Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)

Director: Penelope Spheeris

Average user rating
1 review

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Spheeris' second look at what the sweet young things of the City of Angels get up to when they're not free- basing and setting fire to classrooms or their hair. She puts a camera in front of a number of kids and Heavy Metal 'stars', and lets them talk about their music and their lives - both ultimately worthless. There are musical interludes from the likes of Faster Pussycat, London, and other almost indistinguishable crap acts, all wanting and waiting to be as big and bigoted as Guns'n'Roses, who wanted too much money to appear. Osbourne is the greatest walking example of just how stupid the HM creed of drugs, booze and macho sexism really is: fat and funny at first, sickening after a while. Holmes is pathetic, Alice Cooper is sad, Paul Stanley displays amazing penis envy, and Aerosmith are simply stupid. The regular HM girlfriends are tough and strangely feminist, the groupies singularly ugly and dumb. The boys all brag about sex but look like Mother Fist is their main mistress. The values stink, the music stinks, and Lemmy from Motorhead is a dickhead, but the movie is totally compelling. Rather like watching a car wreck on the opposite side of a motorway.

Author: MPe 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

User reviews of this film

  • Scott said...
    Posted on Aug 30 2008 07:10 Found this for a buck. Will probably watch it or dub it. Then sell it on half.com for 30-40 times what it's worth. (used vhs was going for 37 bucks). Yep I keep telling people that most hair rockers were goofs who did want to get a job. And lived off naive strippers and groupie hand outs. Perhaps this will be proof.
    Report as inappropriate

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Penelope Spheeris

Producer: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

Cast: Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Motorhead, Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Holmes, Poison, Lizzy Borden, Faster Pussycat, Seduce, Odin, London, Megadeth full cast

Genre(s): Documentaries

Duration: 93 mins

Related articles


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.