UPDATE: Karina initially accidentally posted this story under her name, instead of that of Lauren Wissot, who is the author. Please except her apologies for the confusion. Also, Young Karina did have a blue hair, black eyeliner & studded belt phase, but she was fairly careful not to get anywhere near a camera that year.

It was 30 years ago this week that Sid Vicious rang the death knell for punk rock, overdosing on heroin on February 2nd while awaiting trial for the murder of girlfriend Nancy Spungen. So in honor of the spike-haired rebel who was the face (if not the sound) of punk, and whose chaotic life ended at the tender age of 21, I present five punk rock films that really rock.

Suburbia

Suburbia was released in 1983, and though Sid Vicious had flamed out along with punk’s heyday years before, America’s hardcore scene was in overdrive with bands like Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys reinventing the music by playing at the speed of light, pumping up the adrenaline from coast to coast (and causing this minor threat to later consider the Ramones as slowpoke as The Beatles.) Director Penelope Spheeris, best known for docs like Decline of Western Civilization and her later forays into sellout Hollywood, thrillingly applied the original punk DIY ethos to filmmaking, using guerrilla tactics and nonprofessionals to create a time capsule of L.A.’s underground scene. In other words, the film not only documents punk, it is punk – and a must-see for a young punk as much as the latest Bad Brains album was a must-hear. In fact, I must’ve seen this film about a group of runaways who form a punk family a dozen times during my anarchistic teenage years, never sober and usually with my own extended, Mohawk coiffed, leather-and-chain-wearing family. Indeed, the image of lead character Evan kicking at white walls like a trapped animal, futilely trying to fight his way out of society’s cage, often would be the last I’d see before passing out next to a spike-toed Doc.

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Film Movement has acquired distribution rights to Shane Meadows’ short feature Somers Town, one of our favorite films of Tribeca 2008. According to indieWIRE, “the distributor plans a July 2009 theatrical opening in New York, followed by a national roll out.” When I saw the film last April, I called it a “70-minute portrait of a moment with zero fat to cu and not a false note.”

Don’t you just hate when the movies make you care about a bigot? Sure, racists are technically humans, but that doesn’t mean we need to sympathize with them, right? No matter how great the film, it should be very difficult to accept the softening of intolerant people.

Yet the lovable racist is not uncommon in cinema. In fact, out in theaters right now are two films dealing with this type of character. The Reader presents a cold Concentration Camp guard (Kate Winslet) for whom we’re meant to shed a tear, and Gran Torino focuses on a War Veteran stereotype (Clint Eastwood) who may evoke from the audience as much amusement as disgust.

Maybe it’s like picking a scab, watching these kinds of movies. Some great films, such as Downfall, may only welcome an understanding of someone so heinous as Adolph Hitler, but other films have allowed us to totally enjoy racist protagonists of lesser offense. Check out the following examples to see some of the many intolerant heroes we’ve easily tolerated.
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Not to diminish any of her myriad accomplishments (and I will never, ever begrudge her creative partnership with David Fincher), but it seems inarguable that history will remember Madonna most vividly as a cultural vampire: a supernatural creature (who, if not verifiably immortal, then certainly in hard-earned denial about her age), she’s sustained herself by sucking the lifeblood other artists, images, trends, cultural movements. From the punkish red scrawl of the opening credits forward (Is dotted with white Xs), Madonna’s feature directorial debut Filth and Wisdom seems of a piece with her previous work, in that it’s in some way about Madonna herself hiding behind borrowed aesthetics.

Madonna has previously namechecked everyone from Godard to Pasolini as an inspiration, but while Filth and Wisdom has traces of the invention via ignorance seen in those auteurs’ early films, that’s where the comparisons end. The influence of Shane Meadows is definitely felt, both as a love letter to the youthful romance of punk rock in poverty in the pocket of a British city, and in the presence of co-star Vicky McClure, late of three Meadows films including This is England. But Madonna gets the bulk of her borrowed essence from her star, Eugene Hutz, lead of gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello. The clumsy brilliance of Filth and Wisdom is the way it wraps material that’s clearly personal to Madonna in the irresistibly goofy trappings of Hutz’ Joe Strummer-of-the-Eastern Bloc persona and performance style. For fans of Hutz and his band, Filth has the makings of an instant music-movie classic. Fortunately for Madonna, whose major misstep as a filmmaker is the compulsion to divide her own personality traits and obsessions equally among her characters, Hutz is so likeable that he attracts a lot of fans at first sight.

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I saw six films at Tribeca this weekend, and five of them were completely blown off the map by Somers Town, Shane Meadows’ practically perfect follow-up to his 2007 triumph, This is England. England was one of my favorite films of last year, but its political/historical aims, admittedly, occasionally overwhelmed Meadows’ more subtle, character-based observations. Somers Town is less ambitious but more impressive, a 70-minute portrait of a moment with zero fat to cut and not a false note.

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We take this brief break from our wall-to-wall SXSW coverage to link to the competition line-up for 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, currently posted at indieWIRE. As you know, Baby Mama will open the festival; according to The Reeler, Speed Racer will close it. Here’s a look at a few titles of interest in between:

Shane Meadows’ Somers Town, previously mentioned here.

Guest of Cindy Sherman. Official synopsis: “Analyzing his relationship with reclusive artist Cindy Sherman leads videographer Paul H-O to confront his own ego and identity in this personal and often humorous documentary, which features unprecedented access to Sherman and a unique view of the New York art world.”

Chevolution. Official synopsis: “How did the iconic image of Che Guevara end up on beer bottles and bikinis? This inquiry into the ethics and aesthetics of appropriation investigates how the enduring symbol of Cuba’s Communist Revolution skyrocketed to fame and was ultimately devoured by its own worst enemy: capitalism. English, Spanish with English subtitles.”

I Am Because We Are. Madonna saves orphans.

A President to Remember. Directed by Robert Drew. Synopsis: “Culled from “direct cinema” pioneer Robert Drew’s unparalleled behind-the-scenes footage of JFK at work in the Oval Office, and the events that brought him there, this remarkable film proves a timely update of the Kennedy mythos and an eerily intimate portrait of the now-legendary man himself.”

Shane Meadows has very quietly followed up his skinhead instant-classic This is England with Somers Town, a black-and-white, 75-minute feature fronted by England’s young star, Thomas Turgoose. The film popped up unexpectedly at the Berlin Film Festival last month, where it earned a rapturous Variety review and very little other press. Now Twitch has a slide show of images from the film, apparently put together by Meadows himself in lieu of a trailer. See it above.

• The Circuit has pictures from The Weinstein Company’s party, which was held in “a strange concrete bunker” outfitted with a bumper car dance floor. Also, Patti Smith is apparently going around telling people she is “beyond gender,” which cleverly preempts any joke we could have made.
• Also at Mike Jones’ festival blog, a diary entry from Vicci Ho, member of the Berlinale Teddy jury. Apparently, assigned seats don’t mean much at this festival.
• Shane Meadows is showing a new feature in Berlin, featuring his This is England star Thomas Turgoose. Variety explains why you haven’t heard about it.
• “Not a gore fest by any means - it would likely get a PG-13 rating in the US - the film is a tightly plotted, exceptionally well shot thrill ride that sets the rules of its world very early on, lets the audience know what to expect and then executes flawlessly.” Todd Brown reviews Dark Floors, “the Finnish horror film conceived and created as a starring vehicle for Finnish metal act Lordi,” at Twitch.
• The FILMMAKER Blog points to the launch of The Auteurs, a new site that will offer full-length classic and art house features for download. The site will also have an editorial and social networking component. I’ve requested a beta invite, and I’ll post more on the site once I’ve had a chance to explore.

Last night I watched a screener of This is England, Shane Meadows’ semi-autobiographical feature about growing up skinhead in Thatcher-era England. Suffice it to say, I was somewhat blown away. I’ll write more after I’ve fully mulled, but because the film opens today at the IFC Center here in New York, I wanted to do a round-up of what a few other critics are saying. The film is currently set to expand to at least 12 additional cities through September.

“Period specificities aside, the film illustrates an aspect of adolescence I’ve rarely seen better explored: how subculture membership can foster a sense of belonging in young people unsuited to the school-sponsored avenues of self-identification, or can get a kid laid who’d otherwise be hopeless.” — Nick Pinkerton, indieWIRE

“It’s a glorious collage of young person moods: loneliness, confusion, revolt and languor. Meadows builds on this endearing formula with an involving interrogation of hate, and a bold willingness to show how a racist mentality can offer outsiders the dangerous illusion of salvation. The spot-on juvenilia alternates between modes of cuteness and terror.” — Eric Kohn, The Reeler

“What a weird and unpleasant land Britain was in the early 1980s…I don’t think that Meadows set out to shoot a state-of-the-nation parable. He set out to explore a contradiction within skinhead culture: the tribal dislike of foreigners, and the diehard allegiance to Jamaican ska music. Yet it’s clear that This is England is much bigger than this irony.” — James Christopher, The Times

“Every time he floats to us, the audience, a sense of Shaun’s brightness, Meadows is heightening the drama and asking the question: how badly are these skinheads going to screw up this kid’s future? How far down the wrong path are they going to take him? And we’re constantly reminded that Shaun is already dealing with the death of his father and trying to compute who this Thatcher person is that everyone keeps trying to tell him is to blame.” — Ryan Stewart, Cinematical

“This Is England is smart, funny, charming and appalling. It again proves that Meadows, already much loved for A Room For Romeo Brass and Dead Man’s Shoes, is one of the truly powerful and unique voices in UK film today, a master of character with an uncanny gift for fusing nostalgia with harsh reality.” — Todd at Twitch