ironhorse_iv Dust off, your vinyl collection, it's time to rock out to the glam hair bands of the 1980s. Much like the original movie, 1981's 'The Decline of Western Civilization', and its later sequel, 1998's 'the Decline of Western Civilization Part III", also directed by Penelope Spheeris. The second film of trio musical documentaries of hers, is less about, why & how the music scene, came to be, but more on the positive & negative effects of the hedonism lifestyle choices, the people involved with it, has taken. Featuring interviews with such popular musical acts like Kiss, Aerosmith, Poison, Alice Cooper, & others, also showcasing up and coming, unknown bands, like London, Lizzy Borden, Odin and Seduce through musical performances; the documentary electrifyingly chronicled the hair metal scene, from 1986 until 1988. Without spoiling the film, too much, I was deeply surprised, how many marquee names, the documentary has for a 1 hour and 33 minute movie. It's a who's who of prominent rockstars from that era of music. It was pretty cool to see them, all in one movie. However, I would had love to see more emphasis on getting acts like Guns & Roses, Quiet Riot, Val Halen, and Mötley Crüe to name a few, into the documentary to make the LA music settling, more personal & grounded. Scenes like involving the Rainbow Bar & Grill & Gazzarri's Club felt lacking, because of those bands absence. Besides, Motorhead's Lemmy, the famous musicians in the film, barely related to those locations; so scenes like the dancing contest at Gazzarri's come across as jarring and time-wasting. All of those talking sequences with the club promoters could had been cut; along with the die-hard fans spilling useless knowledge. The movie is already crammed with so many talking heads. So, why waste time on them? When Spheeris could had done, better, by getting those bands, I mention, to speak. Maybe, these bands could had given the film, a more in-depth insightful look into what it takes to be, in a hair metal band in Los Angeles; instead of, the silly surface level, highly repetitive, deadpan humor information, we, the audience, got, from these airheads. Because of this, the film felt more about a mockumentary like 1984's comedy film, 'This is Spinal Tap' than a serious rockumentary like VH1 TV Series 'Behind the Music' (1997-2014). We never truly get the serious emotional & informative complexities; a documentary like this, should have. Not only that, but it's not really that heavy, besides one, really off-putting, notorious interview with a drunken, Chris Holmes from WASP. The movie doesn't really expose much, the harsher, darkest side of the industry like the sexism, violence or living in a life full of excess. Nor, was the subject material, even that metal. Where were the performers, usually with fast percussive beats and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work? The only one, I notice was Megadeth. Don't get me wrong, some of the songs have highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, with singers singing with overall loudness; but most of the time, it sound like something from glam rock. The lyrics is another thing doesn't sound metal. Most metal songs often deal with social issues and criticism of the Establishment, using direct and denunciatory language, an approach borrowed from hardcore punk. Songs like "Cathouse" & "Bathroom Wall" were not only cheesy, but felt out of place. In truth, the subtitle for the movie should had been call 'the hair metal years', than the latter. Regardless of that, most of the music in the film was somewhat entertaining to listen to; despite nearly sounding the same. Only one bands feature in the documentary, honestly irritate me was Faster Pussycats. The lead singer for that band is really, really, bad with his cringe-worthy creaking vocals & over the top aesthetic. No wonder, why the excesses of glam metal created a backlash against the genre; creating the rise of grunge & thrash. You kinda do see it, in the final performance in this film. It's very foreshadowing. However, the film doesn't really talk about the rise of LA's hip-hop. That was another big factor in destroying the glam metal scene. Overall: While, the film doesn't have the informative depths that something like 2006's documentary, 'Heavy: The Story of Metal' or the raw edge of the first movie in Spheeris's series; it still worth watching for the amusing musical acts and the hilarious sequences that follow, even if some of them, were highly exaggerated & staged, such as Ozzy Osbourne making breakfast scene & the amount of Vodka that Chris Holmes drinks. It's probably the most fun of the three 'Decline of Western Civilization' films. I just wish, it didn't jump around, as much. It needed a little more narrative structure, rather than rapid-fire series of interviews. Still, it's one documentary worth headbanging too. So, mosh over and go find it!

torbi-2 Kind of hilarious to watch almost 30 years later… I mean who considers Poison a metal band? (answer no: Pop Hair Band is more accurate) I would love for her to do a where are they now version---especially because London, Odin, Seduce went nowhere and Alice Cooper now golfs and is an upstanding member of the community (watching his interviews you can tell his persona is just an act... while Steven Tyler's interview you can guess he's high AF.) The whole thing seemed ridiculously tame (unless the metal scene really was this uneventful) and everyone was just trying too hard to be impressive. I didn't like the staged shots (especially Paul Stanley), it seemed too contrived.

Michael_Elliott Decline of Western Civilization Part 2, The (1988) **** (out of 4) I had seen the Aerosmith and Alice Cooper clips of this documentary via a bootleg but never got around to watching the film until IFC showed it the other night and I'm certainly disappointed that I waited so long because Penelope Spheeris' film is one of the best out there of its type and ranks highly among the best documentaries to be made about rock 'n roll. Members of Aerosmith, Kiss, Poison, Alice Cooper himself, Ozzy and various no-name bands are interviewed. The legends interviewed here give the same old stories, which are still interesting but the great thing comes from all the interviews with those broke souls trying to make a name for themselves. Spheeris asks all the right questions from what happens if they don't make it and even asks some groupies if they're worried about AIDS. The film goes into great detail about various subjects and there's such a wide range of musicians that the film never gets boring. I'd love to see an update on the people involved here and see what their feelings are since none of them (to my knowledge) became famous. Also, in case anyone is interesting, during the Alice Cooper interview he's asked about people ripping him off and he mentions he'd like to hang one group but they bleed out the group. That group mentioned is W.A.S.P.

haildevilman I loved this. I'm one of these people. I'm not apologizing.Philadelphia (where I grew up) was not the same as LA. But we did have similar clubs and scenes. The only difference was the weather.Tight jeans. Boots. Bullet belt. Studded armbands. Bandannas. Tees with or without sleeves. Leather jackets and/or vests. And if your female? Short dresses and heels.Seeing the interviews was cool, even if they were too short. This whole film should have been longer.And it was good to see a barely known band (Odin) get the attention. Apparently, even the lesser bands got as much fun too.Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P, lounging in his pool, draining vodka while his mother looked on, was one of THOSE scenes. 'Hey ma, you can't stop ME from abusing myself.' I'm proud of these people. But I hope they survived it. It was a great ride.