NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

jmehrdad I give this 2 stars because what started out as such a great commentary on punk rock fell apart so horribly at the end. It pretty much nullified the whole film.This documentary should have just stopped after the 1970s. The filmmaker does such a great job of telling the story of punk and the bands that formed it. Unfortunately, he completely glosses over and leaves out some truly influential punk in the 80s and 90s. Instead puts in pop rock garbage like Sum 41 & Limp Bizkit. Which, I'm sorry, have no business even being mentioned. It's almost like the filmmaker obviously came out of the 70s era knowing anything and everything about the punk scene and then lost touch with what happened next. All he could do was look up some popular bands that are considered "punk" by pop culture and stick them in there. The 80s and 90s just fell apart in this film and if he couldn't give proper detail or at least accurate detail, to these decades, like he did with the 70s, he just should have stopped while he was ahead.I was so angry after wasting 2 hours of my life watching this film.

toddfries Fantastic film , especially for the kids who think punk began and ended with Green Day.Yea the film left out HUGE chunks of the Punk 'scene' (movement ? movements are for hippies , thank you for much)While the 70's were well covered , and rightly so , yea the 80's were left out in the cold , there were a ton of American and English bands that made a difference , not to mention bands from Europe and also no mention of Australia's best - The Saints.. IMO one of the best of the "77" punk bands. Lots of worthy bands were not mentioned , X - The Avengers - FEAR - Negative Approach (the catalyst of true hard core music)- Jerry's Kids , I could go on and on. Honestly though how could one possibly add in all bands unless it became a mini series of DVD's , otherwise there are just too many bands to mention and show in 1.5 hours. What about the Misfits , one of Englands best and far more controversial than the Pistols / SHAM 69 ? How about Stiff Little Fingers or Vice Squad. heheheOverall... A good film that gives a general idea of what Punk is/was , I am glad that they did not try to kiss too much ass to the hippies but I wish they would have pointed out how truly commercial "punk" became. Punk rock was never meant to be on MTV.

martinpercival-1 Sometimes it does feel like punk never happened but, peel back the surface in a great many areas, especially in much literature and many films, and talk to some people in their teens and 20s and the true influences are still certainly there, albeit maybe a little beneath the surface.If the question "where did the Punk movement come from & where did it go to?" has ever run through your brain then Don Lett's film "Punk Attitude", together with Jon Savage's book "Englands Dreaming", are the best places (so far) to start looking to answer this. They also both help explore the ways the movement influenced many peoples lives, and not only the musicians involved, especially in regards to getting them involved - to be players and not just spectators, also clearly demonstrating that it's still relevant to the FUTURE."Punk Attitude" makes it very clear that punk didn't all start with the Ramones in the US and the Sex Pistols & Clash in the UK and that punk = an attitude, not a hair cut or a style of clothing - just in case people might think otherwise! Although all three bands were hugely influential when they formed in the mid 70s, and still are very much so now nearly 30 years later, they didn't come from out of nowhere and had their own host of influences back to Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and on through the British Invasion groups like the Who, Kinks and Small Faces. These groups in turn influenced the Standells, Sonics and Count Five and then on through the Velvet Underground, Doors, Stooges, MC5 plus the New York Dolls. Letts explores this cross pollination and influencing process very well in "Punk Attitude", without turning it into a boring navel gazing university thesis style analysis that would have been totally inappropriate for such subject matter.So what makes him qualified to do this? Don Letts is one of the very best placed people to make a documentary of this type. A very early player on the UK Punk scene, and prior to this even as a rag trade rival to Malcolm McLaren and Viv Westwood, he went on to dj at London's Roxy Club in 1977 and manage the Slits. At the time he was not a musician. Punks impact upon him was to make him realise he could be a film maker. He subsequently filmed many of the key bands of the era on Super 8 for what became "Don Lett's Punk Rock Movie" featuring the Banshees, Clash, Heartbreakers, Sex Pistols, X Ray Spex and the Slits. Some of this material, plus much previously unreleased live footage and recently shot interviews, surfaces in "Punk Attitude".Letts covers the UK 76/77 era scene very well in the film (he was THERE after all!) as well as the New York scene. LA possibly gets a little unfairly overlooked, with no mention of X being a surprising omission. John Lydon is also intriguingly omitted, especially as Letts and he were and are good friends, but it's not as if Mr Lydon hasn't had his say previously. Syl Sylvain, Arthur Kane and David Johansen from the New York Dolls also help paint the pre 1976 New York picture, with Johansen mentioning how terrible he thought the Ramones were when he first saw them! Letts also uses interviews with people who were part of the various scenes but who were not musicians, most notably fellow film maker Jim Jarmusch whose contribution adds a great deal to conjuring up the sights, sounds and smells of the late 70s, early 80s New York scene as Punk evolved into No Wave and later Hard Core.Of the musicians the Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto interviews help highlight very effectively that Punk wasn't just a London and New York phenomenon, as does Chrissie Hynde, Wayne Kramer covering Detroit and Henry Rollins enthusiastically covering the early 80s musical evolution of Black Flag on through to Nirvana and the birth of grunge in the early 90s. So who's not included who arguably could/should have been? Patti Smith and Iggy Pop were both touring and unavailable when Letts was filming and no Lou Reed? Well, he was just being Lou Reed! ;-) Look out for the UK limited edition 2 x DVD version with a host of excellent extra features including a very entertaining interview with Dave Goodman, the Sex Pistols live sound engineer and first studio producer, who sadly died in February 2005 thus making this one of his last interviews. The limited edition DVD also includes a facsimile of 2 copies of the early UK fanzine "Sniffin Glue".All in all this is VERY highly recommended viewing! Why only 8 stars out of 10? Probably only because Letts would have been the best person to explore the UK 1977 reggae/punk crossover and it's not covered here in any depth......but maybe he's holding that back for another day. If you want only the music then don't buy this - it's a documentary on the whole scene. One day maybe Lett's "Punk Rock Movie" will make it to DVD......and THEN you will be able to get much of the music too!

steveswonk I thought Punk: Attitude was a very good retrospective including many bands that I had on my speakers throughout 1976-1985. Dick Dale started a lot of this with his work, but that may be too obscure for most to notice. However, I agree, excluding Nina Hagen, that beyond Black Flag the ball was dropped, i.e. Husker Du, and Pixies. I also submit that Neil Young, that ball busting hearse driver, deserved some mention in this film for his world with Crazy Horse.All together, the end of the show with it's tribute to Joe Strummer, made up for the above mentioned tailing off. Having seen Jello Biafra in Richmond, Virginia, about ninety in the crowd, 1982, that deadpan "Reagan sneer", I still think that other than old Jagger himself, there is the best performer in rock and roll. You can visit one of his Dead Kennedys shows in the film. Faith no more, filth no less, a worthy 90 minutes of music.