BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
Alan Rickman owns the world in this movie. He plays Hilly Kristal, the owner and founder of the famous rock club CBGBs. The movie follows his journey from being a struggling slacker businessman with a lot of dreams to trying to grasp the reality that he’s actually living in one. He ends up buying a small dive bar and it becomes THE place to be in the 70s. I’m a huge fan of the mid to late 70’s rock scene in New York. I love the Talking Heads, Iggy Pop, Blondie, the Ramones, Patti Smith, and all of the awesome bands that came through. In a wrestling comparison, it was like ECW of music. It was a place where a lot of crazy characters came together like the misfit toys from hell and for a period in time created magic. The music coming out of this place was raw, fresh, and magical. So when I discovered I could watch a movie depicting the roots of this venue I was all about it. Then to find out the lead is Alan Rickman is even better. He is almost comparable to “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski, but he’s much more ambitious in his stubborn steering of the locomotive of life. Come award season he SHOULD be considered for this performance. He really stepped his game up and showed us a side of him that should come out more. He doesn’t always have to be a big dominating figure, a buy guy, or a something strange. He CAN be a normal person and he can do it damn well. The rest of the cast is nothing at all to sleep on. Ashley Greene plays the owner’s daughter, Freddy Rodriguez (Six Feet Under, represent!) plays an awesome homeless guy, Ryan Hurst puts on the biker gear again as a leader of a local biker gang, Taylor Hawkins of the band Foo Fighters plays Iggy Pop, Malin Akerman plays Debbie Harry, and Donal Logue plays Merv Ferguson, Hilly’s right hand man and voice of reason. The cast list doesn’t end there. This movie has tons of awesome people playing even awesomer (new word!) people. If you love music, love a good bio picture of an everyday dude, love New York rock and roll, or just a damn fun movie then watch this. I plan to watch it again in the near future. Don’t let me watch it twice before you even watch it once. C’mon, man! Get with it! See this movie! B+
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