Popular reviews

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  Review by Dan Gaertner ★

  "CBGB" is terrible. It makes you wish that punk music never existed. It makes you wish any type of music never existed. It makes you wish films never existed.

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  Review by lexi ½

  a movie about punk made by and for people who know literally NOTHING about punk, music or film

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  Review by Sarah Jane 🔪 ★½ 3

  I was looking forward to this one.

  Boy, was I let down. This was little more than a primer on CBGBs. As in, they made this for the lowest common denominator. We kept shouting at the television "What the fuck?! That is not how it happened!".

  I like Alan Rickman, and I guess, if you are a fan, he is about the only good thing in the film.

  This could have been really good. The history and the bands that came out of that place... tsk. They fucked this one up.

  **************************************************************
  Also, fuck the director of this movie, Randall Miller. Fuck him into the sun and may he never be allowed to make another movie again.
  "In 2015, he…

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★ 1

  34/100

  A.V. Club review. OMF[U]G this is lame. I was gonna call the film out on its utter disregard for chronology—Patti Smith performing "Because the Night" is immediately followed by the Ramones walking into the club for the first time to audition, bwahahaha—but the filmmakers clearly don't care, since the closing credits include the disclaimer "And we know Iggy Pop never performed at CBGB...just deal with it." Fine. But I don't have to "deal" with an endless series of live performances in which the actors are lip-syncing to the fucking album tracks. The film's one feeble attempt to disguise this, by editing Sting's little "hahaha" from the opening of "Roxanne", may be my biggest laugh of the year so far.

  Also the last Randall Miller joint I saw was Class Act, 21 years ago. New record?

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  Review by Quinn Bailey ★

  Camera $200
  Lighting $150
  Set design $800
  Soundtrack licensing $3,600,000
  Catering $150

  someone who is good at filmmaking please help me budget this, my production is dying

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  Review by Andy Summers 🤠 ★★★ 26

  This film seems to have been rubbished by most reviewers here on LB, albeit mostly when the film came out back in 2013 for some reason. Maybe time has been kind to director Randall Miller's film, just like it has for my proclivity to buy a CBGB T-shirt every couple of years to remain a fashion conscious Rock God. I'm also willing to bet that most rock fans didn't now what CBGB actually stood for either, but given that I've seen Blues Brothers 2000, I know that Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend, is a Bluegrass staple. For as much as I knew about the birth of CBGB's, I only knew bits and pieces from what appears in the…

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  Review by Mos Co ★★★

  I love the history of punk and have read a lot of biographies where CBGB features extensively and there are some great stories. I’d put off watching this for years as I always read bad things about it, but I thought it was pretty good. The quality music is a big part of the enjoyment, plus it was cool to see all the folk playing the band members. It was good fun.

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  Review by Andrew Fortney ★★

  I’m pretty sure the writers of this movie read a Wikipedia article on CBGB, felt like they got the gist of it, and took turns dictating all that they remembered from the article into their voice memo apps which they then turned into a script. The result was a film that was 95% lazy punk rock stereotypes and 5% people stepping in dog dookie.

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  Review by megan ★

  one star for alan rickman

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  Review by Lisa ★★

  CBGB is the story of Hilly Kristal (Alan Rickman), who opened a music club in Manhattan's East Village in 1973 (after two previous clubs he backed went belly up). Kristal intended to create a space where country, bluegrass and blues musicians could gather and play. He named it CBGB. It quickly becomes apparent that a new type of music called Punk may just be the ticket to getting patrons to part with their money.

  Talking Heads, Life During Wartime plays in the opening titles, great start! Watching this movie is like flicking through a photo album of punks greatest names who passed through CBGB's illustrious sex, drugs and booze-tainted doors. As much as I wanted to love CBGB, the story…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★ 2

  woof.

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  Review by mackenzie 🥀 ★★

  “Word is, Stiv Bators jerks off in that chili” 
  “I’ve had worse in my mouth.” 

  what the fuck did that old lady just say 😭😭 I was supposed to just skip to ruperts scenes but I watched this whole thing now I have too many thoughts 💀 it’s such an odd shitty movie but its still kind of fun? I guess? I rlly liked it at times ngl but maybe that’s cause I liked the cast sm. opie and the marshal from sons of anarchy are in here and that had me shook. seeing opie made me sad.
  also HAHAHA slutty rupert grint in a collar makes my brain go brrrr. we got RUPERT GRINTS ASS. I REPEAT 🔁 RUPERT GRINTS ASS 🗣️