The Secret History

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posted August 11, 2008 9:38 AM

Just a quick postscript for anybody who was intrigued by our recent review of What We Do is Secret, Rodger Grossman's excellent bio-pic on seminal LA punk band The Germs and their doomed lead singer Darby Crash. As I mentioned in the review, several sequences are frame-for-frame restagings of footage from Penelope Spheeris' ground-breaking 1981 punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization; I was shocked, frankly, to discover it's not currently available on video, but I thought you might enjoy the comparison between Shane West's performance as Crash, as seen in the WWDIS trailer --

-- and the real Crash as seen in an excerpt from the Spheeris film (and thank god for YouTube).

Incidentally, Spheeris, who's probably best known for having directed the mega-hit Wayne's World, is a filmmaker who probably deserves a serious reassessment. Her wonderful followup to Decline, the 1988 The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (like its predecessor, currently unavilable on DVD) notwithstanding, her masterpiece is probably the 1987 Dudes, starring Two and a Half Men's Jon Cryer, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Daniel Roebuck, which is essentially a very violent, very funny low-budget punk rock version of Easy Rider.

Here's Spheeris on the set with Cryer and Roebuck; as you can see, she's not just an auteur, she's also quite the babe in a mature punkette sort of way.

dudes III.jpg

Dudes, of course, is also mysteriously unavailable on home video at the moment, so you'll have to take my word on all of this. In the meantime, here's a link to Spheeris' official website for the lowdown on a remarkable American artist.

7 Comments

Mufungo said:

TCM plays her Suburbia now and again, which also features a young Flea. It's unpolilshed, to put it diplomatically, but I dig it (not least for bringing back a few memories of that time and place). Been eager to see the original Decline since it came out...here's hoping that someday it'll appear on DVD.

August 11, 2008 11:07 AM

Zounds What Sounds! said:

Somebody's got very odd taste in women. That's all I'm gonna say....

August 11, 2008 1:10 PM

pretzelattack said:

Somebody's got very odd taste in women. That's all I'm gonna say....

August 11, 2008 1:10 PM


let's leave edwards out of this.

August 11, 2008 2:32 PM

drano said:

Punk women come under the general heading of "formidable" I think. Those look to be interesting movies anyway.

August 11, 2008 5:32 PM

Johnny Blitz said:

I dunno, I think she's cute.

Of course, by now, she'd be getting a little lengthy in the molar, no?

August 11, 2008 5:54 PM

Upsidasium said:

She appears to be a self-assured smartypants. Were I not already spoken for, I might be at risk of developing a crush.

Ahem, by the way. Lengthy in the molar? In Sam Aylward's immortal words, the riper the fruit, the sweeter.

August 11, 2008 7:57 PM

Steve Simels said:

Upsidasium said: She appears to be a self-assured smartypants.

Nicely phrased. That's EXACTLY what does it for me...
:-)

August 11, 2008 8:02 PM

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