored: CBGB Could've Been Good But..." He writes that the film is "a mostly turgid, boring-as-hell, campy slog that gets more wrong than right."

His conclusion:

The story of Hilly’s historic club is, of course, well-trodden, but likely unknown by many more familiar with the famous logo than the fact that it’s the place The Ramones were first given a platform. CBGB misses the opportunity to educate. But its biggest sin, unlike many who performed there, is that it also misses the opportunity to entertain.

At the Daily News, veteran music writer Jim Farber tries to be diplomatic. He points out the movie's much-discussed historical inaccuracies, such as Patti Smith performing "Because the Night" at least three years before it was written.

His conclusion:

The film is a poorly written, clumsily acted mess.

Yet, in the end, it did my heart good to see it. I thrilled to every fast reference to long-lost and beloved acts like the Mumps, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and the Tuff Darts. More, it was warming to see any depiction of the obliterated New York of old, no matter how vaguely rendered. If, in the end, the movie gets nowhere near its core mission of bringing back punk’s essential passion, it delivers its putrid outlines with loving accuracy.

The most savage review came last Monday via Marc Campbell, the vocalist for the Nails, in a post at Dangerous Minds titled "If You Thought CBGB's Bathrooms Were Full of Shit Check Out the Movie."

Among his many grenades:

• "CBGB really really sucks shit."

• "Fortunately, I can’t imagine CBGB finding an audience willing to spend a dime on this glob of pustulating spit."

• "From a hectoring, shrewish Patti Smith ... to a pathetically sexless Iggy Pop or Lou Reed, looking like a cross between Eminem and the Pillsbury Doughboy, or the tight-ass actress playing Debbie Harry with absolutely no feel for the delightfully clunky, self-aware, sex-kitten charm of the Bowery’s platinum blondie, this movie manages to suck all of the rock ‘n’ roll magic out of every single performer it supposedly celebrates."

The review prompted positive responses about the film in the comments from Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome and founding Television guitarist Richard Lloyd. (Spin covered that here.)

And here's a closing thought about trying to capture all this via a piece on the film in The New York Times yesterday:

"It's virtually impossible to capture a Hollywood version of punk," said Handsome Dick Manitoba, the frontman for the original punk band the Dictators and the owner of a punk bar, Manitoba’s, in the East Village who also works as a satellite-radio D.J. "The only way to do it is with a documentary."

Previously.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Here is the CBGB movie trailer

The Hollywood Reporter had the exclusive first look today at the trailer for the CBGB biopic. After premiering at the CBGB Festival, the film opens Oct. 11 in New York, Los Angeles and other select cities. It was filmed in Savannah, Ga., on Broughton Street (on Paula Deen's block!) ... while the crew replicated the inside of the bar in Savannah's Meddin Studios, where all the interior shots took place...

So. What do you think of the trailer?

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Here is the CBGB movie soundtrack



You may have seen this yesterday ... Omnivore Recordings is releasing the “CBGB: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” on Oct. 8. (The first pressing is reportedly on translucent pink vinyl.)

And, via Billboard Magazine, here's the track listing:

Life During Wartime – Talking Heads
Kick Out the Jams (Uncensored Version) – MC5
Chatterbox – New York Dolls
Careful – Television
Blank Generation – Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Slow Death – Flamin’ Groovies
I Can’t Stand It – The Velvet Underground
Out of Control – Wayne County & The Electric Chairs
Psychotic Reaction – The Count Five
All For the Love of Rock ’n’ Roll (Live) – Tuff Darts
All By Myself – Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
California Sun (Original Demo) – The Dictators
Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth – Dead Boys
I Got Knocked Down (But I’ll Get Up) – Joey Ramone
Get Outta My Way – The Laughing Dogs
Sunday Girl (2013 Version) – Blondie
I Wanna Be Your Dog – The Stooges
Sonic Reducer – Dead Boys
Roxanne – The Police
Birds and the Bees – Hilly Kristal

Thoughts?

As Billboard noted, after premiering at the CBGB Festival, the film opens Oct. 11 in New York, Los Angeles and other select cities.

H/T @saywhatagain

Thursday, May 30, 2013

The CBGB movie has a distributor, release date

XLrator Media will be distributing the CBGB biopic in the United States, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie, which stars Alan Rickman as Hilly Kristal, will be released during the CBGB Musical Festival this October.

Said Barry Gordon, XLrator Media CEO, in a statement: "CBGB is the rare film that will resonate with teens, millennials and legacy fans alike. The whole family can jump in the mosh pit together for this one!"

Other titles from XLrator Media include: "Dragon Wasps" and "Age of the Dragons," billed as "a re-imagining of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick in which Captain Ahab searches for the White Dragon that slaughtered his family and left him scarred when he was young."

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Punk nostalgia

Coming soon to a department store, movie theater and museum near you...

Item.



This Bloomingdale's ad appeared in the Post yesterday. According to the ad, we're in for a Punk Summer. Prepare now! His Ramones T-shirt is $48, her Pretenders T-shirt is $64.

Item.



Also in the Post yesterday. A fashion spread in which you can "become a rebel belle with stripped-down styles inspired by priestess of punk, Patti Smith."

Item.

James Wolcott has an essay in the May Vanity Fair titled "Punk Is in the Air," a look at the new wave of nostalgia with the Richard Hell memoir, the upcoming CBGB biopic and the the Costume Institute's Punk: Chaos To Couture exhibit.

Here then, a few of his thoughts on the CBGB film, which he hasn't seen yet.

To those of us who were there, one of the anticipations of screening CBGB once it’s released from captivity is seeing not just how it simulates the squalor, congestion, snarling sound, and cove-like sanctuary of this landlocked submarine, but how it portrays the musicians, bartenders, waitresses, and regulars without whom it would have been just another hangout.

And!

When filmmakers attempt a teeming mural like this, populated with recognizable figures, it’s easy to end up with a Mort Drucker–esque Mad-magazine spread with familiar faces packed like sardines and pressed against the glass, contorted and distorted.

Item.

On that topic, the CBGB Facebook page posted a few more stills from the film in recent weeks...

"Hilly... Playing chess with the bikers"



And... "Blondie and Iggy on stage... nice lipstick"



Item.

The press preview for the Costume Institute's Punk: Chaos To Couture exhibit was yesterday. Racked was there. One apparent highlight. A replica of the CBGB men's room.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Here is the official poster for CBGB the Movie



Here, via the CBGB Movie Facebook page, is the official poster... The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively been posting the new, uh, posters for the past week. There are an additional four posters featuring the characters who portray Joey Ramone, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith and Stiv Bators.

You can find all those via THR here, including this one of actress Malin Akerman as Debbie Harry...



John Holmstrom, founding editor of PUNK magazine, designed the posters.

This one was just a teaser of sorts.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Here is the first CBGB movie poster


[Click on image to enlarge]

Via the CBGB movie Facebook page this afternoon... Early thoughts from Alex at Flaming Pablum: "Mark My Words... This movie is going to suck."

You?

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Ramones and Television back on the Bowery, sort of

A reader asked if we had heard about a release date for "CBGB," the movie (biopic?) about Hilly Kristal and the rise of his club ... filmed last summer in Savannah, Ga., which subbed for the Bowery of the 1970s... crews replicated the inside of the bar in Savannah's Meddin Studios, where all the interior shots took place.

As far as we know, the film doesn't have a release date just yet for 2013.

Meanwhile, in looking at the production company's website, we did spot a few teaser stills from the film, including:

Merv Ferguson (Donal Logue) and Hilly Kristal (Alan Rickman) ...


... and the film's version of Television...


... and the Ramones...

[Click on images to enlarge]

According to an article in Rolling Stone last summer, "To maintain authenticity throughout the film, [the filmmakers] exhaustively researched other CBGB regulars, and consulted frequently with Television's Tom Verlaine, the Voidoids' Richard Hell and Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz." Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys also has a cameo in the movie as a cab driver who hates the punk scene.

So, any plans on seeing the movie?

Previously.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Because it has been a few days since we posted anything about the CBGB movie

The Wall Street Journal checks in with a piece on the CBGB biopic, appropriately headlined "The Bowery Went Down to Georgia." (Heh — very bloggy!)

There's a recap of the movie news to date... the reporters also speak with some locals on the Bowery, like the fellow who books musical acts at the John Varvatos boutique. He hadn't heard about the movie. Across the street, a worker at Think Coffee said, "The fact that they're shooting in Georgia is indicative of how this neighborhood is changing. I don't even know where they'd have to shoot the film here to get the same feel."

[Image via Facebook]

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Georgia on my mind

Yesterday, we posted that photo of the CBGB exterior that crews for the CBGB movie recreated in Savannah, Ga. ...

Our friend Maura Johnston at the Voice had another shot of the exterior yesterday ...

[Photo by Dylan Wilson]

Meanwhile, via the Huffington Post, a shot of Alan Rickman as Hilly Kristal on the set...

[By ‏@ForrestJim]

Friday, June 29, 2012

CBGB lives! (in Savannah)

[via Facebook]

The CBGB biopic starring Alan Rickman as Hilly Kristal is filming in Savannah, Ga., both on Broughton Street (on Paula Deen's block!) where we think the bar's exterior above was created... and in a studio ... the crew replicated the inside of the bar in Savannah's Meddin Studios, where all the interior shots will take place...