Cinema Extravagnaza Review

Hey went to see Decline Of Western Civilisation parts 1 to 3 yesterday more or less back-to-back. They are basically documentaries documenting music scenes in LA at different time periods. They are directed by Penelope Spheeris who is best known in the mainstream for Wayne’s World, Beverly Hillbillies and Black Sheep(a Chris Farley movie). She also did Suburbia, We Sold Our Souls For Rock N Roll(about Ozzfest) and Little Rascals.

Anyway here are my reviews of the three:

1: A classic detailing a part of the LA punk scene in 1979 featuring X, Fear, Black Flag, Alice Bag Band, Germs(including Pat Smear once member of Foo Fighters and on Nirvana’s Unplugged In New York), Circle Jerks (Feat Flea of RHCP) and Catholic Discpline. A great film, how much did it effect the continuing poularity of some of these bands is hard to tell but a great document of people playing music cause that was all they could do.

2: Great fun and really captured the bullshit on the LA scene. The bands are all swagger and very little substance. It is a funny film but should the metal community be insulted by it? In the film Ozzy spills some orange juice, Ozzy DID NOT do this it was a grip wearing his dressing gown, is this really a documentary? We have two of the biggest names of the day (Simmons and Stanley) trying to prove their masculinity and heterosexuality by choosing to be interviewed they way they were. The lesser known bands are crap and the only bands that came out well were Megadeth and Alice Cooper(oh and Lemmy was just Lemmy). When this was being filmed Hair Metal was on the wane, would she not have been better off documenting bands in the Thrash scene which was just starting to happen with Meagdeth, Testament and Exodus? Laughed my ass off and would highly recommend it as a film but as a documentary?

3: Started life as a revisit of the first one but evolved very quickly. Penelope thought she’d just document punk as it had become in the late 90s, what she didn’t know is that this could never happen. As she statrted interviewing the fans just liike she did previously she realised that thier was a different reality to the early punks and were a lot younger. The story becomes about these homeless gutterpunks, who they are and why they are. This is by far the best of the trilogy from an objective position of someone who may not be interested/involved in rock/punk/metal. If you get a chance to see this film do it.

As mentioned I saw all three back-to-back and it was great and then the Q&A was great. I did ask why she did that to Ozzy and she said he’d no problem with it he watched them do it. Sharon obviously learned from this that there was money to be made from this man buffoonery, real/imaginary/due to prescription drugs. That scene did leave a bad taste in my mouth but then I now view 2 as some kind of slapstick comedy as the particpants head towards the abyss.

The third one is not too well known because despite it being filmed in 1997 still doesn’t have a distribution deal. However all three will all be released in a box set soon(which I will be picking up) and her next project is a Janis Joplin biopic which includes her voice taken from interviews with Rolling Stone over the years.

Later days,
Halo