Netflix Pick – CBGB
Ready for an in your face crash course on the history of punk rock? CBGB delivers the grit and in your face attitude of the entire musical genre. The filmmaking has taken a page out of the ‘punk for the sake of punk’ attitude everyone in the movie carries around like an obligation. It kicks off with the founding of Punk magazine and tells the story of Hilly Kristal, a man who propped up every band from Blondie to The Police. Far too many to list. Hilly gave roughly 50,000 bands a chance to play in front of an often packed house in his time at CBGB.
Hilly Kristal (Alan Rickman) plays the constantly failing dreamer who spent his whole life thinking he saw what no one else did. Every endeavor he tried led to him being broke and out of luck. Kristal stumbles into CBGB’s, a country bar in a bad part of New York not doing stellar business. He sees what it could be and throws everything he has, and a whole lot he doesn’t, into owning it. It’s not a spoiler to say this time Kristal is right. He starts auditioning bands but seems to take on anyone and everyone. He doesn’t charge a cover and lets half his audience drink for free. He is in it for the scene but also sees his freebies as an investment in his future as well as all the young talent that comes through his door.
Normally there would be a whole paragraph talking about acting. Like the (somewhat true) stereotypes of Punk Rock, skill isn’t the most important thing. Alan Rickman was one of the greats, don’t get me wrong, but CBGB doesn’t exactly stretch the man’s skill set. This interpretation of Hilly Kristal may be spot on, I never met the man. Hilly in this film is a quiet and soft spoken man who seems to not care about anything. He does, of course, he just has that roll with it attitude that flows so well with the world of Punk. He gets emotional about things when he has to and raises his voice a few times, but overall he mumbles through his lines in a perfect American accent that can’t seem to escape the Alan Rickman speech pattern. But why would we want it to? The only other actor that needs to be pointed out is Donal Logue. Logue is a great actor, some would argue character actor, who shows up in every third project coming out of Hollywood. He’s fantastic. Except in CBGB. He has this odd accent that comes and goes as it pleases and seems really unnecessary.
Not mentioning much in the way of acting is misleading to the size of the cast. Since CBGB is like being flung through the museum of American Punk Rock from a catapult so many familiar names and songs whip past your eyes and through your ears. Lou Reed, Cheetah Chrome, Iggy Pop, Blondie, The Ramones, The Police, Sting (naturally), Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith, The Stooges, and Dead Boys.
It wouldn’t be a good movie about an infamous club and the birth of popular punk rock without an outstanding soundtrack. The music never dies and songs flow one into the other almost endlessly in brilliant, loud (in a good way) fashion. Marquee Moon, Psycho Killer, I Got Knocked Down, Sunday Girl, and Roxanne are some of the most notable but every song in the soundtrack is familiar if you’re even the slightest fan of punk or rock and roll at all. You may not know the names but you know the tunes.
CBGB plays like a documentary on speed. It has just as much truth as most documentaries that claim to be 100% factual even if a lot of it was twisted for the sake of storytelling. When the film kicks off it seems disjointed. It seems like the script doesn’t spend enough time on anything. As the story, and the smaller stories within, unfold you realize it doesn’t matter. Part of the quickness, part of the impromptu lightning paced introductions feels so much like the subculture being portrayed it goes from feeling sort of rushed to incredibly intentional before the thirty minute mark. As a lover of Punk music who is sometimes sad their own little piece of the ‘scene’ isn’t what it was CBGB is a must watch and a no brainer for the Netflix Pick of the week.
Punk (ska) music is even how I am a part of the awesome So Wizard family. So Wizard’s own Joey DiCarlo was in one of my absolute favorite Ska bands and played a lot of the small try-hard shows I organized in my high school days. Skarmy Of Darkness was instrumental into anyone, including other bands, showing up to those VFW and basement venues.
