Top Ten Punk Films!

Posted on Apr 4, 2010

Mondo Film & Video Guide Presents: Top Ten Punk Films!

Written By: Justin Bozung
Mondo Film & Video Guide Co-Founder

What about your relationship?!   Fuck You… -  Milo, Repo Man

When I was about 12 years old, my best friend’s sister, took us out to the movies and then pizza afterward. I remember being inside the pizza joint, it was  a Sbarro’s in a mall! It was empty, late at night, and at the end of the restaurant was a table of ugly looking punkers.  One had a mohawk the size of Texas, with leathers on, and spikes as far as the eye could see. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.  They where ugly, interesting and instantly you knew they didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about them, especially a young SOD like me. This is the most obvious moment of my life.

When I was in high school, I used to think being a punk, or being interested in punk, meant you had to have liberty spikes, neon orange hair, flannel pants with safety pins in them.  Really, what it comes down to, is that, all that is  just junk image and branding. Real punks are individual thinkers, people that question everything, create new movements, refuse to accept standards, and know how to maintain their individuality and self freedom inside the evil system.   Most of you may or may not agree with my list of films below. And that’s fine.  If you can leave this website, and accept what I’ve said, then you probably aren’t relating anyhow.. And if you are relating, it’s because you love these films as much as I do, and you KNOW that these films all have something more important in common, then they’re kick ass soundtracks.  Here is my list of the Top Ten Punk Films of all time.  In these films, you aren’t gonna find any fashion tips, but you will experience the attitude and self expression that really is what punk is all about.  I’m still a punk. I still question everything, try to cause as much trouble for rule makers as I possibly can.  Don’t take “NO” for an answer! Start creating things that will change the world.  Scare your neighbors or people at your local grocery store.  Talk hard!  And as GG once sang,  Suck my ass it smells!

#10 – Ladies & Gentleman The Fabulous Stains (1982)

Directed By: Lou Adler
IMDb.com Link

By any means, Stains isn’t a perfect movie, nor is it really a great movie!  Mostly the casting is painful UN-realized, and while this is Diane Lane’s movie to own, what’s most important about Stains is the attitude of Lane’s character “Third Degree Burns”.  It’s her against the fucking world. And there is something so painfully poignant about her plight that makes Burns your soul mate!  She’s tough, bitter, smart, sexy and knows what she wants. What’s more punk than that?  Fabulous Stains, features cameos from real punk rockers, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Paul Simone.

The film was directed by Lou Adler.  Adler was a music promoter and producer in Los Angeles in the 1960′s working mostly with The Mama’s and Papas.  Adler also went on to be the key producer / organizer of the infamous Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, that introduced Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding to the rock world.   Somehow he also went on to produce the most popular cult film of all time, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I don’t know how Adler got involved in Stains, and nor do I care. It’s an highly interesting and entertaining film, and Burn’s attitude is what it’s all about!

#09 – Rock N Roll High School (1979)

Directed By: Alan Arkush
IMDb.com Link

A laugh out loud screwball comedy produced by the great Roger Corman, RNR HS, stories an evil principal (Mary Woronov) that try’s to stop the school’s students from turning the school into a Rock N Roll nut house! They’ll blow it up!!  The film’s story (developed by Gremlins director, Joe Dante) is set around the appearance and music of the seminal New York City punk rock band, The Ramones.  What makes this film, is the great Riff Randell.  Thee Riff Randell?  Played with expertise by the funny, believable and super sexy, P.J. Soles.

Interestingly, Soles wasn’t the first choice for Randell, but she stepped in, as she told director Arkush that she’s supply her own characters wardrobe. Soles as Randell emulates the passion and drive of punk attitude.  She does what she wants to do, questions everything, and is always looking to pull a joke or two, over the heads of the establishment.  With brilliant visual punch lines, cameos by some of the greatest B-movie actors of the 70′s,  and a interesting masked cameo by horror special effects master Rob Bottin as “the Mouse“.  Rock N Roll High School is essential viewing, and there’s no way, you’ll be able to resist the urge to jump up out of your seat, and do the Cretin Hop and Blitzkreg Bop while this party is happening!  Riff will you marry me?

#08 – SLC Punk (1998)

Written & Directed By: James Merendino
IMDb.com Link

This lil’ under the radar indie scum fuck, is the story of a group of Salt Lake City punkers that band together squatting, trying to figure out their paths in life, love and culture.  Punk attitude is what this is all about,  and while the film is a indie drama,  it’s a quite moving and inspirational  piece.   It’s about fighting the system, existing within the system, questioning drug abuse, supposed friendships, ethics, love, and business.  Lillard is wonderful here in the lead role, but doesn’t produce as great a effort, as his Shaggy role in the Scooby Doo live action films. LOL.  For an indie film, it has a great supporting cast, which includes Jason Segal, Annabel Gish, and Devon Sawa.   SLC Punk, while the DVD cover art is somewhat misleading,  proves effortlessly that being a punk, really has NOTHING to do with what you are wearing…But it SURE does help!    Check it out!

#07 – Another State Of Mind (1984)

Directed By: Adam Small & Peter Stuart
IMDb.com Link

A documentary film, that follows several young and upcoming southern California punk bands, as they buy an old school bus, and set out to promote themselves and their bands by going on tour across the US and Canada.  What makes this so punk, isn’t their clothing nor their music. It’s their ideals and drive that put this film on the list.  The kids in the film are 18, 19 and 20 year old individuals, that can’t see themselves working 9 to 5 jobs like their parents, and so they get creative and visionary as they make this entire project happen on their own!  What’s NOT punk about that?  Sadly, things DO go wrong, and the film captures, the who’s real and who’s a punk poser characters. The bus breaks down, ALOT..  And it seems as they roll into Detroit, everyone on this tour has HAD it, and most of them take off.

Who’s left behind, are those who go forward, and becomes the southern CAL punk icons that they are now today!  I’m talking about the great singer, songwriter, Mike Ness.  Ness is the founder of one of the greatest punk rock bands ever, Social Distortion.  The coolest aspect of State of Mind, is as a viewer, we get the honor of witnessing Ness’s song writing process, and over the course of the film, he finishes writing, one of the band’s greatest songs ever, aptly titled, Another State Of Mind!   Totally cool..   Get On The Bus!

#06 – Pump Up The Volume (1990)

Directed By: Allan Moyle
IMDb.com Link

Ok, everyone listen.  I know this is more than likely a controversial pick.  But it wouldn’t be punk if it wasn’t!  Pump Up The Volume, is the story of a teenage loner, stuck in a suburban wasteland, trying to survive trying to fit in.   As a outlet to voice his opinion on contemporary society he starts his own underground punk radio show. Punk in music, punk in talk and thought.  Pump Up The Volume does work.  It’s entertaining, generational, and powerfully effective.  Not only does Slater’s character push for everyone and anyone out there listening to create something, but he also causes a major stir in the community causing everyone to take notice, including the government.   That’s nothing BUT, punk..   Talk Hard!  Steal The Air!  Start Something!  KICK OUT THE JAMES MUTHA-FUCKERS!

#05 – Suburbia (1984)

Written & Directed By: Penelope Spheeris
IMDb.com Link

Here’s a another Roger Corman produced film.  Are you NOW starting to see a pattern here?  Suburbia is the story of a group of friends, who tune in, turn on, and drop out.   Turning on, dedicating your life, to youth in revolt type tatics, and pure punk rock fury.  The friends take on a minimal lifestyles with each other, squatting in abandoned buildings.  Suburbia is about your rejects and outcasts, that attempt to exorcise their own demons, find love, unify and discover a place to reside in society.

Spheeris as director, set’s out to create a film, cinema verite of sorts. She chose real punk street kids, with only three professional actors in the principal cast.  The film features a performance, by the midget’d Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s bass genius, Flea, and also includes amazing live performances by 80′s punk underground hard core bands like T.S.O.L,  The Vandels, and D.I.   Overall a very effective film, that could be shown to your kids as they get older when they’re misbehavin,  “see this is what happens, when you don’t listen to mom and dad!” Stay In School!

#04 – Repo Man (1984)

Written & Directed By: Alex Cox
IMDb.com Link

Otto’s life sucks.  All in the same day, he gets fired from his shitty shopping market clerk job, he catches his punker girl toy bumping uglys with a friend at a party, and to top it all off, his hippie parents, decided to take the money they promised him for school and donated it to a televangelist. WTF!   Repo Man is as punk as it gets.  It’s a sci fi punk rocker coming of age comedy.  It’s about life experience,  one day you’re working at a grocery store, the next you are chasing after a car with a  E.T. in the goddamn trunk, and it changes you!   Repo Man gets into you psyche like a blown sub woofer blasting your eardrums, and doesn’t let go!   Directed by Brit Alex Cox (director of punk wannabe films, Straight To Hell & Sid and Nancy)  Repo Man is a stark punk opus that brilliantly integrates a wonderful sci fi punk rock fury that’s really bad ass.  Pay your bills, you don’t want THIS Repo Man coming after you!

#03 – The Decline Of Western Civilization (1981)

Directed By: Penelope Spheeris
IMDb.com Link

Filmed from 1979 throught 1980, Decline is director Spheeris’s first foray into the punk genre.  Decline is more or less a straight concert film, that showcases Los Angeles punk band  – Fear, The Circle Jerks, Black Flag, The Bags, The Germs, and seminal punk pioneers, X.   The film created a ruckus, before it was released, when it was rumors that then Los Angeles police chief, Daryl Gates ( yes…thee Daryl Gates) was trying to get an injunction on it’s release, as he feared that it was cause a punk riot in the streets of Los Angeles.  I’d stay that’s a little excessive.  It’s a wonderful time capsule of early 80′s punk music, and you’ll be hard pressed, not to jump off the couch, cut your hair into a mohawk, throw something out the window, and mosh the walls down!

#02 – The Great Rock N Roll Swindle (1980)

Written & Directed By: Julien Temple
IMDb.com Link

Friggin in the Riggin!  Originally a project, that was going to be directed by the great Russ Meyer, The Great Rock N Roll Swindle is a mock documentary of sorts, that details how Malcolm Mclaren, and “his” band, The Sex Pistols, scammed the music industry by storm, created a fashion trend, and caused a disjointed attitude amongst the youth of late 70′s London.  Swindle is highly visual, and features hilarious vinette’s that parody, music, sex, culture, death and fashion.  The Sex Pistols, and the reverb that they vomited is still felt today, but perhaps as   Mclaren may have intended, the infamous swindle, is now a brand just big as Nike!  Tisk.. Tisk…   Throw in a narrator in a gimp suit, some midgets and some nat-zi’s, and Sid Vicious singing “My Way” while he’s gunning down a theater audience in a tuxedo, and you have one hell of a punk rock roadshow, that leaves you wanting MORE!   Who Killed My Bambi????

#01 – Hated: G.G. Allin & The Murder Junkies (1994)

Written & Directed By: Todd Phillips
IMDb.com Link

Alas, we’ve reached numero uno!  The king of shock rock, the one the only Mr. G.G. Allin.  Hated is a documentary filmed over the course of two years, following punk rock GOD, mis-understood master, G.G, and his band of delinquent cohorts, the Murder Junkies.  Watch, G.G. shove a banana up his ass, watch G.G. take a shit on stage, and roll around in glass. This guy is true, this guy IS punk rock.   Hated is simply a brilliant and somehow self disturbing film. You can never make up your mind about whether or not, you hate G.G or love G.G.  Completed as a film school project, director Todd Phillips, went on to become a Hollywood hot shot directing and producing such Hollywood comedy fair as Old School, The Hangover, All The Kings Men, Road Trip, and Starsky And Hutch.  Phillips was also one of the founders of the great New York Underground Film Festival as well.

G.G. Allin died of a drug overdose shortly after the making of this film.  He was a true punk, and maybe the most dangerous man alive. (If he was still alive!) If you haven’t seen Hated, I advise you run out today and purchase a copy on DVD. G.G’s attitude was punk, however mis-guided.  He was a damaged man , but he found a one way street, to drive down while deathtripping.  Sit back, take your clothes off, get out a banana, and Die When You Die!

Justin Bozung is the Co-Founder of the Mondo Film & Video Guide. You can email him directly at justinb@mondo-video.com