This week, two projects revolving around legendary 20th century rock figures hit streaming, though the subjects, and the projects, couldn’t be more different.
First up, the documentary “Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche” will be in theaters nationwide Wednesday for a one night only big screen event before becoming available to rent digitally on Friday. The pioneering punk princess Poly Styrene, the lead singer of the British punk band X-Ray Spex, was the first woman of color to front a successful rock band in the U.K. Her distinctive voice and delightfully daffy DIY fashion, along with her insightful songs, proved to be an indelible influence on rock and punk music, especially on the later movements of riot grrl and Afropunk.
“Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche” is more than just a punk doc. It’s an intimate, and deeply probing portrait of Poly as a person searching for identity through her art, as seen through the eyes of her daughter, Celeste Bell, who co-directed the film with Paul Sng. The film is comprised of a wealth of archival material, plus interviews with family, friends and collaborators, as well as Celeste’s own voice-over detailing the experiences of growing up with and later learning about her mother. What emerges is a nuanced, detailed rendering of Poly, who died of breast cancer in 2011, crafted with care and honesty by her loved ones.
Map Poly Styrene’s influence on punk in other rock docs, like “The Punk Singer” (2013) about the radical riot grrl, Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna (available for rent on all digital platforms), and in the fantastic doc “A Band Called Death” (2013), about the Detroit Afropunk band Death (on Flix Fling, Fandor and Redbox). Poly’s London contemporaries The Sex Pistols were depicted in their own doc, “The Filth and The Fury” (2000), directed by Julien Temple (rent it on iTunes or Vudu), while Penelope Spheeris captured the live-wire energy of the punk scene exploding in Los Angeles in the early ‘80s in her classic rock doc, “The Decline of Western Civilization Part 1,” available for free with ads on Vudu, Tubi, Kanopy and Crackle and available to rent elsewhere.
The other rocker receiving a biopic, of sorts, this week is Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, in the miniseries “Pam & Tommy,” which hits Hulu on Wednesday. The series unpacks the infamous mid-‘90s sex tape scandal involving Lee and “Baywatch” actress Pamela Anderson, and is based on a 2014 Rolling Stone article by Amanda Chicago Lewis. The first three episodes, which drop on Wednesday (the series will then roll out weekly), are directed by Craig Gillespie, who tackled another ‘90s tabloid controversy in his 2017 film “I, Tonya” (also on Hulu). The series takes a similar energetically irreverent tack in its correcting of the record, exploring the way in which the notorious sex tape was enabled by the nascent World Wide Web, revolutionizing sex on the internet in the process, as well as our cultural relationship with celebrity, and the exploitative nature of the entertainment industry. In the titular roles, Lily James and Sebastian Stan fully inhabit these larger-than-life personalities in truly committed performances (with the help of hair and makeup, James bears an uncanny resemblance to Anderson), and their chemistry sizzles on screen.
To accompany your “Pam & Tommy” viewing, check out the Motley Crue episode of the classic VH1 series, “Behind the Music,” available in full on YouTube, as well as the silly Netflix biopic “The Dirt,” about the band’s early years coming up in the L.A. hair metal scene, in which Machine Gun Kelly plays Tommy Lee. Anderson’s 1996 sci-fi action film “Barb Wire” is available to rent on all digital platforms, and classic episodes of Anderson-era “Baywatch” are also available to stream on Hulu and Prime Video.
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