Wednesday, September 13, 2006
DVD Review: End Of The Century - The Story Of The Ramones
If this world were perfect, the Ramones would be one of the biggest-selling artists ever. We'd be celebrating their popularity amongst the mainstream, and their recent Anthology CD would have gone triple platinum.
Unfortunately, the world we live in throws up people like Robbie Williams and James Blunt as the big sellers. The "popular" ones. But its endearing to know that despite not selling a huge amount of records - at least enough to make a splash - they're still known as one of, if not the best punk bands around, and the ones who really kickstarted punk and sent shockwaves to England, where the genre took on a whole new life. It's this kind of thing that End of the Century celebrates.
The Movie
On the surface, End of the Century is your standard "behind the music" band documentary. It has interviews with every single member of the Ramones - and christ, I didn't know there were so many - as well as childhood friends, record producers, music critics called Legs, and a ton of musical legends talking about the band, including Joe Strummer of the Clash, Debbie Harry, and others, interspersed with lots of footage from the tons of gigs they performed at, along with the usual childhood photos juxtaposed with their present day selves, thus displaying that Johnny Ramone hasn't changed a micron.
But the best thing is the testimony from the band themselves. Luckily, the documentary was produced before the untimely deaths of Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee (although you could kind of see it happening from the doc with him), so we get the dirt first hand, as opposed to the usual friends and others speculating on what happened.
I'll be honest, I'm kind of a late comer to the Ramones. When I was growing up, there was very much a kind of 'us and them' mentality to metal and punk, so when I had to choose, I chose metal, helped greatly by Metallica's ...And Justice For All record and a healthy dose of Slayer. So because of my stupid closed mind, I didn't get to check out the Ramones until later, when I discovered what a complete fucking fool I'd been. Don't get me wrong, I'm not and never have been a huge punk fan, and I'm sure if I said what I really think about the Sex Pistols in your average dirt club, I'd be lynched. But the Ramones are something else.
Like most music documentaries, End of the Century takes a chronological look at the band's career, from their teenage years in Forest Hills, Queens, NYC where, as usual, they didn't fit in, and goes into the depths of their career album by album. The movie never skimps out on dishing the actual dirt, although it'd be impossible to sugarcoat the Ramones' story because of everything that's happened. But one thing you always look for when these kind of pieces come up is new information, and while your die-hard Ramones fan will probably know most, if not all of what's presented here, for the more casual or newer fan, it's gold.
Where to start? "53rd and 3rd" being a reference to Dee Dee's days as a rentboy on the street corner of the same name, the various differences that for whatever reason have caused members to leave the band, and the bringing in of new members such as CJ and Marky Ramone, some of which now seem insanely normal. Like soccer dads. It also sheds great light into the dichotomy between Joey and Johnny, both politically and personally. Joey was very liberally minded, while Johnny was a staunch right-wing conservative, and the political opinions crossed many times, not least with the song "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg," written by Joey about Ronald Reagan and his dislike for his presidential activities.
But the thing that really changed their relationship was a girl named Linda. It's going a bit too far to suggest she was the band's Yoko Ono, but her defection from Joey to Johnny (who she later married) caused a huge schism between the two which was never healed up to their deaths. Indeed, the song "The KKK Took My Baby Away" was written about that very event, and followed on with Joey's obsession with airing his personal feelings in songs, like, well, pretty much every great artist out there (and a lot of bad ones).
One of the great thing about the Ramones is that they are, or were, so different. The brand of ferocious punk laced with the i-don't-give-a-fuck attitude way before it became a marketing point (or maybe it already was - Johnny seemed pretty smart about his ideas about how to sell the band), crossed with Joey's fascination with love songs, particularly the doo-wop style of the 50s and 60s, was mindblowing - and still is today.
End of the Century doesn't sugarcoat the career of the band - this isn't some huge supergroup who produced albums chocked full of great songs - and actually realized that they did some pretty average-to-bad stuff. The band themselves, or at least Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee, recognize the mistake of working with uber-producer Phil Spector, whose gun obsession scared Dee Dee off and whose overly-harsh producing sent Johnny packing all the way back to New York. The resulting album, End of the Century, was not the greatest of records, even though it had some classic songs ("Rock N' Roll High School" "Do You Remember Rock N' Roll Radio?" "Baby I Love You"), and while being an attempt to revitalise the band and their biggest chance to be commercially successful, it instead became a huge sign around the band's necks that essentially said "We're just not meant to have a hit record."
Sadly, the film ends as the band's career really did - with the death of three of its fourth members, Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee. Joey was obviously ill in some of the interviews, and to be honest, you could always see Dee Dee overdosing at any one time, but Johnny hid his illness until the last moment, and you could never tell he had anything from his onscreen appearance.
Audio/Video
The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen is very good, although there's a lot of footage that's understandably scratched and old, so that's okay. The DD5.1 and DTS particularly are very good, but I only have one real issue: the difference in volume between the talking heads and the music. I know this is a music documentary and that the Ramones were a very loud band, but I literally had to turn the volume up and down every time it changed from music to talking, and vice versa. Not sure if it's an issue with the actual film or the DVD mix, but it's annoying.
Special Features
A whole ton of great shit. Best is the reels of outtakes, with more interview material with everyone who made the cut, and some people who didn't (for example, Metallica's Kirk Hammett). There's also an interview with Tommy where he reveals who exactly wrote the songs from their first three records, a deleted scene from Clem Burke aka Elvis Ramone, and an audio commentary from Danny Baker and Charles Shar Murray, both UK journalists working for the UK music paper NME at the time of the band's explosion. It's a good commentary, although they stray from the topic at times, and make fun of "Rock N' Roll High School," which is unforgivable. But overall, some great supplements.
Final Thoughts
Whether you're new to the Ramones, or a longtime fan, End of the Century deserves a place on your shelf. It's a great doc, it sheds a lot of new light on the band - at least for me personally, and has some wonderful old archive footage of their early gigs. Buy it now!
Bonus feature - My five favourite Ramones tracks:
1. Don't Come Close
2. Needles & Pins
3. Beat On The Brat
4. I Wanna Be Sedated
5. The KKK Took My Baby Away
Movie: 9/10
A/V: 8/10
Extras: 7/10
Overall: 8/10
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Really nice review, Charlie.
I've never been a Ramones fan - mostly because punk doesn't give me any sort of feeling at all. That's no condemnation of the genre, because it's influence and it's DIY attitude are immensely respect-worthy.
But punk as a sound just doesn't touch off any emotion in me at all. That said, the Ramones come closest (in my eyes) to taking the "three chords and a fuck you" approach to punk and making it work. Sounds like a film worth checking out.
(Full confession: I chose Metal as well. And I've never regretted the decision.)
Gald you enjoyed it, Charlie. I have been a self-proclaimed Ramones Historian for years, and this doc was pretty good. Not great, but pretty damn good. I would also recommend Ramones RAW, which is full of personal home videos and shit. Really cool.