CBGB (2013)

CBGB  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Randall Miller
    Alan Rickman, Ashley Greene, Estelle Harris,
    Stana Katic, Malin Ackerman, Mickey Sumner
In 1973, a chronically cash-strapped hustler named Hilly Krystal opened a club in a rat-hole space in the Bowery, with the unlikely ambition of bringing country music to New York City. Country didn't flourish there, but something else did: punk. In fact, what Bill Graham's Fillmore ballrooms had been for the freaks a few years before, Krystal's dank, dingy bar, which he called CBGB, would become for the punks: a symbolic Mecca, a musical and spiritual home. Alan Rickman, looking dumpy and disheveled, plays Krystal in this amiably loose and affectionate character sketch. Young look-alike actors fill in for the Ramones, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads and Patti Smith, lip-synching the tunes those groups were playing at the time. You don't have to be a big fan of the punk scene to enjoy this one, but it probably wouldn't hurt. Just don't go into the bathroom unless you absolutely have to. And watch out for the dog shit on the floor.