What We Do Is Secret

The Germs movie what we do is secret played at OFS this week. Here's what Joaquin had to say about it on the OPIUM list, where local Olympia music types argue their opinions:

The Germs biopic is clearly made by a total fan, obsessively
outfitting the characters from the well known footage and recordings.
It was cool watching the exact concerts that they portrayed in the
movie right afterward during the double feature. They even had actors
dressed exactly like the real audience members. It took the filmmakers
over a decade to make! It was like a really expensive, elaborate Germs
fanzine. I guess I didn't expect anything more so I was entertained
the whole time, but I like reading bad fanzines too...especially if
someone spends like 10 years writing it! I hope that everyone that
hates "W.W.D.I.S." and love the Germs make the really good Germs
biopic.

"WWDIS" took 15 years to make, cost $1 million (to date it has only
grossed $58,000) and was shot in about 20 days. The first punk record
the director bought is "What We Do Is Secret" in 1982. Can any Germs
fan top that dedication? I mean I have the burn scar but that took 5
seconds and was free!

I actually missed the film in the theater because I had heard it was terrible. Joaquin kept telling me that not all the reviews were bad, but that most Germs fans seemed to hate it. I was sick this week, behind at work and had to study for my Spanish final so I didn't go.

I just watched it now, on DVD. I have to say, while it's not a great movie, I really enjoyed watching it. It actually brought something to the story for me. I mean, watching that guy play Darby was weird and at first hard to take, as was watching today's version of a punk show and there were plenty of cringe-inducing moments...

However it was kind of like watching an after school special dramatization of a real life serious event, in that it asks you to suspend your disbelief and just watch these actors tell the story of the Germs. That you never forget they are actors and that this is a reenactment is a credit to the director I think. There is no romantic identification with Darby's self-destruction possible, because he's not great, he's not real, and like the real Darby Crash, he's not even cool! He's a sad, messed up kid, with a will to power and a talent for chaos who happened to be a visionary poet.

They show him as he by all accounts really was: manipulative, cruel/abusive to others, yet also vulnerable and sweet. The way they portrayed his closeted homosexuality was cool too, in that they don't over-explain it, they leave it to you to piece together, which is what most of his friends had to do, according to what I've read. They capture the gay kid in a homophobic punk scene pretty well, which is kind of the meat of the story. They also show that he was equal parts idiot and genius--not someone you could really defend, but someone you would always listen to because he had such a unique mind and take on things. Doesn't every punk scene have someone like that who uses drugs and manages to get all these girls to take care of him? (I totally know that guy times five million...) Yet, in Darby's case, it would have been hard to 'set boundaries', because not only was he super persuasive, he was so smart and perceptive that he could understand people psychologically, and that is what it takes to get people to be loyal to you--because all alienated punk kids want to be understood, maybe even more than they want to be liked.

What's missing in the film is an exploration of the larger setting of the suburban LA apocalyptic punk scene. This is the biggest let down to me, because that is the interesting part of the Germs story, how all these California kids were living out their nihilistic version of Hollywood--an American nightmare at the dawn of the Reagan Era. The Germs truly were the germs that spread the disease of hardcore. I guess Decline tells that story already pretty well...

They also kind of gloss over his home life and don't really show anything about their high school cult (see the Don Bolles book for that story I guess), so you kind of have to know the story in order to get the first part of the film, which makes me think a lot of stuff got cut out--they reference stuff without explaining it and it's kind of confusing.

Oh, also, you don't think he's "cool" because he did heroin or killed himself. It's not glamorous by any means. It's clear that his death was a waste, could have been prevented and it was drugs that led to his demise. This is accomplished by showing how his self-destruction impacted the other members of the band, his true friends who really loved him. It's kind of devastating to think of what it must have felt like for Pat and Lorna. See, just like an after school special. Sad and makes you think.

Kids, the message is, (in the immortal words of Freddy Mercury):

Don't try suicide, You're Just Gonna Hate It!!!!

So, I would actually only give this two and a half stars, but BECAUSE I'M A GERMS FAN (rather than a Darby worshipper) I did enjoy watching it quite a bit. I wonder if Don Bolles likes it....we could call him and ask. last time I checked his phone number was still listed.