Popular reviews

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  Review by sophie b ★★★★ 2

  The moment of the movie, for me, is the girl at the Stains' first (disastrous) performance who looks up at Corinne Burns with a mixture of awe, wonder, and worship as Corinne unleashes her anger and contempt. This is the power and appeal of punk rock. The girl sees in Corinne her own anger, her own feelings, and her own desire to be heard and to not be contained within what people deem appropriate. The Stains' image or more specifically Corinne's image is, in that moment, genuine, vital, unvarnished, unpracticed (other than three long rehearsals), and completely sincere. Whether Corinne maintains that sincerity in the face of petty feuding and sexist rock promoters trying to take advantage of a young…

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★½ 9

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains” might not be the most revolutionary of band films, but it is one of the best ever made about the most essential aspect of revolution there is:

  The revolution of self-creation. 

  Specifically, that of three teen girls from a dying mining town, as played by Diane Lane, Laura Dern, and Marin Kanter. 

  As actual and self-declared orphans of the patriarchy, the trio create a punk group that inspires the ‘anarchy’ of power and personal determinism in their young women fans. 

  “Stains” creation makes it both a work of strident rebellion, but also of eerie portending for what was to come for women in the music industry. 

  The aggressive individuality heralded in the movie’s plot…

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  Review by Vanina ★★★ 9

  Corinne Burns: You are so jealous of me. I'm everything you ever wanted to be.
  Billy: A cunt?
  Corinne Burns: Exactly.

  Not a very even film (and featuring way too many close-up shots of underaged girls' underpant-clad crotches to be comfortable), but a film to love nonetheless. While I think Times Square has more soul and captures confused teenagedom better, Diane Lane is iconic in this film.

  The Fabulous Stains' lack of soul probably comes from its anger and divided message.

  Now, it's nothing new that the Stains are formed to escape their small town, out of anger at their surroundings. Diane Lane as Corinne Burns has some fantastic lines about the disillusionment she feels as a teenage girl, but…

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  Review by laird ★★★★½

  Bumping my star-rating up from my previous viewing. Expecting less from the drama, which still loses something by bouncing around too often from Corinne to Billy when it should just stay focused on The Stains, it's still a rich, authentic-feeling illustration of rock and roll, class, and sexism (and the intersections of these things) across the three generations and three countries represented by the main players. There are some shots early on that could be straight from Ken Loach's KES with teenage Diane Lane dwarfed by the industrial machinery of her kind of miserable-looking town. Maybe the emissions from those factories gave her mom the lung cancer ("that's what they call it... I call it breathing."). Lane is amazing as…

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  Review by AJ ★★★ 4

  PUNK LAURA DERN!!
  

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★ 1

  So much to love about this movie. The pre-Spinal Tap metal parody that nonetheless ends with a moment of empathy when the band's bassist OD's and the erstwhile cocky, horny lead singer is stunned into near catatonia. Pistols and Clash players backing a baby-faced Ray Winstone(!!!!) in the punk band cruising on rebellious autopilot. I also love that late monologue from Corinne's aunt/Peg's mom in which the guardian figure expected to condemn her younger family instead contrasts their freedom with her own miserable upbringing and wishes them well. But from the moment Diane Lane comes on a stage in prototypical Riot Grrrl gear and launches into a rant as fierce and engaging as the Stains' first proper gig is sloppy…

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  Review by Anika ★★★ 4

  You can tell this was directed by a dude.

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★

  Kind of impressive to assemble a film shot by the legendary Bruce Surtees into something that comes across a bit sloppy and amateurish (not necessarily a bad thing for this material), but otherwise this is a pretty delightful and funny Vancouver-shot teen girl punk rocker industry drama. Diane Lane and Laura Dern make for a good combo of teen girls running away from their deadbeat homes for the allure of the stage, lights and make-up of even seedy bar shows as long as they get to express/vent their anger, and Ray Winstone brings some of that boorish British lad quality he had in Scum to this dripped out The Clash wannabe who watches this girl groups rise and fall (and…

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  Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★★★

  has seemingly earned an erroneous reputation as being a rousing punk film but it has much more in common with something like A Face in the Crowd, an equally acerbic and prescient account of the media’s role in fostering stardom and rabid fan culture(s), perhaps not *quite* as damning as Kazan’s film but it has piss and vinegar to spare, nonetheless — in any case, that this is now finally on Blu-ray should be a cause for celebration and hopefully increase its accessibility around the world

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  Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★★

  Cinematic Time Capsule
  1982 Marathon - Film #114

  ”You were just a concept and you’ve blown the concept”

  Diane Lane and Laura Dern bring skunk to punk as they experience the ups and downs of the fickle finger of fate and teen commercialism.

  This film’s just as messy, sloppy and uneven as you’d expect a punk rock movie to be. But sadly it’s all brought to a screeching halt by a tacked on happy ending that completely undermines everything that just happened.

  I wanted to like this more, but frankly I think Times Square just did it better.

  BONUS POINTS for the chance to see a Ray Winstone leading a Sex Pistols/Clash mashup. That was a trip.

  ”Everybody wanna to go to Heaven, but nobody wanna die”

  
  Cinematic Playlist - “I’m with the Band”

  Cinematic Time Capsule - 1982 Ranked

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  Review by Joe Lynch ★★★★

  Watching this “fab” story of a rock group who goes through the motions from up and comer to last months trend is always fun but I forgot how abrupt and disjointed the ending was, which based on the commentary was shot over a year after they wrapped to capitalize on the MTV craze just starting.
  Still, seeing a 15 year old Diane Lane (in a performance that would NEVER happen like it does here), 13 year old Laura Dern and a 23 year old Ray Winstone (playing in a band with ex members of SEX PISTOLS & THE CLASH) is a blast.
  “We Don’t Put Out!”

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  Review by Josh Kadish ★★★★

  “Every girl should be given an electric guitar on her 16th birthday.”

  A fascinating collision of roiling adolescence and rock & roll, with an incredible early Lane performance at the center — and the eternally reliable Christine Lahti delivering an amazing monologue to boot.

  The Stains feel like the prototype for so many female-led groups to come — bands that were built on the foundation of harnessing a profound rage bubbling within. Whether lambasting the deeply misogynistic nature of the recording industry or serving a staggeringly underserved audience by actually giving voice to a powerful female role model, this group and entire text feels so thoroughly ahead of its time.