Jai Al-Attas, a 25 year old director from Australia, just presented his punk rock documentary One Nine Nine Four at The Calgary International Film Festival, to a very wild crowd. The film was very well set up, informing audiences of what truly was happening in the punk rock scene when everyone was still wearing leather pants, way too much hairspray and still listening to hair bands, and just how quickly it began to explode and be played on radio stations everywhere. The film is narrated by Tony Hawk and provides interesting insight into the bands and record labels; with interviews with Tom Delonge (Blink-182), Fat Mike (NOFX, Fat Wreck Chords), Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion, Epitaph) and several other influential punk rockers. Through out the film there seemed to be a lot of focus on Green Day, who in the film is accredited with killing grunge rock and Nirvana, bringing punk rock to the forefront. However, by focusing on a handful of bands instead of the whole scene the movie was very controlled and easy to follow. The film gave true depictions of what the industry was like; playing in warehouses, bands having their music featured in skateboarding and surfing videos, DIY records and labels, and the eventual rise of their own summer tour, Warped Tour.
If you love the whole punk rock scene I would definitely recommend this movie. The amount of information piled into the 90 minute documentary was momentous and I have not watched a music film like this one to date.
I give it four and a half crowd surfers out of five.