SteveResin CBGB is a decent if frustrating look at the birth of punk rock in New York in the mid-70s. It's more a love letter to the club's owner Hilly Kristal than to the movement itself. The cast are mostly great. Alan Rickman is excellent as Kristal, and the actors portraying such well known faces of the period like Debbie Harry, David Byrne, Patti Smith and The Ramones are believable. There are a few missteps, such as Lou Reed and Richard Hell in particular. A few interesting players in the story are missing for some reason, such as Nancy Spungeon, Jerry Nolan, Lester Bangs, Johnny Thunders and more, which is annoying.For dedicated fans of the period there are also some added gripes such as them re-writing the story of Johnny Blitz's stabbing, which happened completely differently to what they show here. Why do that? Ultimately it's an enjoyable if flawed experience packed with fantastic music and larger than life characters, definitely worth seeing if you have any interest in the genre.

ladybug2535 I hope the movie makers read these reviews as lessons to be learned. I guarantee the reason the movie did so poorly was the title. If you have no clue what it means--like me, then you lose a majority of your audience right there. Try a re-release with a new title, with more advertising. Maybe then more people will show up. It's a shame too, when a film flops it should be on merit, not a poorly chosen title. I need more lines to satisfy IMDb's requirements, so I'll just keep typing, but you can stop reading now. Two more lines??? Okay, still typing, stop reading! STill typing--are you still reading? Have you considered that you might be a little OCD? Maybe?

alfiecycling this contains spoilers ! if you dig the music of the 70's and punk in particular you will enjoy this. I certainly did. This tells the story of the founding of the famous NY club CBGB and PUNK magazine. Hillel Kristal borrowed money from his mom to buy the Palace Bar in the Bowery.This after two bankruptcies...LOL. His daughter , Lisa, dropped out of college for lack of funds. So she is hired, fired then rehired by her father, Hillel aka Hilly. It has a superb cast and the CBGB set is spot on.Hilly and Lisa are played by Alan Rickman and Ashley Greene. I loved their performances. They are actually quite funny here.Hilly : "You gotta spend money to make money." Lisa : "You gotta have money to spend money to make money. And since you spend all the money you make,you don't have any money to spend. So you might wanna think about saving the money you make instead of spending the money you make"...Way to go Lisa ! Also, Ashley's New Yawk accent is right on the money.Freddy Rodriguez plays Idaho, a violin bowing homeless junkie that Hilly takes under his wing.We see a NY style shakedown of Hilly thwarted by his new found biker buddies, the Titans of Hell. We see The Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, The Dead Boys and, towards the very end, The Police all auditioning for Hilly to get a gig at CBGB. We also see Blondie and Iggy Pop singing, I Wanna Be Your Dog. And Patti Smith perform,Because The Night. I love this movie and have watched it numerous times because of where it takes me. Just before the closing credits Hilly says that he opened the club because he thought country music was gonna be the next big thing...and it was ...in Nashville.LOL.During the ending credits we see the real Talking Heads accepting their induction into the Rock'N' Roll Hall Of Fame and what they do to honor Hilly is so moving.That is a MUST SEE !The only negative I can talk about is the movie spends too much time on The Dead Boys. Apparently Hilly saw something in them and invested a lot of money to manage them and nearly lost his club to this band that eventually crashed and burned.

michaeltaaron-1 I wanted to like this movie, but it was flawed in many ways. In summary, 1) no cohesive story 2) an uninteresting main character 3) not believable. It was obvious to me that the creators were not real fans of the music, but rather looking to capitalize on a genre they 'thought' would make a good movie. They cast Stiv Bators to be a callous, brash, jerk who didn't care about Johnny Blitz's stabbing. He was, in fact, nothing like that. He was thoughtful, soft spoken, and incredibly upset about that incident. Another case in point, there were stickers all over the walls from the 90's & 2000's (ex. Naked Aggression, OFF!) when the Ramones were first taking the stage. Oops.I also couldn't stand the way that Lisa Kristal, an executive producer of the film, clearly tried to make it seem like she had the vision for CBGB's (by telling her dad that this was the next big thing) or that she 'saved' the club from financial ruin, when in fact, this is complete nonsense. In a tiny cameo, they portrayed Iggy Pop as a fool, as well, when he, not Hilly, is widely considered the 'Godfather' of punk. These people were not nihilistic morons, as they were portrayed. They were intelligent artists, making a statement against the music of the time (Foghat, Pink Floyd, etc). And yes, Hilly was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to give them a venue, but that fact alone does not make him a very interesting main character. As a fan, I wanted this movie to be good, but it was just so wrong on so many levels. I'm sure everyone that was around to remember it feels the same way, too.