...Well, maybe not everything, but a decent rundown nonetheless.
One Nine Nine Four premiered yesterday f0r the first time outside Oz, the director's original stomping grounds. Following a brief intro to punk rock history, the film delved into interviews with key figures from those awkward few years that were the early '90s. As punk yet again solidified its identity and kept a healthy distance from all other forms of personal expression, an interesting phenomenon occured. A few punk bands went big, almost over night. The likes of Green Day, Offspring and Blink-182 burst onto the stage, reclaiming rock from a one-way street to fakeness. Sure, true punk never made it big, but as the film points out, it made a sizeable infiltration that still affects the music we hear today.
In addition to a great film, the director Jai Al-Attas was in attendence to answer any question our whim could come up with. It was interesting to hear how easy some key people were to get along with (Tony Hawk immediately agreed to narrate and NOFX gave their music for free), and how others outright refused to be interviewed. Copyrights for some of the music were hard to come by as well, but in true punk form, Jai used those songs anyway. And that's probably why he didn't premier his film in SoCal, instead choosing us lucky Calgarians to figure out what to keep and what to chuck from this director's cut of One Nine Nine Four.
Happily, the film stayed largely clear of the gossip-style talk that can easily ensue in such a touchy and somewhat subjective topic that is punk rock history. For a 25-year-old director to shoot a doc using interviews from the people who made it happen, but himself probably only vaguely remembering some of the earlier events talked about in the film, One Nine Nine Four is certainly a brave move. But as the director himself pointed out, it was really just a good excuse to hang with Fat Mike, Tim Armstrong, Billie Joe Armstrong, Brett Gurewitz and the like.
The Music on Film series continues with two more quality films: Who Killed Nancy on Thursday night and All Tomorrow's Parties this Friday.
