End of the Century: Story of the Ramones DVD Review:

Starting from their humble beginnings in rundown joints of New York, End of the Century trails the journey of the groundbreaking punk band, The Ramones. This detailed documentary runs at over two and a half hours, diving deep into what made the band work, why they stayed on the brink of huge success for so long, and all of the elements that nearly destroyed them, including drugs and women. Although End of the Century does an excellent job of capturing the essence of The Ramones, never willing to gloss over the disturbing details of the inner workings of the band, the documentary often seems lost and unfocused.

The film is book ended by clips of the living band members being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, which makes for a great beginning to the film, as well as an even more profound ending. It is in the interviews that this detailed rock doc truly resonates; especially in showing how different many of their personalities were, despite the fact that they dressed alike. Most mesmerizing as much as it is often frightening is the interviews with Dee Dee, who had the most trouble with drugs, resulting in his death in 2002.

End of the Century was made by Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields, two men who obviously love the music of early punk years in the 70’s, and it shows throughout the film. Sections of the film seem to be as much an examination of the music itself as The Ramones. There are extensive interviews with many other musical artists that were influenced directly by The Ramones, or simply were inspired by their music. While this film could have easily turned into a nostalgic walk down punk-rock memory lane, it was able to stay un-biased and this helps the film to seem more honest and true. Although there are sentiments that are in the film, most of it will come from what each viewer brings himself.

Regardless of what one thinks of The Ramones, this documentary is so detailed that it can’t be ignored in a short list of great rock and roll documentaries, and the DVD does the film justice. There are more special features on this DVD than I would have expected, considering most of them seem to be things left out of the 2 ½ hour film. There is a one and a half minute deleted scene titled "Clem Burke as Elvis Ramone," presented in full screen; two minutes, 54 seconds of a Joey Ramone radio interview, presented in non-anamorphic widescreen; three minutes, 34 seconds of Marky Ramone demonstrating his drumming techniques, presented in fullscreen; interview excerpts from Johnny, Richie and Dee Dee Ramone and Joe Strummer, all in fullscreen (3:19, 3:15, 3:58 and 4:01, respectively); two minutes, 28 seconds of excerpts from Tommy Ramone's interview in Forest Hills, presented in fullscreen; interview excerpts from Debbie Harry & Chris Stein and Richie Adler, presented in fullscreen (6:41 and 1:54, respectively) as well as Tommy Ramone explaining "Who Wrote What on The First Three Albums" (four minutes, 16 seconds and presented in fullscreen). The non-anamorphic widescreen trailer for End of the Century: The Story of The Ramones is also onboard.

With all of these features, and a frightening and amazing look at the inner workings of one of history’s most influential rock bands, there is no reason why any collector wouldn’t own this DVD.

Ryan Izay

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of End of the Century: Story of the Ramones and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.