American Hardcore - The History of Punk Rock 1980 - 1986
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Movie Reviews of American Hardcore - The History of Punk Rock 1980 - 1986
Movie Review: AMERICAN HARDCORE
Summary: 4 Stars
It is important to know the past; to know the roots. I believe that the events documented in this film are just as important as any battle, or war, or historical event. This is history from a gutter point of view. This is the losing side. Get straight to the point. No more lies. Educate yourself and watch American Hardcore.Movie Review: Pretty good stuff
Summary: 4 Stars
Once you get through the obligatory "we hated BTO, Journey and Boston so we needed something new" crap, there's some great footage to be seen and the bonus material is great as well. I'm not going to describe it all here. You should buy it!Movie Review: Important view of musical history....
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great and entertaining view of US hardcore. For those of us who lived this in the 80's it was fun and nostalgic. We knew this music and the scene was something special at the time....nice to see it given it's due credit.Movie Review: MY Boyfirend LOVES IT!!
Summary: 4 Stars
The sender did it in a timely matter, and the produst is what I expected!!Movie Review: Good, but missing some key pieces
Summary: 3 Stars
As someone who grew up in suburban New jersey and discovered the Dead Kennedys in 1983 at age 14, delved further into punk rock from there and found himself old enough to start hitting the shows just when the whole "punk movement" petered out in the mid-80's, I found a lot of intriguing material here about an era that I unfortunately just missed out on. Many of the interviews (H.R. and Greg Ginn in particular) offer rare insight into the birth of a musical (or is it anti-musical?) revolution. The live footage is often exciting, but also makes me wish they'd included more, and longer, live clips rather than brief excerpts. (And why isn't there a single Black Flag song in the extras?)
The significance of lesser known punk bands like the Zero Boys who had to, in effect, create their entire scene in midwestern cities where no sort of counter-culture even existed, cannot be overlooked. This film does a nice job of depicting the grass-roots development and diffusion of punnk rock throughout the land, as bands from different cities helped each other out in arranging shows (and providing local floors to sleep on). "American Hardcore" does a nice job of documenting an underground phenomenon.
It also reveals the most obvious reason why that phenomenon, for the most part, remained underground: virtually all of these bands, even many of the more well-known ones, sound identical. Part of punk's rallying cry was always a revolt against the formulaic, predictable sounds of mainstream rock and pop, and yet band after band, song after song, punk rock was typically nothing more than a strict 4/4, bass-snare-bass-snare (while riding the high hat) beat, a couple of power chords, and shouted vocals that are completely unintelligible. That routine gets old after a while, but few punk bands could evolve past it.
Although it would probably be impossible to include every single important punk band in a single documentary overview, there is no conceivable reason for the omission of arguably the most important punk rock band in American history - San Francisco's Dead Kennedys. Did Jello refuse to participate in this nostalgia trip? Well, I have no doubt East Bay Ray would have been happy to be interviewed. A punk documentary without the DK's is just incomprehensible.
Many other significant bands like the Germs, Suicidal Tendencies and Husker Du get nothing more than a quick name-check. That's just not acceptable for a documentary on "American Hardcore."
Sure, you get a lot of magic moments: Greg Ginn referring to Henry Rollins as "a nice guy"; Ian Mackaye's lucid, articulate recollections of the birth of Dischord records and the Washington D.C. punk movement; the truly incredible rags-to-riches story of Mugger, Black Flag's main roadie; the reminiscences of Bad Brains singer H.R., bassist Darryl Jennifer and guitarist Dr. Know; and many other interviews with scene veterans. The director does an excellent job of juxtaposing interview snippets with live footage. But there is so, so much missing from the story as it is told here. Still, this is a very engaging, fast-paced 90 minutes, which stands up to repeated viewings.