Ramones Raw

Ramones Raw is a DVD I'd recommend to most Ramones fans .This isn't End Of The Century : The Story of The Ramones. It doesn't try to tell us the story of the band, rather its a collection of Marky Ramones private video footage, concert footage and other rare footage of the Ramones. As a Ramones fan, I found the DVD very entertaining, both for the concert footage and other footage, which usually shows the band abroad in different parts of the world on tour.Apart from the main feature, there are several special features. An audio commentary with Marky and Johnny Ramones as well as the DVD's producer provides an insight to some of the stuff going on ,on screen. Also included are several TV appearances and deleted scenes. All in all, Ramones Raw isn't a serious film about what it takes to be in a band, rather it gives an entertaining look at the band during their career.

The name John Cafiero tricked me into watching this. He's done some good stuff before, he deserved the chance. Well I will be much more cautious next time I see his name. This movie just jumps around and has the feel of a VHS compilation tape made by a 12 year old. If that's what he was going for, well then kudos. But I don't like it. The only good part was the extremely long Up All Night segment with Gil Ramone.

Being the huge Ramones fan that I am, I of course love this video. Great concert footage and the video from the tours is great. This video does a great job of taking you through the whole Ramones career, except the beginning with Tommy as drummer. I especially loved listening to the audio commentary by Marky, Johnny(RIP), and the director... they have some interesting stuff to say. The part where they drive the van through the fans and edit in "Night of the Living Dead" clips and use the NOTLD music is great. The extras are great too. My favorite might be when they are on the Howard Stern show, playing "golf" with "the president", good stuff. Basically, if you are anything of a Ramones fan you should own this, A+! Go buy it you SLOTH!

I bought the DVD. As described elsewhere, this has a lot of drummer Marky's hand-held videos. So it could have been REALLY bad. Fortunately, the massive pile of video has been well-edited, and it flows about as well as is possible. The video segments are broken about every 5-10 minutes by live performances, cartoons, etc. There are many TV appearances and a great 11-song live show from Italian TV.

For non-fans, it is worth owning for live performances by this mighty band. If anyone could possibly not know: their first four albums jump-started punk and new wave in the late 70's -- they were directly responsible for English bands like the Clash and Sex Pistols. The Ramones were four guys in leather jackets and blue jeans who pretended to be brothers, to be stupid, to sniff glue for fun, and to be Nazis. None of those things were true, but the image is a blast and the whole thing is played in front of heavy metal surf music: great melodies, slashing guitar sounds, indecipherable lyrics, fast-thumping-unstoppable drumbeat, played TIGHT. And they make it all look easy.

FANS: gotta have this. From what I've heard about the documentary in theaters now, "End of the Century", that is a must-own. RAW is EOTC's ugly sister: not as pretty but every bit as valuable. Get 'em both.

Anyone watching this hoping to see a documentary will be sorely disappointed. This is a compilation of Marc "Marky Ramone" Bell's homemade tour videos with some concert footage and other cool stuff thrown in. It's a lot of fun and gives a glimpse of da boyz that you won't find elsewhere. Where else will you see footage of Johnny Ramone actually smiling? How about hundreds of absolutely crazed South American fans blocking the band's van from leaving their hotel? Their appearance on Uncle Floyd? Nowhere! I've been listening to this band for 3/4 of my life, I've heard the albums countless times, I've seen documentaries and read other books, and this reveals more humanity and humor in the boys than I've seen anywhere else. Watch it already.