Alan RickmanCBGB

Love, love, love this film. Amazing true story. If you love rock and roll, as I do, the story about the incredible bar in New York that launched many, many bands. Those portraying various bands are excellent. The famous club owner himself is portrayed incredible! Great cast. AWSOME music. Mind-blowing story. Damn...this is one of the GREATEST films about rock and roll ever created! What took me so long to discover this film???

I thoroughly enjoyed this docudrama. Is it a great film? Probably not, but I wasn't looking for a sober, scholarly dissertation on the roots of hardcore or punk or any genre, really. I was looking for a fun look at the history of an iconic club whose legendary, filthy floors I've walked on (albeit a quarter century after it made its mark, saw some really AWFUL bands, too). I wanted to see fictional portrayals of some incredible artists and a man who helped many of them get their start. That's exactly what CBGB delivered. And I even learned some history: I never knew the Police played at CBGB's in the early days (I did know, from reading a book on a different but related topic that guitarist Andy Summers - who is much older than Sting and Stewart Copeland - made the scene in Laurel Canyon several years after it rose to prominence. Seems he has a tendency to jump on bandwagons?) . If you're looking for thorough, documentary style look an era of popular music that has been overly analyzed, this is not the film for you. But if you're looking to kick back and enjoy a lighthearted look at that time and closer look at one of the "godfathers" of the scene, this is one you should check out.

I didn't know much about CBGB, until now. Good stuff.

In my neighborhood in Philly growing up most of my friends were Led Zeppelin or Yes fiends while I was a Beatles and Stones fan. I attended Temple University in 1981 and became acquainted with suburban kids who turned me on to alternative music and taught me to think outside the box. I never fully embraced punk but the shows were a lot of fun more than a Jethro Dull concert. I still recall a packed Ramones concert at the now defunct Chestnut Cabaret in 1987 when I was pushed up against a speaker and my ears were ringing for days afterward. This film captures the excitement of those times. Far from perfect director Randall Miller's film in its own grungy ragged way works because it is a celebration of the punk ethos. I'm amazed this film was ever made at all because with few exceptions CBGB created marginally commercial acts who barely got any airplay with the exception of college radio. I doubt the Ramones ever cracked the Top 40 in this country but were superstars nonetheless and acknowledged as innovators by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If I were to describe this film it would be akin to Alan Arkush's "Rock 'N' Roll High School" informed by the late lamented rock magazine "Trouser Press". If anything see this film for Alan Rickman's heartfelt portrayal of Hilly Kristal, the visionary but good naturedly financially misguided owner of CBGB. The closest I ever got to CBGB was the outside in 1986 and its exterior was dumpy. This film gives you a sense of time and place and to feel what it was like to be in one of these clubs. An Oscar should go to the film's filth coordinator. "CBGB" is a cult favorite in the making. One little nitpick. Patti Smith is shown in the film breaking Hilly's rule of singing only original material by performing a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Because the Night". "Entertainment Weekly" took this tidbit as grounds to categorically dismiss the film in a truncated review which leads me to believe that the reviewer is either a Journey or Styx fan.

CBGB is legend in the music industry, and the eponymous tells the story of how it was created, with Alan Rickman playing the entrepreneur who started it all, Hilly Krystal. While I personally don't know the history of CBGB, so I can't vouch for the veracity of the film, I can say that I enjoyed it a good deal and none of the plot seems too unrealistic. Opening a bar is hard, evaluating talent is hard, and evaluating a new style of rock and roll must have been even more challenging. The film is mostly music driven, with band performances pushing the viewer from one scene to the next, with increasing quality as the film progresses (and CBGB's fame grows). Overall, I recommend the film to those who at least casually enjoy punk music.

It's a shame that this one is leaving Prime. I caught it right before its leaving and I have to say, "What a GREAT Movie!"

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming...I could never see CSN playing at CBGB.

Love it

Great Movie!

A pleasant enough movie, with very endearing acting from Alan Rickman, and while I delayed watching it for quite some time dreading a bad Debbie Harry, Malin Akerman did quite a fair job. The movie was going well, I was liking it, and then they started to perform songs....Blondie debut's with disco 'Denis'. Patti Smith recites period-accurate poetry and launches into 'Because The Night'. At that point the movie lost me.It is about CBGS's, it has all the characters and all the correct look of the time period, so why on earth could they not play more time appropriate songs. The intro faux-Debbie says before 'Denis' sounds ideal to lead into 'Rip Her To Shreds' at least. If the idea is to play a 'big' hit so the viewer knows who the people ARE then it is talking down to its audience, or else not realizing its only audience are people who know the music.

Per quello che mi risulta, questo film non è ancora stato distribuito in Italia. Ed è un vero peccato, perché credo, che avrebbe trovato un'ampia audience: gli amanti del punk rock, i nostalgici degli anni 70' e 80', tutti quelli che amano la musica in genere e che non riescono a non provare una certa adorazione sentendo l'abbreviazione "CBGB". Il film narra la storia dell'apertura, appunto, del "CBGB" - il celebre locale newyorchese dove fecero i primi passi molti famosi gruppi di punk rock - e del suo altrettanto celebre fondatore Hilly Kristal. Forse la regia di Randall Miller non sarà mai all'altezza dei "grandi" del cinema e forse la storia in sé è molto (se non troppo) semplice, ma raccontata con simpatia e umorismo e accompagnata da una bellissima colonna sonora con molti brani cult degli anni 70' (Blondie, Television, Talking Heads etc), vi metterà di sicuro di buon umore!PS: ottimo lavoro del cast, molti dei quali sono apparsi nei ruoli per loro insoliti. Ottime performance di Alan Rickman, Donal Logue, Freddy Rodriguez ed Estelle Harris

Diesen Film mag ich sehr da er die Entstehung der Punk-Szene in New York zeigt. Die Musik hat es mir am meisten angetan. Viel Punk aber auch Police und Blondie kommen darin vor. Einziger Wermutstropfen ist das er nur in Englisch ist. Habe den Film aber auch schon auf Deutsch gesehen, deswegen ist das nicht ganz so gavierend.

Delivered quickly at a good priceLove this film. I have no idea how they found a Joey Ramone lookalike, but wow! The Iggy Pop guy was not a good Iggy Pop