I'm so burning-hot angry right now it's kind of embarrassing.
I'm 9 minutes 49 seconds into a DVD on the Ramones, supposedly about their album, 'Pleasant Dreams', and it's probably the worst 'documentary' I've ever seen. No, I don't need to see the rest of it to make that judgement, it's truly, that bad.
After the first five seconds, I actually spoke out loud the words, "Uh oh, I'm gonna hate this."
That awful sinking feeling was accompanied by a chaser of, that cheated feeling. Not only is it condescending to the viewer and the band, it's filled with gross generalizations and glaring inaccuracies, that anyone who spent half an hour Googling the Ramones would know. To make matters even worse, each of the interviewees, actually insult the band by bandying around the word 'dumb' to describe them and their music.
These self important bozo's who are called upon to spout their hackneyed, clichéd drivel, are insufferable. They remind me of ferocious bores who corner-trap you at a party or bar. I can't help but think of that scene in 'Zelig' where Woody Allen tells Mia Farrow, “You think you're a lot smarter than you really are.”
The production values are utter crap, (think of your dim cousin trying to impress the AV class) and they seem to only have secured the release for very limited footage, that we've all seen before anyway.
How this thing got funded and then released to assault the public, is beyond me.
If you want to see a real documentary about the Ramones, try 'End Of The Century', or 'Raw', which as its title suggests, is. 'Raw', is comprised of footage shot by the band on the road, and offers a unique insight into the inner workings and dynamics of the members, and the sometimes surreal environment that they somehow managed to function in.
'Pleasant Dreams' would make a nice cup coaster. If you flipped the face-side down on the table.
I'm going in again. I'm going to try to watch it in case there's a diamond in amongst the offal, hubris, wankery and down right offensiveness that is, this so called documentary.
