Suburbia

I’ve been a fan of punk rock since I was 13 years old and heard The Sex Pistols for the first time thanks to the mockumentary “Great Rock N’ Roll Swindle”. Since then I’ve become a fan of every of it’s genres and subgenres, and I’m also a metal fan as well but that’s a completely different thing. After Swindle (and SLC Punk), this was another one of the first punk films I ever saw, and it was the one that left a huge mark on me. It deals with a young runaway who arrives in LA and immerses himself into the punk rock scene. Finding a family in the other squatter punks who share a house, he lives the life, fighting adversity, drugs, death & the hatred of rednecky California folk. It made me wish I was a squatter punk and not a healthy suburbanite. The acting is pretty good considering all the kids were amateurs. There are some very exhilarating scenes, like when the rednecks crash their home and threaten the kids. Then there’s the classic funeral scene, which is one of the best pieces of filmmaking ever done in a punk rock movie. Although it was made by Roger Corman to cash in on the punk scene at the time, Penelope Spheeris gives the story and characters the realistic feel that probably no other filmmaker could have given it. She was, after all, the director of Decline Of Western Civilization. A great film.