The Screengrab

Alex Cox's 1984 cult classic, Repo Man, is in every way the greatest punk rock movie ever made.  In its feel, its tone, its perfect blend of artsy surrealism and an obsession with junk culture, it precisely encapsulates everything great about American punk, and it's also one of the few movies (maybe the only movie made in the 20th century) to capture a specific punk scene-- in this case, the L.A. punk community of the early '80s -- without coming across as a limp, stereotypical joke.  Cox staffed his cast with legitimate punk rockers, and so it only made sense that he'd do the same thing with the soundtrack.  The resulting album, released on MCA Records in the same year as the film, is one of the greatest movie soundtracks of all time, and a perfect companion piece for the movie.

In fact, the soundtrack to Repo Man was, in its own way, more groundbreaking than the movie.  It was one of the first movie scores to consist mostly of pre-released material by established pop bands; nowadays, the process is commonplace, but in 1984, it was still something of a novelty.  Cox, who compiled the tracks for the album himself, was pitch-perfect in his selection of songs:  starting out with a monster epic by punk forefather Iggy Pop, the record goes on to treat us to choice tracks from many of the L.A. scene's best bands, including Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies, Burning Sensations, and the criminally underrated Plugz, whose blend of punk velocity and snarly Mexican-American attitude holds the whole record together.  Of course, as great as the soundtrack is, listening to it on its own can't compare to the sleazy thrill of enjoying it in the context of the movie.

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The death of Brad Renfro last week threw newspapers into a bit of a tizzy; few, if any, had a prepared obituary on file for the actor, who was only twenty-five years old and was regarded as, in the words of reporter John Rogers, "a relatively minor celebrity." News outlets have traditionally kept obituaries ready and on file, just in case, but one company rep who spoke to Rogers, Adam Bernstein of The Washington Post, said that he "couldn't recall any on a person under thirty." There have always been cases of celebrities dying young, of course. But now there seem to be more people who are very young and very famous — or, at least, who seemed reasonable famous recently enough that their deaths still count as news. In some cases, there's also the question of just how well-prepared one should be in the case of an event that, to put it crassly, not everyone would regard as shocking if it were to happen. (Last summer, Kim Masters of Slate ran a quote from an anonymous staffer at the gossip-heavy E! cable channel saying, "People feel like [Lindsay Lohan] is going to die — and we're not helping.")

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Wherever the name of Iggy Pop appears, a bit of bizarre film casting is sure to follow. While The Passenger, a biopic of young Iggy (supposedly to be played by bug-eyed hobbit Elijah Wood – speaking of bizarre casting) seems to be in development limbo, the punk legend himself is keeping busy. Fresh off of playing a six-year-old version of ex-Defense Department maniac-in-chief Donald Rumsfeld on Comedy Central’s dismal Li’l’ Bush: Resident of the United States, Ig has decided to stick with animation, playing, of all things, the politically active uncle of Marjane Satrapi in the American version of her coming-of-age film Persepolis. Pop’s brother (and Satrapi’s father) will be voiced by Sean Penn. Go figure. — Leonard Pierce

Hollywood loves a rock star, especially if they have the good grace to die early and provide the scriptwriter with a nice tidy ending that doesn’t involve getting old and boring. With Control, Anton Corbijn’s celebrated directorial debut, opening this weekend, we’ll get to see how the movies do with the compellingly tragic story of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis; his cult status, enigmatic qualities and spectacular suicide would seem to make him an ideal candidate for big-screen immortality. But while we wait for this and Todd Haynes’ Dylan biopic I’m Not There to hit our local screens, we can always immerse ourselves in previous big-screen treatments of rock and rollers — both real and imaginary — that Hollywood has brought us.

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