The Ramones Movies

A teenage boy tries to hold his family together while the girl of his dreams drives him to distraction in this coming-of-age comedy drama. It's 1978, and Henry Nearing (Gregory Smith) and his family are in a state of flux. Henry's mother has died, and now his father, Shep (David Morse), is trying to find himself by quitting his job, buying a motorcycle, and growing out his hair. Henry's brother, Blair (David Moscow), is similarly trying to expand his boundaries by dating a free-spirited girl and experimenting with drugs. Henry, meanwhile, is just trying to get through high school, but a certain girl is making that difficult for him. Grace Chance (Jordana Brewster) is a pretty girl in Henry's class who enjoys wrapping boys around her little finger; it doesn't take long for her to notice he's smitten with her, and she begins flirting with him and getting him to do whatever she wants, even though she already has a boyfriend whom she has no intention of leaving. Meanwhile, Merna (Ashley Johnson), a cute girl who lives nearby, has a crush on Henry and is clearly a better match for him, but she can't get him to notice her, even after she starts dating an older boy to make him jealous. Nearing Grace received its world premiere at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Michael Gramaglia's years-in-the-making biography of the legendary punk band the Ramones entitled End of the Century traces nearly all the various and sundry peaks and valleys which the seminal rockers experienced over the course of its 20-plus year career before disbanding in 1995. Beginning with the band's first concert performances in the mid-'70s, Gramaglia explores the eccentric and highly volatile band members -- in all the various line-ups that were presented over the years -- as the Ramones slowly gained fame for their high energy and high-tempo style of music that would later influence generations of punk rockers around the world. Mixing archival interviews with new interviews of the various surviving bandmembers, as well as interviews with a number of the Ramones' contemporaries, End of the Century encapsulates the East Coast underground music atmosphere of the 1970s and '80s that the band inadvertently shocked into existence. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

Through much of the 1980s, Sonic Youth had been slowly but steadily developing a reputation as one of the most original and exciting bands on the American underground scene. In the summer of 1991, the band headed to Europe for a concert tour and discovered they weren't as underground as they imagined themselves to be; booked into a series of massive outdoor festivals, the band found themselves playing to some of the largest audiences of their career, and sharing stages with other American bands who were poised for an unexpected commercial breakthrough both in Europe and at home (most notably a little band from Seattle called Nirvana). Musician and filmmaker Dave Markey tagged along for the ride, and Sonic Youth: 1991 - The Year Punk Broke is his document of one of America's most important alternative bands riding a wave that would break with the grunge revolution late the same year. Along with Sonic Youth and Nirvana, Sonic Youth: 1991 - The Year Punk Broke also features performances by Babes in Toyland, Dinosaur Jr., and Gumball, as well as a brief flash of the Ramones playing a club gig. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide