CBGB was a small live music venue in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City.
It played a pivotal role in launching many punk and alternative legends, notably Patti Smith, The Talking Heads, Blondie, the Ramones, Gorilla Biscuits and Devo.
The club even premiered some mainstream acts.
Bruce Springsteen got his start at CBGB.
So did Madonna.
On any random night in the 70s, 80s or 90s, if you went to CBGB you had a good chance of seeing someone who was about to be famous, either on stage or in the audience with you.
Alas, you know what they say about all good things
By the early aughts, the only people at GBGB were bad cover bands and James Franco.
The club shuttered in 2006.
There was some talk about re-opening it in Vegas at the New York New York Casino, but nothing came of it.
Today, the space it used to occupy is a John Varvatos store.
CBGB plays a pivotal role in Zeroville, a movie about a brilliant film editor living through the glorious auteur-era of 1970s Hollywood, which he fails to appreciate because he’s fixated on an older era, the Golden age.
Zeroville was filmed in 2014 and shelved for five years before being released to great disclaim.
Just what is it about the film that rubbed so many people the wrong way?
Perhaps the answer is lies in….
The Plot: Vikar (James Franco) is in love with the Golden age of Hollywood.
This is demonstrated to the opening credit sequence where he shaves off his hair and gets a life size tattoo of Montgomery Cliff kissing Elizabeth Taylor on the back of his head.
This passion is also alluded to in the following scene where he finds Elizabeth Taylor’s star on the walk of fame and proceeds to run his tongue over it.
Vikar has come to Hollywood in to make movies and if it were 1960, he might be the perfect person to do that.
Unfortunately, it’s 1970.
The golden age of Hollywood is over.
The movies of the day are all in color and filled with sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.
Fortunately for Vikar, he randomly bumps into Dotty (Jacki Weaver) who is based on famed film editor Verna Fields.
Dotty takes Vikar under her wing and shows him how to edit film brilliantly. The key to her success is the repeated mantra, “fuck continuity.”
Vikar also meets “Viking Man” (Seth Rogan) a loud and confrontational filmmaker who might be based on Francis Ford Coppola, but might also be the Ghost of Christmas Present or something.
Viking Man takes Vikar to a party where “Marty” (Thomas Ian Nichols) shares an idea about “Batman only instead of Batman it’s a taxi driver who saves prostitutes” and “Steven” (Kevin Makely) expresses the desire a to make a film about a shark attacking New England.
“Make it a robot-shark” says “George” (Ryan Moody).
Vikar takes little interest because he is smitten with Soledad (Megan Fox) a beautiful woman who might be a witch and might be the illegitimate daughter of Luis Bunuel but is definitely a tragic figure. She is seduced by countless producers who promise to cast her in their films but never do.
Vikar wants to right this wrong, but his powers to do so are limited because he’s an editor, not a producer.
But you know who is a producer? Rondell (Will Farrell), that’s who!
Rondell wastes no time putting Vikar in his place, convincing him that beautiful Soledad would never settle for a lowly editor, not when a powerful producer is available.
He also frequently breaks into song and has weird, intense monologues about movies that are “officially directed by no one!”
And somehow, CBGB winds up playing a role in all of this.
Vikar spends a lot of time there, and at one point introduces Soledad’s daughter, Zazi (Joey King) to punk rock at a Stooges show.
The Stooges never played at CBGB
That observation would be a trivial nitpick if Zeroville was an interesting story.
But….well…..Zeroville’s the sort of movie where you can’t help but mention the historical inaccuracies, because what would you talk about otherwise?
There are a few interesting scenes.
There’s a great one near the start of the film when Vikar accidentally stumbles onto the set of “Love Story.”
Zeroville is based on a Steve Erickson novel.
I haven’t read it, but the reviews are raves and from the sounds of things the movie didn’t change much of the story.
It’s a cliché, but stories like Zeroville are all about how you tell them rather than what specifically happens.
The movie, which moves in a nonlinear way between several pivotal moments throughout the 70s and 80, is told as though “fuck continuity” was indeed the point.
And since the continuity is undeniably fucked, I guess that makes Zeroville a success by default.
Still, I’m not sure the aesthetics of CBGB really gel with the golden age of Hollywood.
There’s a scene in this movie where Vikar meets Montgomery Cliff (played by Dave Franco) who encourages the editor to keep striving for his dreams.
I think it would’ve been way more interesting if Vikar met Elizabeth Taylor.
I have no idea what she’d say exactly, but I’m pretty sure she’d make him cry.