Unletterboxd

Discover

  • Popular
  • Top Rated

Genres

loading...

TMDB logo

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

  • Action
  • Adventure
  • Animation
  • Comedy
  • Crime
  • Documentary
  • Drama
  • Family
  • Fantasy
  • History
  • Horror
  • Music
  • Mystery
  • Romance
  • Science Fiction
  • TV Movie
  • Thriller
  • War
  • Western

Cast

Mike Muir

Mike Muir

Self

Crew

Movie poster

Surf Punks

19810.0 / 1045 min
Documentary

Overview

Excellent documentary about the very early LA hardcore punk scene that almost seems accidental. Upon visiting LA in the summer of '81 the film maker notices that strangely enough Punk doesn't seem to be dead in L.A., but on the contrary, there seems to be a massive teenage movement going on. He decides to make a short documentary about it. As he says (not without irony); "Since everything happens a few years earlier in the US, I can show the parents back home what's in store for them". He was ofcourse witness to the baby steps of the hardcore scene. This is the only documentary of the era that is not sensationalizing or mythologizing. It doesn't talk to any of the scene "stars" but rather follows a few disenfranchised suburban kids and runaways (in Venice beach I think). A rare look into a self destructive and nihilistic scene, where the main motives seem to be restlessness and soul crushing boredom. Perhaps one of the very few documentaries that give this era a human face.