Artless and Bored

The past week and the rest of this week is the annual Tribeca Film Festival. This year sees the absence of big fat Hollywood dross replaced in favor of truly indie films from around the world. Jesus, I wish I had the time to take them all in, and money, but I had a chance to catch two truly great films, Don Letts helmed documentary, "Punk Attitude", and Duncan Tucker's "Transamerica."
Punk Attitude was nothing short of stunning. Letts who has been documenting the punk scene for many, many years, brings the history together in one beautiful homage to rebels past and present. He follows the timeline from Elvis to Fugazi and many of the folks who were and still do represent what this was all about share the stories both funny and heartbreaking. One question that seemed to be asked, is this underground still vital, now that "Punk" has become a commodity? Not that music is never a commodity, but that the impulse of the movement has it left us? I for one say no, as we see many bands still plugging away outside of the system and many bands who have come to the system on their own terms, ie. Rancid, Sonic Youth, etc... The opening was full of punk celebs and it was good to hear them hooting and hollering as their peers popped up on the screen. In attendance were Martin Rev (Suicide), Clem Burke (Blondie), David Byrne (Talking Heads), Glenn Branca (Theoretical Girls), Handsome Dick Manitoba (The Dictators), plus many others. I cannot recommend this doc enough. BTW, The Ramones documentary, End of The Century is on PBS tonight, April 26th, followed by a little teaser of the Joe Strummer documentary, Let's Rock Again.

Now, on to Transamerica. This film was hyped to high heaven before the fest and I was ready to be disappointed. Well, it was really great. Not the greatest film of all time, but it was well worth the time investment. The performances were great. Felicity Huffman, of Desperate Housewives fame, stole the show. Her performance as a pre-op transsexual, originally to have been played by a real transsexual, was nothing short of Oscar material. Felicity is hot, but the makeup job and her investment in the role, really blew me away. The crowd really loved it. Hopefully they will get a distributor. This films really shows the ups and downs of these folks and with a little twist how it can all spiral into a weird blast from the past that you can't run away from. Go see it. I don't want to spoil it for you.
Kevin Zegers, Fionnula Flanagan, Graham Greene, and Elizabeth Peña throw down some stunning performances as well. For more info checkout the Internet Movie Database here.