End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2004)

I'm not generally a fan of talking-head documentaries -- they always seem kind of static to me, bringing up memories of bad Holocaust docs and movies watched for homework assignments in high school -- but this is about as good the style gets. The participants are all interesting and informative, and there's surprisingly very little information overlap for such a comprehensive documentary. The band's latter years feel a bit compressed and undercovered, but then it's possibly because the band had kind of hit a creative stagnation so there wasn't really much to say. The early performance footage is the undeniable highlight, and there's a lot of it to go around. It took all my willpower not to jump out of my seat and start bopping around when "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" came on. A fine tribute to a fine band.

Grade: B+