Several punk, rock and New Wave icons trace their roots directly back to New York City’s late, great concert venue, CBGB. Previously located at 315 Bowery in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood, the dark, dank club hosted everyone from the Talking Heads, The B-52’s and Blondie to The Ramones. And now the club is getting its own movie, with the brilliant Alan Rickman in a pivotal role.
The first trailer for CBGB, shared via The Hollywood Reporter, plays like a laundry list of memorable bands that grace the stage at the club. I was lucky enough to attend a handful of shows at CBGB over the years before it closed in 2006 – the best being a roof-raising rock concert by the legendary Too Much Joy – and never knew that the venue’s name stood for “Country Bluegrass Blues.” So the clip already has been relatively informative.
The fun of CBGB, so far, is seeing how close the contemporary stand-ins come to resembling their classic-rock counterparts. Though they are only shown as part of a rapid montage and a few quick snippets of footage, the actors cast as Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Marky Ramone look spot on. And Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins does a mean Iggy Pop. It’s the role he was born to play. He and Dave Grohl are magnetic in front of the camera in all the Foo Fighters videos. Hawkins could be a movie star one day.
Can these people sing? Maybe they don’t have to. Just play the actual songs underneath the actors bellowing from the stage, and CBGB could look a little something like this. 1, 2, 3, 4!
Never in my right mind would I have imagined Rickman (Harry Potter, Die Hard) as the right candidate to play CBGB owner Hilly Kristal. And that wig… I can’t tell if it’s helping the 67-year-old Brit achieve some surreal level of parody, or if it damages the indie film’s credibility before the movie even hits theaters. We’ll see soon enough. Malin Akerman, Rupert Grint, Ashley Greene, Johnny Galecki, Ryan Hurst, Justin Bartha, Donal Logue and Bradley Whitford co-star in CBGB, which is expected to open in select theaters on October 11th.
