SLC Punk

[ZZZ 63]

I love this movie. Most of the movies I love are not canon or at the most are fringe canon but I think SLC Punk is maybe deserving of an episode. The central arc of the main character is kind of orientated around white male privilege (will he go to Harvard Law School, will he not) but, the characters are dynamic and it gives more respect to women in the punk scene than is typical of movies of this ilk (SLC Punk 2 is atrociously misogynistic). The lesson of this movie is disheartening but it is realistic and I like that it shows the difference between being angry and antagonizing a system vs being compromising and working within it, even if it means the change isn't perfect.

[JosephDaley 26]

As someone who basically spent the past 10 years of my life in the Midwestern music scene, I have to say that i hate this movie. Green Room is a much better vision of what show culture is like in my opinion, and does a much better job of doing more with the themes and ideas you described in 20 minutes than the entire runtime of SLC Punk.

 

Admittedly, that's coming from a very specific perspective. I still really enjoy SLC Punk, it's just not in my opinion a Canon entry.

[RobertBoberts 62]

I don't really like the movie either. Penelope Spheeris's Suburbia was always the movie that defined punk rock to me. But maybe this just depends on everyone's age and what bands they grew up on. Suburbia was before my time but we were watching that long before SLC Punk came out.

[HoldenMartinson 221]

I don't know. As someone who lives, and is from Salt Lake, it's kind of neat to see places that I see all of the time. As a film, it's... fine, I guess. I'd be interested in hearing the case for it.

[ZZZ 63]

I really enjoyed green room ( I drove like 2 hours to see it in a theater) but to me that movie starts like one step before where SLC punk ends. Anton's character in that movie is already starting to age out of punk and just hasn't quite figured out how to contextualize it. There's something about the blustering angry stupidity of Matthew Lillard's character that just seems very honest to me. It reminds me of American Beauty in the sense that he's kind of an embarrassing character that takes himself way to seriously but I've definitely had those moments where I'm angrily explaining to an adult all the things I understand about the world better than they do. I feel like this movie simultaneously represents what I love about punk and the things that I find frustrating about it.

 

I really love Green Room but it feels fundamentally different from SLC Punk in the sense that none of the characters in that movie are so visual in their rebellion. A convenience store clerk is not going to mistake them for satan worshippers. Steve-o and Heroin Bob are really putting on a costume and adopting a lifestyle of a movement that isn't happening anywhere near them and is already kind of dying in the places where its popular. It feels like they've really connected to something and changed their lives based on second-hand information. Both movies do a really good job at representing the soft scared kids under the hardcore facade but SLC punk does it just by showing the way people change as they get older. Like I said I fully acknowledge my bizarro taste in movies, it's not really canon but I still really enjoy it and I think a lot of the insufferable parts kind of accentuate the point.

[phred2321 57]

I have to say that i hate this movie.

...

I still really enjoy SLC Punk.

 

What?

[NathanGordon 1096]

I remember this film feeling only superficially punk, even in its depiction of suburban teenage rebellion. The character has a mohawk and poorly thought out politics, but nothing about the film itself felt very punk. Compare to something like Repo Man, Mod Fuck Explosion, Suburbia (1983), The Fabulous Stains, Smithereens, or Dogs in Space, which all have an authenticity that SLC Punk lacks completely.

 

To me, a punk rock film isn't just about having the Sex Pistols on the soundtrack; it's about a DIY ethos, a transgessive spirit, and a willingness for your art to be vulnerable and confrontational. The early films of John Waters are punk rock. Tetsuo: Iron Man is punk as fuck. Liquid Sky is so punk it's probably from another dimension. SLC Punk just doesn't have that, although it does tell a good story about what it feels like to be trapped in Utah.

 

Not a great film by any measure though.

[NathanGordon 1096]

Also, the writer/director of SLC Punk made a sequel last year that misses the mark in such a totally bizarre way, it must be seen to be believed.

[ZZZ 63]

I remember this film feeling only superficially punk, even in its depiction of suburban teenage rebellion. The character has a mohawk and poorly thought out politics, but nothing about the film itself felt very punk. Compare to something like Repo Man, Mod Fuck Explosion, Suburbia (1983), The Fabulous Stains, Smithereens, or Dogs in Space, which all have an authenticity that SLC Punk lacks completely.

 

To me, a punk rock film isn't just about having the Sex Pistols on the soundtrack; it's about a DIY ethos, a transgessive spirit, and a willingness for your art to be vulnerable and confrontational. The early films of John Waters are punk rock. Tetsuo: Iron Man is punk as fuck. Liquid Sky is so punk it's probably from another dimension. SLC Punk just doesn't have that, although it does tell a good story about what it feels like to be trapped in Utah.

 

Not a great film by any measure though.

 

 

The sequel is abysmal to the point of being repulsive. SLC Punk lacks an authenticity to the actual punk movement but it is completely authentic to punk adjacent communities and that's what I love about it. I grew up in rural New Hampshire and the punk scene where I live was full of the people represented in this movie. It's this weird co-opt of punk culture that doesn't get it exactly right and I think that sets apart from other movies about punk. It's not about the DIY ethos it's about what it's like to be trapped in a rural area and the way these characters are hero worshipping a movement they don't really understand.

[JosephDaley 26]