I looked at the 40+ punks in this film and couldn’t help feel that they were more than a bit sad. They appeared desperate to hold onto their long-gone youth, seemingly oblivious to how old and pathetic they will look to many of the much younger kids in that scene. Punks either die; grow up and move on, occasionally visiting again to remind them of their youth; or stay forever trapped there either because they have fashioned a career in the music for themselves or they are too atrophied and unfit for work in the wider world after years of being in the punk scene.
Why do I have a feeling that this article/review written about Susan Dynner’s new documentary entitled “Punk’s Not Dead” is probably more interesting (read: more willing to call a spade a spade in regards to the subject matter) than its filmed counterpart.
At any rate, the article (in the old punk spirit) is a very good read, in that it highlights many rarely mentioned issues that have come about decades after the original punk movement.
One in particular, that most are aware of, is in regards to how “punk” has now become co-opted by the establishment it originally sought to dismantle. Pie-n-the-sky social ideas aside, the subject that I have found to be most affecting in regards to my own personal life is in how, as Daryl Palumbo from Glassjaw eloquently states, “The surfer/punk kids are now the cool kids. They’re the ones picking on and making fun of the Guidos [jocks], etc.”
It’s difficult because music today, regardless of genre, has become so image conscious. Bottom line, regardless of how well acquainted you are with the bands in that scene, if you don’t look the look, you don’t belong. It probably is the most grave thing to have happened to the underground music scenes. I do think however that the more progressive bands that do exist, even though the underground scene may have served as a fertile incubator during their youthful days, now today stand purely for the originality of both themselves and their music.
The irony here is that, at the end of the day, the bands today who are most “punk” or “hardcore” are the bands who look anything but. They are the normal guys like you and me who just enjoy creating some “awesomely sick” music. They don’t have crazy hairstyles or makeup, not because they’re trying to make a statement, but because they just want to live out their lives with a modicum of normalcy and happiness.
Whereas “punk” originally might have been used as a vehicle towards anti-socialism and dysfunction, today, at it most pure, it can bring a wide variety of people together and promote positive social change by promoting the empowerment of the “I” in individual.
“PUNK’S NOT DEAD”: FROM CHEMICAL ABUSE TO MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE by Graham Rae
Punk’s Not Dead (Official Movie Website)
Filed under: Super 8mm
I have to be honest. When I read the press release for this film, while it may have sounded interesting, I assumed that it pretty much would have looked like sh%^. Not necessarily a bad mark against the film (moreso the Korean film industry), but Korean films generally fall into 2 categories: the high-gloss commercial releases . . . and the ultra low-budget, shot like crap artsy stuff that never sees the light of day outside of a film festival in an nondescript Western European country.
Boys Of Tomorrow
Dan Fainaru in Pusan
Dir/scr. Noh Dong-seok. S Kor. 2006. 93mins.Pursuing similar themes to those covered in his debut feature Generation, which screened a couple of years ago in Pusan, Noh Dong-seok’s Boys Of Tomorrow again takes up the cause of lost youth whose hopes and dreams are trampled by the slum misery into which they are born.
Shot on HD with a camera deployed in almost documentary fashion, this tale of a dysfunctional family cheated out of everything they ever had focuses mostly on two brothers, both still in their teens and each struggling in his own way.
Noh Dong-seok’s downbeat approach, slightly alleviated by an ending which leaves a glimmer of hope for one of the main protagonists, will be appreciated by festivals and sympathetic arthouse circuits. But his jerky, and at times muddled, narrative will make it hard for Boys Of Tomorrow to enjoy much commercial reach.
Kisoo (Kim Byeong-seok), the older of the two brothers, lives in a basement studio and works as driver, hoping one day to become a full-time drummer. But every time his goal seems to be within reach, he is dragged back by his family, which has no one else to care for it.
There is his mother, a religious nut whose husband abandoned her years ago; his younger brother Jongdae (Yu A-in) who is always in trouble and eager to get his hands on a gun, which would give him authority on the streets; and his older brother, a gambling bum whose hooker wife has run away and left dad with Johan, a baby boy, who he in turn leaves with Kisoo.
Closest to Jongdae, and feeling guilty for an early accident in which his sibling lost a testicle, Kisoo tries to make him go straight but to no avail. Instead Jongdae, who is supposed to wash cars for a living, sees all the rich petty criminals around him and cannot help but feel tempted to want some of the same for himself. “Work doesn’t get you anywhere” he screams at Kisoo before running away.
When Jongdae, despite Kisoo’s warnings, finds employment with Mr Kim (Choi Jae-sung), a smalltime pimp, it is only a matter of time before trouble follows. Jongdae falls for one of the younger prostitutes and attacks a client when she is assaulted, incurring the wrath of his boss. The final bloodbath seals any chance Kisoo might have had of extracting himself from the vicious circle in which he is caught.
Told in retrospect by an older Jongdae, the story manages to pack in plenty of pain and frustration. The plot may advance in an erratic mixture of hesitancy and leaps and bounds, but importantly manages to maintain its prevailing mood of darkness and oppression throughout.
All the locations have the disheartening look of places one would never dare visit, in particular the seedy bordello whose hookers are revealed as shockingly youthful innocents once their make-up and working garb are removed.
The determination of Kim Byeong-seok, as the older brother, to do everything in his power to prevent his younger brother from following the wrong path, is effectively and sharply contrasted with Yu A-in’s rebellious pout as Jongdae, who seems destined to slip from one disaster to the next. Their separation in the final reel is particularly moving.
Meanwhile Choi Jae-sung, as Mr Kim, is all oily charm and has the appeal of a deadly cobra. The rest of the cast acquits themselves in exemplary fashion.
Photography owes much to gritty documentary footage taken on the raw, while the editing respects atmosphere much more than any sense of continuity.
Color me pleasantly surprised when I actually saw the trailer! It’s actually quite the polished little film, and I mean that in the highest praise possible. While there are more than a few artistically minded Korean filmmakers that studios are willing to throw money at, it’s rare that you’ll find a stylish film that seeks to explore character relationships. The fact that this film lacks any easily bankable stars is even more astounding.
Even though I may enjoy movies, I rarely identify with them on the same level as I do with say music or the graphic arts. Unfortunately, modern world cinema is too detached from the reality of most people my age, and the endless Ferris Bueller/The Graduate inspired genre efforts rarely do much to fill this much vacant niche.
우리에게 내일은 없다 Trailer (WMV Format)
Filed under: Super 8mm
But the embrace of her first feature film was unexpectedly global. The New York Times called it “a meticulously constructed visual artifact, diffidently introducing the playful, rebus-like qualities of installation art to the conventions of narrative cinema.” The film won, in addition to the accolade from Cannes, prizes at the Sundance, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia film festivals, to name a few.
And Ms. July, in her own, gentle way, rejected them. “The first thing I did after the movie was … to basically tell my brand new fancy movie agents, ‘Oh, by the way, just don’t even talk to me for a year because you’re not going to care what I’m doing.’” She wrote a book of short stories, “No One Belongs Here More Than You,” which Scribner will publish in May. And she developed “Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely Are Not Going to Talk About,” which, like some of Ms. July’s other works, explores the disintegration of a romantic relationship. “I was basically just teaching myself how to be creative again and how to feel free now that I no longer was as unself-conscious,” she explained of her decision to return to performance art. “I think I, like a lot of other artists, kind of thrive under pressure. But selfconsciousness is not really any help in any way that I can think of.”
Everyone She Knows by Erica Orden
Filed under: Super 8mm
Burnett’s (To Sleep with Anger, My Brother’s Wedding) debut is the stuff of movie legend: an unheralded, unexpected portrait of getting by in Los Angeles’s Watts ghetto, shot on a shoestring over a year’s worth of weekends with a non-professional cast, but so unique and undeniably powerful that it was named to the National Film Registry as a key work in American cinema — despite having only been seen in rare festival and museum screenings, and then only in ragged 16mm prints.
The story of a family man who ekes out a living working at a slaughterhouse, the film captures the spare poetry of everyday life on the edge, along with moments of joy snatched from surviving against the odds. Never before released in theaters and never available on video or DVD, KILLER OF SHEEP has now been meticulously restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and will be presented for the first time ever in a pristine new 35mm print.
Filed under: Super 8mm
天元突破グレンラガン (Maiking Break-Through Gurren-Lagann)
GAINAX’s latest series, directed by Dead Leaves creator Hiroyuki Imaishi. It is scheduled to air in Japan on April 1, 2007.
Hiroyuki Imaishi Filmography (Courtesy of AnimeNewsNetwork.com)
Anime Tenchou (OAV) : Screenplay, Art director, Animation Character Design, Continuity
Black Cat (TV) : Key Animation (OP)
Dead Leaves (OAV) : Director, Character Design, Animation director
Diebuster (OAV) : Mechanical animation director (Ep. 4)
FLCL (OAV) : Storyboard, Animation director
Gad Guard (TV) : Key Animation
Gaiking (TV 2) : Key Animation
Getter Robo: Armageddon (OAV) : Animation
His and Her Circumstances (TV) : Storyboard (1,3,8,19,24 Chapters)
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (TV) : Storyboard (Eps. 3, 12), Episode Director (Ep. 3), Animation director (Ep. 12), Creative Design (Ep. 12)
Maiking Break-Through Gurren-Lagann (TV) : Director
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (movie) : Original Picture
One Piece: Omatsuri Danshaku to Himitsu no Shima (movie 6) : Key Animation
OVAL X OVER (OAV) : Director
Paradise Kiss (TV) : Key Animation (ED)
Re: Cutie Honey (OAV) : Episode Director (Ep. 1)
Samurai Champloo (TV) : Storyboard
This Ugly Yet Beautiful World (TV) : Original Picture
Trava (OAV) : Storyboard, Key Animation
