The Decline of Western Civilization Part III
New Arrivals
•
1h 26m
Directed by Penelope Spheeris | 86 mins | 1998
After a detour into the high heady heyday of Sunset Strip hair metal in the second film of her essential social history of rock ’n’ roll in southern California, Spheeris returned to the hardcore punk roots of her first Decline, embedding herself among various groups of gutter punks, ranging in age from their teen to mid-twenties, communally squatting in abandoned real estate in the drabber corners of Greater Los Angeles. The surge of insurgent creative energy in the 1981 Decline has long since dissipated in Part III, leaving behind only a residue of anti-social nihilism and self-loathing—none of the bands seen performing at a Corona-area gig here can make a claim for lasting artistic significance—but Spheeris’s fondness for her subjects remains, making for a surprisingly endearing group portrait of deeply damaged kids eking out something like a life in Dead End America.
Up Next in New Arrivals
-
Fear of a Black Hat
Directed by Rusty Cundieff | 88 mins | 1993
Overshadowed somewhat at the time of its release by another gangsta rap mockumentary send-up of the same year, the Chris Rock vehicle "CB4," Cundieff’s shoestring-budget feature debut gets just as many laughs at a fraction of the price, following sociol... -
Swoon
Directed by Tom Kalin | 94 mins | 1992
Tom Kalin’s coruscating debut returns to the scene of the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder case, likewise a key inspiration for Hitchcock’s Rope, but in this telling the unspoken homosexual undercurrent of the crime is put boldly front and center. A heavily ... -
Poison
Directed by Todd Haynes | 85 mins | 1991
With his first feature, Haynes took his influence from the patron saint of all queer outlaw art, the French writer and director Jean Genet. The result, a landmark of New Queer Cinema, was a trio of intercut, stylistically distinct stories drawn together by...
