Description

Directed by Amos Poe, this 90 minute film tells the storyof Max Menace, a foreigner adrift in the threatening environment of New York City. He views the world as senseless and aspires to acts of viloence, out of sheer boredom. According to Mark Segal of the Pasadena Film Forum, The Foreigner swerves away from the moral and stylistic codes of Hollywood on the one hand and from thecerebral refinement and cultural aspirations of the avantgarde on the other. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

not enough
I'm a great fan of Steve Earle, the outspoken activist/musician and the subject of this documentary. I had read a recent biography of him, so I was somewhat familiar with his life, music, and politics, and was looking forward to learning more when I put this DVD in.
JUST AN AMERICAN BOY contains some terrific musical performances, but sadly it leaves Earle himself unknowable. The 2002 tour, the film's primary setting, occurred during the firestom over "John Walker's Blues", a song on Earle's JERSUALEM album widely misunderstood as being pro-Taliban. There are a lot of issues to discuss here, yet Earle is heard to say little on the subject in the film, and we just get some recycled news clips for context. Footage from a court-ordered concert at a prison comes late and out of chronological order in the film, and little is said about Earle's overcoming some whopping addictions earlier in his life. In one bizarre scene, Earlr recounts a story of being arrested while carrying a gun which accidentally discharges to a woman who laughs uproariously and inappropriately. Also, I would have liked more on Earle's musical roots, there's only a brief mention of the iconoclastic singer-writers who nurtured Earle, like Townes Van Zandt.
Overall, a disappointing film about a fascinating man.

Unbelievably bad!!!!!
When I first read the review of this documentary I thought,"Wow! I have to buy this". WHAT A MISTAKE!!!
This is by far the worst piece of crap I've ever purchased. The "film-making" was absolutely horrible...Shaky, amateurish edits done with what looks like a cheap, home video camera. It literally looks like someones 12 year old kid put this together. But even if you can stomach the amateurish production, the bad story telling cannot be overlooked. The film-makers seemed to lose focus after the first 10 minutes of so....Very little meaningful insight into the man behind the music. All in all...a horrible document of a great musical talent.

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow, what an incredible DVD. Very raw and rough just like Steve Earle. The dvd was done fantastic the sound is amazing. I just wish there was a few more extra's. The Jerusalem video is worth the price alone i can't understand why nobody would play it. If you want a great introduction to Steve Earle go buy this DVD, you will be a fan forever. ... Read more

Description

A double-feature DVD containing "Blank Generation," a 1976 film from Amos Poe and Ivan Kral, shot at CBGB's, which defines the birth of NYC Punk & New Wave and includes live pre-record performances from Blondie, The Patti SmithGroup, Talking Heads, Wayne County,Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers with Richard Hell, & Television(post-Hell).Dancin' Barefoot is a look at the NY Punk scene through the eyes of Ivan Kral, whois best known as guitarist and songwriter in the Patti Smith Group. Features an in-depth look at thePatti Smith Group including live footage & interviews. Also includes footage & interviews from & Iggy Pop! ... Read more

Reviews (4)

the real thing
This two-fer is a valuable video scrapbook for anyone who was there or wishes they were. "Blank Generation" was the original NY punk scene' s own low-tech home movie, made by Amos Poe and Ivan Kral with the same do-it-yourself-with-what-you-got ethos as the music by the bands it depicts. Yeah, it's raw and rough asynchronous stuff. Not a slick after-the-fact documentary, but an authentic artifact of its time and place.

"Dancing Barefoot", is a mid-90s documentary of Ivan Kral's rock and roll journey from Prague to Patti Smith Group and back. (After Patti, Ivan would go on to work with John Cale, Iggy Pop, and others.) Includes lots of excellent live footage, bearing out Tina' Weymouth's on-camera observation about Patti's unmatched charisma. There are also interviews with Patti and the rest of the band; as well as Deborah Harry, Chris Stein, David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, Johnny Ramone, John Cale, Iggy Pop, Hilly Krystal and others. Originally shot for Czech TV, this is a great companion piece to "Blank Generation" (brief excerpts of which are seen here as well).

Ivan Has A Super 8
I was hoping for more than whats here. However, since there isn't much else to be had at this point, I'll gladly take this. I am hoping for something of more quality if there is any to be had. I like the Patti Smith stuff, and I wish she would do a live concert on DVD even now.
If you are looking to catch a grainy glimpse of what it was like in a dingy club in the mid seventies, as something new was starting to unfold, then this may be worth it for you. It consists of super 8 movie footage matched up with live sound recordings of the bands. The sound isn't always in sync with what you are seeing.
There is a brief bit of the Dolls doing "Funky But Chic". You have the Ramones, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads, Heartbreakers, Marbles, Tuff Darts, Wayne County, and Shurts. The quality is less than a badly shot video, but its all we have for now. It comes off more like a book with moving pictures.
Dancing Barefoot is a documentary on Ivan Kral(that is not a bad thing either!). You get to hear him do some interesting versions of songs you may remember, and you can see what he's been up to since the Patti Smith Group. For me this was more interesting than the Blank Generation. Both will leave you wanting more.

Silent rock movie
"Blank Generation" is a documentary shot in and around CBGB's somewhere in 1976. It features bands like Taling Heads, Blondie, Patty Smith, Wayne County and many others. Most of the footage
is from the bands playing their songs.

Now the weird part: "Blank Generation" is a silent movie ! For some reason an audio track was added to the DVD version (and probably to early VHS-copies too), but in stead of the live audio it just plays album/single versions of songs by the featured artists. Everything looks hopelessly out-of-sync, but it's probably supposed to look that way. I'm not even sure if the video footage matches the songs on the audio track. It's a weird thing to watch, but certainly interesting for completists of any of the featured bands.

On the same disc is the film "Dancin' Barefoot", which features an in-depth look at The Patti Smith Group with lots of live footage and interviews from the '70s, '80s and '90s, plus live footage and interviews with David Byrne, Blondie, Iggy Pop and more. Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads are, as usual, the cutest looking couple interviewed.

long wait, blank expression....
Totally thrilled when I got word that Amos Poe's much-touted documentary of the '70s NY punk scene was going to be re-released on DVD (and as a "twofer" with the documentary "Dancin' Barefoot"), I ordered it the first chance I got (read: when I had the money). It was a nice surprise when it turned up on my doorstep Friday, and just having gotten off of work, I made a cup of coffee and sat down to check it out.

Boy, was I ever duped. First off, it's not much of a documentary at all. "Documentary" in this case is a decided misnomer -(...), if Blank Generation qualifies as a documentary, "documentary" might as well become a four letter word. Given, it's a genuine delight to get to see some old footage of Television and the Ramones (and even of less touted bands like the Shirts), but what good is it when there's no one talking throughout the whole thing? The only audio is some over-dubbed stuff of medium to (...) poor quality, and while it's obvious that sometimes the song heard is the same as the one performed, the discrepancy between what's going on for the eyes and what's happening for the ears is positively annoying. Take, for instance, the sequence with Television playing "Little Johnny Jewel": the audio is that of the studio cut (yes, the single version), while the footage shown is (obviously, if you watch Tom Verlaines hands and also his face for a little lip-reading) of them playing that song live, albeit at a quicker tempo. Not too bad...until suddenly the audio cuts into a live version of "Oh Mi Amore" and it's not at all clear whether that song was being played in the footage at that time. THEN it proceeds to cut back to the last verse of "Little Johnny Jewel", AGAIN from the single. As if that's not bad enough, the camera work is sheer (...) . Lots of zoomy closeups render the footage totally useless.

As if that's not bad enough, "Dancin' Barefoot" isn't so much about the doings of the Patti Smith group as it is people like Chris Stein and Debby Harry talking about how great a guy Ivan Kral was, along with some haphazard recycling of footage from "Blank Generation". Worse yet, it's not even interesting. Ivan Kral is made out to be the guy who made the Patti Smith Group into a real rock-and-roll outfit, apparently because he looked the part, blah blah blah...

I apologize if this review sounds like a total trashing. Given, it's very cool to see some rare footage, but in the end, as a whole, this twofer DVD is a waste of time and money. Unless you've got a projector that lets you display video output (in this case, your DVD player's output) on a large screen or wall and need some weird footage to put up during some theme party, or are a completist collector of seventies punk-related material...save your money, alright? ... Read more

Description

This 77 minute DVD tells the story of Rico, a guy who lives in New York in 1976 but lives his own life in Paris during the time of the New Wave. He's a photographer who thinks he?s a gangster, a soft gangster, a loner, an outsider, who uses his camera like a gun, loading it with bullets of film. He's constantly on the look for a reality to fulfill his fantasy, and as long as he has that energy, he lives.Of course, he's also a romantic, and this is his downfall, because he believes all photographers to be liars. When Rico falls in love, the delicate balance of the world he has made for himself is disrupted. ... Read more