kill your idolsdirector: scott crary // 2004
cinema 4 rating: 6
it's nice that the boredoms are name-checked as being influenced by these early new york "no wave" bands like dna, teenage jesus and the jerks, suicide and james chance and the contortions -- i have stuff by all of them, and their work remains uniquely and strangely, for lack of a better word, innocent in its musical naivete and frontier-crashing boldness -- the film points out that, while it was a scene of some sort, it wasn't a purposefully arranged scene... it just happened, almost the opposite of warhol's "happenings," which were often quite staged -- i get the connection with sonic youth, but little is said by the previous generation about the group, but lunch and her compadres go to great length to castigate those of the current generation influenced by sonic youth (and, i imagine, mostly by accident by the "no wavers") -- in fact, despite the happy inclusion of this harsh section of the film where young punks turn into cranky old farts (it happens to us all, i suppose), the film flails wildly to include new bands into this mix -- gogol bordello doesn't really seem to belong at all, it being more imported than organic to the new york groove, unless you take "new york organic" to include anyone of immigrant blood, which they probably do -- then they would count, but their sound is still far more a mix of the clash and the pogues stirred up with gypsy rage and desire than it is anything that james chance spat out of a saxophone in a funkified fury -- overall, a nice introduction to "no wave", the scene that really wasn't, though i wish more time were spent showing us footage and performances from those not-really halcyon days, rather than showing lydia lunch whining about the yeah yeah yeahs -- and why did they blot out the shot of her blowing the guy in the porn video? guess that's what i get for watching this on ifc...
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