The End of the Ramones

The End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones seems more profound now than ever, seeing how one original member remains alive by the time the darn thing rocks theaters.
The film starts at the Music Hall of Fame where the then still alive Johnny and Dee Dee (along with Marky and other orig member Tommy) make wise before their admiring comrades. The filmmakers use plentiful clips to illustrate what music was like in the mid-70s. Clips from pop like Donnie and Marie contrast with inserts from the likes of Iggy & the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Television, Emerson Lake & Palmer. This examination of the times and the Ramones as youths and how they intertwined within their milieu occupies most of the first hour.
The Ramones were playing to other bands at CBGB’s. Here the film tastefully dredges up a snippet of the naïf Ramones covering “California Sun” and having equipment malfunctions at the same time. The Ramones are featured in a New York Times article and becomes darlings of Rolling Stone magazine. Later, Joe Strummer is testifying that to The Clash and The Sex Pistols, their main influence was The Ramones. Which brings up another point. In those pivotal mid-70s times a magazine like Rolling Stone was covering Nixon Resigning and Karen Silkwood’s death whereas today it’s a pale shadow of that. You’re more likely to see Lindsay Lohan on the cover.
Joey and Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone, all in separate interviews since they collaborated with the filmmakers, just not as a group, expound on the greater meaning behind their phenomenon. End of the Century covers a lot of ground, including a career turning collaboration with Phil Spector and the split between Joey and Johnny over a girlfriend (The KKK Took My Baby Away?). When the film concludes you’re tapping your foot with a Ramones adrenalin rush.