Picking up the thread from our “Hyphenates” discussion, let’s talk about notable on-screen portrayals of punk, with special focus on its applicability to the Southern California experience.
My candidate for best of show is “Repo Man” — as Toby said, perhaps the only decent thing Emilio Estevez has ever done, but good enough to make up for a dozen “Mighty Ducks.” (Worst/funniest could be the punk-rock episode of “Quincy.” (Am I right that some actual LA punks were extras in that episode?)
Discuss!
Here’s the goods (bads?)
Both Quincy and Chips had casting calls for punks. Stella Donnely and Jennifer Clark (from Encinitas/Cardiff) were in the Quincy punk episode.
I think it’s only proper I leave one of my favorite movies of all times- Quadrophenia- to another thread and to the people here who can better present all that. But I’ve always considered the who- and to some extent everything surrounding them- somehow related to punk. Same with the Specials and that era of Ska.
Anyhow- it’s difficult to pick just one scene from Repo Man but here’s one I like:
Off topic a little: I really liked the Plimsouls bit at the Cathay de Grande and thought Valley Girl came off as a kind of a funky, funny parody of Hollywood punk movies.
Cameron Dye in this reminds me a lot of Kendall Ferris.
I hope the rest of those kids beat up the guy at the end who was obviously gonna tell Quincy where she was.
Best idea, horrible movie with the worst dialog and some great live footage that encapsulates 1983 well was Suburbia. God the dialog was inane, most of the acting horrific. I still keep a copy of that, though. Guilty pleasure.
If you ever get the urge to view the director’s commentary of the later edition- don’t. I mean- unless you need a good laugh. As much as I love Penelope for doing the Decline I have to say that the Director’s commentary on Suburbia was about the most inane stuff I’ve ever witnessed. But it fit the dialog of the movie well, and she dropped the names of a TON of great people who were always pretty accessible.
I do recognize a few faces in that crowd.
TSOL:
Vandals:
Steve-o jensen died a few years back while living on Maui. He was a good guy and a little crazy along the lines of myself and bobo, I guess. Never knew what would happen around Steve-o Vandal.
Casey Royer and D.I.:
I was going to refer to Repo Man in the thread about LA--for me, that movie captures the essence of Los Angeles as I remember it (not all of it of course) but certainly the look and feel of LA. Not to mention the whole play on generic brand foods. I was working at Food Basket in Mission Hills all throughout the Hedgehogs, Mystery Machine and Tell-Tale Hearts days(my friends saw some graffiti on a McDonald’s table that said, “Ray Brandes is hot! I shop at Food Brandes,” but that’s another story. Anyway, this was in the heyday of yellow generic brand food. Kirby (Mojo Nixon) used to come into shop and he’d always joke about how his shopping cart was bright yellow.
Punk rock Chips was a comedy classic!
Someone told me that Jeff Lucas was in one of the Dirty Harry movies, not the first one, the cool one based on the Zodiac, but another film in which he did a walk by as a “punk rocker.”
I don’t know if this counts, but I think I saw Lee Ving of Fear on Roseanne once. By the way, Toby, I’d love to hear the story of your getting harrassed by Brandon Cruz’s mom. “People let me tell you ’bout my best friend . . .”
I believe Jeff may have been an extra in another Lee Ving-stravaganza, 1983’s “Get Crazy,” which featured Lou Reed in a comedic supporting role as a reclusive songwriting legend that kind of triangulated his persona and Bob Dylan’s. A pretty ghastly movie, as I recall, but some of Lou’s bits were actually kind of funny!
Oh yeah, and I may be crazy, but I swear I remember Fear playing in a club in a movie. And I’m not talking about Decline . . .
I think you might be correct there.
Very easy confusion to have- Fishbone and the Untouchables. Both shared stages a lot during the eighties, along with the RHCP. But yeah- the Untouchables were on the scooters in Repo Man. Another feature (among many) that brings it from mediocre to cult classic.
Actually that was me who was an extra onscreen “punk rocker” (or longhair ‘rocker’ at any rate) in a funeral scene in the third Dirty Harry movie, “The Dead Pool”. In this youtube clip you can see me for a moment at :49 (I’m in a grey overcoat, entering the shot from the left bottom corner), 1:10, and very clearly trying to stay on camera at 1:23. Aside from my wunnerful appearance standing opposite of Guns ‘n Ruses in a graveyard, the best parts of this movie are a chase scene involving a toy-sized radio-controlled car (Bullitt style SF hills chase) and an absolutely hilarious Jim Carrey performance lip-synching “Welcome to the Jungle”…in a frozen meat locker made to look like a scene from The Exorcist for a music-video filmshoot. Brilliant.
Dave: Weren’t you an extra in the Doors movie, too?
Speakin’ of biopix, has anyone seen the Germs movie?
BTW, Emilio Estevez drunkenly singing “TV Party” in “Repo Man” has always struck me as especially emblematic. I’ve also got my daughter saying “Let’s get sushi and not pay!” when we’re trying to decide what to do for fun.
So I just went to imdb to check out “The Dead Pool,” and there is a piece about Clint Eastwood and the “Dirty Harry” movies on the front page. Very cool, Dave. Any stories about Clint Eastwood, Guns and Roses or Liam Neeson?
Also pretty well etched into my mind as period punk pieces for one reason or another are Breaking Glass with Hazel O’conner, the subway punks scene in American Werewolf in London, Christiane F, Another State of Mind, the Germs with Cheech and Chong, Return of the Living Dead, Cop Killer starring Harvey Keitel and John Lydon, and (while it isn’t a “punk” movie per se we certainly thought of it as quite punk) A Clockwork Orange.
Punk Rock CHiPs:
I don’t really have much to report on, DirtyHarry-storieswise…’Guns looked like they didn’t much care for being up that early in the morning and other than hearing about hearing some lascivious comments, I seem to remember one of them had a jacket with “Buns and Poses” embroidered on the back. I had heard they were going to be in the shoot but I had no idea who they were and had wishful thinked myself into looking forward to seeing Love and Rockets in person.
Clint just seemed like a really jovial, easygoing guy, he had a lot of makeup on and he just grinned and joked with everybody until the shooting started and then he got all Callahan and grimaced a lot..
wow…I remember that CHiMPS episode from when it first ran..that’s the one with Paunch singing ‘Celebration’ at the end. Have never been able to shake that image out of my head..
Clint may be my favorite Republican since Teddy Roosevelt.
Dave, was one of the band or one of the extras in the “Buns & Poses” jacket? If the former, I just fell in love with the band a little bit … If the later — mwahahahaha!
(“Latter,” even. Blackberry thumb-typing is a drag!)
It was one of the band members wearing the jacket. They always seemed to me like a rather silly bunch…anybody who got their stage moves from Davy Jones couldn’t be without some sense of irony. Take the last train to Paradise City…
I often have thought that Guns and Roses was a bit of Hollywood parodying itself. Spinal Tap comes immediately to mind.
Repo man was on last night on one of the movie cable channels. I got to hear the comment “lets get sushi and not pay…”
The scene in “Repo Man” where they all pile into a car and beat the crap out of the wrong guy? I’ve been known to suggest that to my news teams as a way of dealing with our editorial competitors … Like, we roll out to kick ass on the editor-in-chief of Infoworld but pound the Woman’s Wear Daily EIC by mistake! Always seemed to me like a great team-building exercise.
The Circle Jerk’s Cameo as the cheesy bar band was pretty amusing.
Lee Ving has had quite a run as an extra, bit parts and even supporting roles. In 1983 he played the sleazy strip club guy Johnny C. in Flashdance, he played in something I’ve never seen called “Get Crazy” which starred Malcolm McDowell the same year. He played Greer in the 1984 apocalyptic Rockabilly-futuristic hybrid schlock B-movie Streets of Fire. Plus he had little parts here and there on TV. Fame? Who’s the Boss? Too funny. All told he’s played about 27 parts throughout an acting career that has spanned from 1981 to present.
Yeah, I mentioned “Get Crazy” higher up in the thread. It features Lou Reed quite deadpan and funny as this genius songwriter who hasn’t been out of his apartment in years and ends up taking a taxi from NY to LA to play the concert. Plus John Densmore from the Doors in some kind of business with an airplane that I can remember.
Really quite an awful movie, but I did enjoy the Lou Reed stuff. I think Jeff Lowe was in the crowd scenes, which may be how he got transposed with Dave Fleminger in people’s memories of “The Dead Pool.”
Perhaps this is my favorite moment. Is it punk rock?
The muttered “Sorry” just totally seals the deal on that scene! Punk rock as hell!
Did any of you ever see “The Adventures of Pete and Pete” when it was on Nickelodeon? It was a little gem, with lots of rock-‘n’-roll cameos, including Iggy Pop in a steady supporting role as a local dad:
The Belushi scene is totally punk rock, as is the whole frat deconstructive theme of that whole film. But that scene in particular sticks in my mind as decidedly punk.
Is this the same cemetery as the one in Dave Fleminger’s Dirty Harry post up above?
I suspect the folks at 10 News still have more stuff like this in their archives:
What about Tuff Turf, it concerned a preppy james spader whose family after falling on hard times ends up in a bad part of town where he of course is bullied by but eventually befriends the punk rockers who even have their own clubhouse where jim carroll plays every night! fantastic movie
“Streets of Fire” is a retro-modernistic, “High Noon” rip-off, guilty pleasure of mine. Besides Lee Ving, the cast includes an incredibly hot, young Diane Lane, an oddly miscast Rick Moranis, and Willem Dafoe in an early role wearing PVC pants, and engaging in a street fight with sledge hammers. Also, the bad guys headquarters/strip joint/juke joint band is none other than The Blasters.
As an aside, I can never hear Lee Ving’s name without thinking of Dennis Borlek. Whenever he hears someone utter the phrase “I’m leaving”, he immediately retorts “No you’re not, Lee Ving is the lead singer of Fear”.
Just finished re-viewing “To Sir, With Love” for the first time in over 20 years. I think this could in a way be thought of as the film that came before Quadrophenia. Sure- no music tie in really, except for the dance scene- but the rest is nearly all there.
I saw “To Sir with Love” last year — IIRC, some of the cast (besides Lulu) did have swinging-London cred.
breaking glass… yeah. and the best of all punk movies in recent years: what we do is secret. darby crash’s story. not a bad piece of history to have told.
repo man, decline, quadrophenia, yes… i love those.
(and the muttered “sorry” kills me every time. belushi was the ultimate punk. wore cons and bad sweaters and didn’t give a rats. i loved him. his passing was a trauma on the true comedy circuit.)
Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh …. This doesn’t sound good … The perpetrator of “Polar Express” plans to bring his especially doughy flavor of CGI to “Yellow Submarine”:
Matthew can anyone blog here? Let me please….
Kyle
I spelled my own name wrong(typo) like the Bloods & Crips!LOL
>>Matthew can anyone blog here?
Kyle: If you mean can anyone comment on posts, sure — as long as they’re real people and follow some basic rules about not implicating others in past activities that might embarrass them.
If you mean putting up new blog posts … I’m always interested in submissions, but I’d rather prep and post those. Drop me a line at cheunderground@gmail.com with ideas! 🙂
I really love the opening of the vampire flick “The Hunger” with Bauhaus doing “Bella Legosi’s Dead” in a cage.
“The Hunger”….Love the scene where the guy on roller skates gets cut while IGGY sings “Funtime” in the background.
Love the Bowie classical music scenes…hate the monkey scenes.
not sure why but i’m saddened to hear disney bought marvel comics.
“Shakes the Clown” was punk as hell:
Since we just raised the specter of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” fandom, I thought it was another moment to revive this thread ….
“What do you do when your bright, loveable, talented kid turns into a punker overnight?”
You apologize to him for every appalling “Love Boat” performance of your career. You thank God you didn’t pass that on to the next generation. Then you ask your talented kid if he’ll help you redeem yourself with a hair and fashion consultation. Maybe contacts, spiky hair, an artfully paint-splattered t-shirt, and a tattoo will be the equivalent of going underground with the Witness Protection program.
that picture alomost reminds me of Dave Hinge
I always liked Doc
Here’s some footage from “The Day My Kid Went Punk”:
And while we’re consuming old cheese:
It also breaks the blog’s rules
>>It also breaks the blog’s rules
No PSAs??
No Pee Wee
I worshipped this movie as a kid.
I saw “Christiane F” at the Ken …
I have a PSA of 1.1 Doctors are monitoring!
Did you guys know about this documentary examining Morrissey’s enthusiastic Hispanic fan base in LA? I sure didn’t!
The photoprapher Adam Krause has series called carnivores +destructors, which portrays Morrissey fans in their natural habitats. Some good photos, if you like photos.
http://www.adamkrausephoto.com/413/carnivores--destructors
Class of 1984. Punk kids deal drugs and don’t take no crap from teachers. Eventually kidnap and rape teachers wife and deal drugs to a very young Michael J Fox who accidentally kills himself cuz he so high he thinks he can fly. Another example of punks being portrayed as criminal psychopaths in movies back then. I blame Johnny Rotten. Still a very entertaining trash flick. Similar to Tuff Turf which someone posted earlier