LAist: What We Do is Secret

June 26, 2007

What We Do is Secret

My bottle of water rolled down the floor of the theater...I had to go chase it...and guess where it landed?

What if someone made a movie about your high school? Maybe it was a movie about the class that graduated the year before you started school. But even if you didn’t know some of the characters, you are only one degree of separation away. What We Do is Secret, a film about the life and death of Germs frontman Darby Crash, was kind of like that for me. I almost feel like I should recuse myself because I am too close to it to really give it an unbiased review.

I can speak with some authority as to authenticity, and I have to say, they had it down. It is usually hard to watch this kind of movie without pointing out one anachronism after another. But the costume design and makeup were flawless. I’m sure they have their many advisors to thank for that, including style maven Helen Roessler (aka. Hellin Killer). The locations, the sets, everything was spot-on. I attended the screening with a group of friends who were punks back then, and who knew all of the “characters” personally. We were frequently cracking up while the rest of the theater was silent. When did Pat Smear get a New York accent? Why does Don Bolles act like Keanu Reeves? And the Black Flag scene – wow. I have to say, props to JP Manoux, the actor playing Rodney on the Roq. I knew it would be hard to get his squeaky voice down, but he nailed Rodney’s freaky cadence. Rodney often has a confused demeanor, like he has the vague notion that people are making fun of him, but he is not really sure. This guy nailed it.

The movie starts with the moment most people think of when they think of Darby Crash – with him whining from the stage, “Somebody get me a beer. I need a beeeyah.” I thought it was the worst case scenario realized – it was going to be two hours of a bad impersonation. But once the film moves into a flashback, they allow us to watch the story and the personalities develop. We are able to watch Shane West slowly inhabit the character of Darby Crash just as Darby Crash himself did. Slowly, we are drawn in and are able to suspend disbelief. Just like real life, the film is sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. There is a scene at the end of the movie where Darby falls backwards, and they have me. I am totally in the moment, and if they were just able to hang on to that moment, they could have made me cry. But instead of a freeze frame, or a slow pan back, there is a quick edit to another scene. They lost me.

In general, I found the movie engrossing and entertaining. Sometimes I laughed with it and sometimes I laughed at it. Anyone who has any interest in punk rock will find it fascinating. But I would be very curious to see what someone unfamiliar with the Germs thinks of the movie. I am not sure whether or not it can be appreciated by a wider audience. I know that if I really, really liked Scrabble, a movie about Scrabble would hold me spellbound. I am too close to the subject matter to be sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be a really good movie about Scrabble.

Photo by Elise Thompson for LAist

By Elise Thompson in Arts & Events | Link | Comments (2) | Recommend this! (13) |

Tags: Black Flag, But I, crash, Darby Crash, death, design, Don Bolles, Elise Thompson, film, friends, fun, high school, Keanu Reeves, LAist, Movies, New York, Pat Smear, people, punk rock, Sometimes I, the Germs, theater, We Do

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Comments (2) [rss]

[1] | 06/26/07 09:46AM
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I'm still not sure that I'm going to see this one. Everything about it, from the production to the existence of the film itself just seems too surreal.

[2] | 08/24/08 04:58PM
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Hi,

The following post is actually one I emailed to Elise, having seen the film this past Friday at the NuArt theatre in West LA. Here is what I wrote:

Darby Crash died in 1980 (or thereabouts), which means I was under ten when the whole Germs phenomenon happened. Because of this, I went to the film more out of curiosity than anything else. The film was good, but I didn't really feel like I could sympathize with Darby. As portrayed in the film he was clearly intelligent, disaffected, and ambitious. These are usually good ways to get the audience involved, but he also came off as egotistic, and borderline sociopathic. I kept thinking he was a cult leader in training. Shane West clearly was deeply absorbed into his role, and I had fun watching him, but the character of Darby seemed to be in his own little world, trying to figure out why no one was coming with him, all the while deliberately controlling them and pushing them away. When he kills himself, it seemed less of a dramatic culmination of the film, and more of "just another moment".
The film wasn't completely forthcoming, either. I later read the Wikipedia entry on Darby, and he apparently talked about suicide all the time. In the film, he keeps his cards close to his chest, which is disingenuous, I think. I suspect the filmmaker may have decided at some point to hold back to maintain either believability or sympathy. A similar thing happened in the movie "Party Monster". The filmmakers had to tone down drug use in the film because the real people the film characters were based off of had done so much that no one thought the audience would believe it. I also thought the acting choices of Noah Segen were odd. I happened to see Don Bolles just before the midnight showing of the film started. I didn't recognize him at the time, but from the way he was speaking it was clear he was connected to the film somehow. After the film I looked him up and got completely mystified at how the filmmakers thought Segen was behaving anything like Bolles. I had a lot of fun watching Segen do his thing, though, so I guess there's no harm done.

I liked the film, it provided a look at a period of time I barely remember, but I think it could have been stronger. I can see it becoming a cult film shown at places like the NuArt, though.

Elise's response was:

I agree the Don Bolles was hilariously off-the-mark. I mean, Don Bolles was right there for comparison's sake.

I think bob's take on the phenomenon this week was interesting - comparing it to the Doors, and how each generation needs someone to fulfill that role of iconoclastic rebel-without-a-cause who dies young, achieving cult-like status.

The one thing I can say about the movie is that the people writing it, directing it, picking music and costumes were there. Those were Darby's friends. So we all have a hard time seeing what is -up-close and that may or may not have been beneficial, but it was definitely authentic.

I have mixed feelings on the film. It is definitely for a select audience.

I agree with that last sentence. I think that's why films like these end up being cult films. There's a core group of people that is interested in reliving, researching, or discovering counter-cultures of the past, but I can't imagine an average person finding this film valuable or insightful. I don't think that the average person is ever the target for these types of films, though. It's more of an opportunity to remember and analyze the what happened.