Punks on the Big Screen

I know we’ve got a fantastic book section over here at TFT, but I don’t think Lincoln would mind if I took a shot at talking about the greatest catalog of punks on film to ever come out.

The recently published Destroy All Movies!!!: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film (Fantagraphics) is literally a bible of just about every single film to ever come out that involved some sort of punk action. It’s over 500 beautiful pages that catalogs films featuring everybody from Richard Hell to Lemmy to Fear; and it certainly earns it’s self-proclaimed title of “the most dazzlingly insane film reference book of all time.” The massive list of contributors (including editors Zack Carlson & Bryan Connolly) worked so hard, and watched hundreds of movies just to find 30 seconds of anything resembling punk.

My one issue with the entire book has to be that they decided to not include the films Over the Edge and Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell. Carlson addresses this at the book’s website, so I won’t go into it. But watch the trailers for the films and leave with the question: If these aren’t punk, what is?*

Over the Edge

Straight to Hell

*I actually have no clue.

Tags: Alex Cox, Bryan Connolly, Fear, Lemmy, Lincoln, Over the Edge, Richard Hell, The Complete Guide

Jason Diamond is the editor-in-chief of Jewcy.com, founding editor of Vol. 1 Brooklyn and an associate editor at Impose Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn among a collection of books and records that is ...read more