A punk rock puppet show featuring Charles Manson as the savior of mankind? Yup, sounds like a first-time filmmaker to us. Nonetheless, Tim Armstrong can do no wrong these days (unless you count doing the Burning Angels as wrong... which we do not).

Live Freaky Die Freaky has been in production forever and runs the risk of hitting DVD shelves around the same time as Team America, but with an all scene-star cast of voices (not to mention Asia Argento & Viggo Mortensen), it might just kick ass.


SCENE POINTS:
Produced by Tim Armstrong.
Cast (voices): Billie Joe Armstrong (ahem), Benji & Joel Madden (two demerits right there), Travis Barker (that dude gets laid a lot), Theo Kogan, Davey Havok (cute goth chick), Skinhead Rob (the dude that punched Farley's head), Fat Mike, Lars Frederiksen, and mo'!

SMUT:
You get to hear Asia Argento's voice.

CONCLUSION:
Who wants to hear Asia Argento's voice? That bitch can barely speak English. Her voice is just an unfortunate side effect of getting to look at her. Still, Tim Armstrong has the touch that turns everything to gold (except P!NK), so we're still excited to check this out.

THREAT is the 800 lb gorilla of this list for 3 reasons:
- (a) it was shot on film, not video,
- (b) it is the first DiY hardcore "scene" movie ever acquired for a nationwide theatrical release, and
- (c) it's taking it's lumbering-ass time getting into the theaters!

THREAT takes Lower East Side straightedgers and underground hip hop kids on what looks to be a brutal ride through a full-on riot, where we're told they will learn to transform their youth violence into class war. Sounds like a heady NYHC brew, quite the opposite of Live Freaky Die Freaky's LA Punk sarcasm. The only question is whether or not King's Mob will be able to keep us awake long enough to deliver the message.

SCENE POINTS:
Cast: Most Precious Blood, Indecision, Guav, These Enzymes, Eyes Like Knives, Wreck-Age, and more.
Music: Alec Empire, Atari Teenage Riot, Sick Of It All, Most Precious Blood, Indecision, Agnostic Front, VOD, The Distillers, Terror, Your Enemies Friends, The Icarus Line, These Enzymes, Eyes Like Knives, Judge, Anti-Flag, and more.

SMUT:
As Justin from Most Precious Blood warns us: "the most violent movie you'll ever see!"

CONCLUSION:
Who knows if the goddamned thing will ever see the light of day?? We've been waiting forever to see this flick. King's Mob has claimed a Winter 2005 release, which seems possible only because distributor HIQI Media backs it up. We shall see...

Straight outta Long Island (home of Public Enemy, Mobb Deep, and Taking Back Sunday) comes this offbeat reality/lifestyle flick drenched in booze. Filmmaker Peter Hoare set out to lower the standards of indie filmmaking by documenting his friends' drunken parties. It's kind of like a tattooed frat party and is sorta reminiscent of the documentary Raw Deal: A Question Of Consent (but without the daterape).

SCENE POINTS:
Cast: Brand New, Scraps and Heart Attacks.
Music: Kevin Devine, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, Atmosphere, Northstar, Safety In Numbers, Hot Rod Circuit, The Movielife, and more.

SMUT:
Kind of a sausage party (but at least it's a sausage party with beer funnels?).

CONCLUSION:
BEER has been serialized by Fuse Network into small bits of debauchery, which might be the best way to ingest this libation. When it comes to DVD, it could be fun background at a party or might serve as good company when your buddies blow you off and you're left at home drinking alone. So, in that way, it could be the drunken version of NBC's Friends.

Saving the best til last? Uh. Sort of.

Anyone who's been to Boston knows that Boston wants to be NY but with more beer brawls. A tall order, no doubt, but Boston may be well on its way to getting some bragging rights now that their long-running punk crew FSU has adopted DVD technology first and is spreading Boston's street cred globally.

Boston Beatdown is a really odd mix of brawl footage and confusingly vague militant rhetoric. It begins with an opening akin to an Al Jazeera terrorist video about the plight of the poor and the artists in gentrified Boston. Somehow this political theory is intended to justify the seemingly random beatings that follow. As the filmmakers should know, a good ass-kicking requires no real justification... especially on DVD. And the opening monologue notwithstanding, there isn't really any justification for these beatdowns. There are several interviews about how FSU (cleverly re-branded as Friends Stand United) is really just a small band of friends fighting back against the far larger gangs of skinhead thugs, but invariably this underdog mystique is completely invalidated by footage of 20 or so FSU kids beating up one dude. Hopefully Volume 3 will have some footage of the outnumbered FSU guys rallying to a victory against insurmountable odds... for now we'll just have to settle for the BoSox vs. NY.

SCENE POINTS:
Cast: Blood For Blood, Death Before Dishonor, Righteous Jams, Wrecking Crew, In My Eyes, Ten Yard Fight.

SMUT:
Well, the whole thing is obviously a guilty pleasure, but it's pretty much a sausage party except for the handful of girls who incite some of the beatdowns. As for gore, though, the special feature documenting a DiY stitch-job of a gash left by a broken bottle is absolute art.

CONCLUSION:
Yeah, you're supporting a punk gang which I guess isn't very positive, but you get to see them kick Moby's ass, which is pretty damn positive in our humble opinion and makes Eminem look like a fag by comparison.

Those crazy bastards over at Burning Angel have made a punk movie so over-the-top that it got banned by their billing company. Haha. Now that's fuckin punk.

A parody of cult classic Re-Animator, this horror/zombie-porn is the brainchild of Joanna Angel, who also stars in the film as an undead stripper that vomits blood while sucking cock (happens to the best of us).

This last minute inclusion is unavailable at post-time (since Burning Angel has not yet devised a legal means of distributing it), but we'll keep you posted at the news update section.