I was a fan of CBGB music before I even knew what it was. I remember going to a second hand record store and asking them if they had any John Cale records. They said, yes, in the CBGB pile. The what? CBGB. Seeby-Jeeby..? And then they pointed at the section and there was a bunch of punk/new wave that I love. Heaven? Yes. Randall Miller seems to have a big passion for this music of the 70s and 80s too. I'm way more interested in the other upcoming project he had in mind called The Drummer, which was to star Vera Farmiga as Christine McVie and Aaron Eckhart as Dennis Wilson, but that film seems to not be happening anytime soon. Instead, I'm happy to check out CBGB to at least learn more about the place than 'it was a club.' The film prominently features musicians such as Television, The Dead Boys, Talking Heads, Blondie and Iggy Pop, but this story is about Hilly Kristal, the founder of the club, played by Alan Rickman. Although the film appears to glide through the narrative without much of a sense of jeopardy or pressure, it's very entertaining and colourful, designed in a magazine style with split screens and annotations every now and then. Even though that caricature tone does not match the gritty punk attitude of its topics, it's an accessible and simplified version that's great fun to watch, even if most of the accents are terrible.
7/10
