Film Club 2K6 Volume 3

When I wasn’t obsessing about the Panthers game this week, I found myself in a documentary kind of mood. So without further ado…

End of the Century

In 1993, I went to my very first concert: The Ramones at Memorial Stadium. Since then, I’ve been to tons of shows, but I remember that one better than most.

The lights went down and the theme to “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” started playing on the PA. One by one they walked onto stage: Marky…Johnny…CJ…and then finally, Joey. They each got into position and then CJ belted into the microphone “1 2 3 4!” and with that they launched into “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”. For the next 2 hours I witnessed one of the greatest rock shows I will ever see.

“End of the Century” is a documentary about the creation of one of the most influential bands ever. It’s also the only chronicling of their story to be 100% endorsed and told by the Ramones themselves.

Unlike most rock documentaries, these guys truly hold nothing back in their story. This is a band of guys who pretty much hated each other, pretty much most of the time. Yet they stuck with it out of love for what they were doing. Joey was a very liberal Jew; while Johnny was so conservative he thanked George W Bush at the Ramones inauguration into the Rock and Roll hall of fame. Dee Dee was a heroin addict, Marky was an alcoholic, Joey had OCD, Johnny was just pissed off…this was the definition of dysfunctional family.

What’s really amazing was just realizing how innovative they were and how much they influenced so many bands. Joe Strummer tells a story about the first time the Ramones played London. He was there with Mick Jones, Johnny Rotten and future members of various other London punk bands. He says that after seeing them play they all realized that what they were doing was so simple that anyone could do it. A year later bands like the Clash and the Sex Pistols were releasing their first records using the exact template the Ramones introduced them to. In fact the Clash’s first single “White Riot” sounds like it could be a Ramones cover.

The sad thing about this band was that they never got any kind of recognition from the mainstream. They never had a hit album or a hit single, despite having incredibly strong pop sensibilities (Just listen to “Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio” to see what I mean). It wasn’t until decades later when bands like U2, Pearl Jam, Rollins, Nirvana, etc started singing the praises of how the Ramones were the reason they exist. Now, with most of the band having passed away, Ramones shirts and CBGB shirts are suddenly “trendy”.

The Aristocrats

The documentary about the dirtiest joke there is.

I missed this one in the theaters, and just caught it last night. I had reservations about a movie of seeing comedian after comedian all telling the same joke. Well today, my sides still hurt from laughing so hard. This is a great movie for a couple of reasons:

1. It’s really funny.

2. Its fascinating seeing how different comedians tackle the exact same joke. Some try to put a twist on it, some make it all about how the story is told and the setup before the raunchy bits, and then some just try to make it the vilest disgusting thing you’ve ever heard.

I walked away from this movie with a heightened appreciation for the intricacies of how a joke is formulated, which is funny because this is a joke that’s all about being disgusting.

A few highlights to look for:

- Kevin Pollack telling the joke as Christopher Walken
- The South Park kids (“Just a minute Kyle”)
- Sarah Silverman. Her bit ends with one of the best punch lines in the show.

But hands down the hardest I laughed was actually during one of the deleted scenes. If you’ve already seen the flick, rent the DVD just for this. If you don’t want to see the movie, just try to find time to watch this one deleted bit, it’s priceless. On the deleted scene menu it’s titled “Doug Stanhope: Remember When I Took You to Sea World?” I don’t want to tell you anything about it, as to spoil it but it was so funny my friends and I literally had to stop the scene halfway through because we were laughing so hard it was starting to really hurt.

And by the way, if you laugh at the scene, you’re going to hell. Just an F.Y.I.