The Punk Singer

This isn't a movie, that pushes the documentary to new highs, but Kathleen Hanna deserves every fucking face time she gets.

Touching and important, but never really breaks the mold from being a typical talking heads+found footage type of documentary. It's too bad, because it seems to have moments that drift away from that (Kathleen talking about the importance of a girl's bedroom as space for creativity comes to mind) but it always ends up returning to something more conventional in cinematic terms. That's not really the point, of course. Just watch it.

Hanna is a great artist, and the documentary gives the viewer a good sense of that.

Fairly boilerplate retelling of Kathleen Hanna's musical career and activism, that coasts by pretty smoothly on the greatness of aforementioned music. A bit more depth into her views and their evolution would have been nice (though thankfully this was made prior to Le Tigre's embarrassing reunion, I probably couldn't have handled that). Despite any shallowness I still quite enjoyed this, though I may be biased, since I can listen to Hanna's voice all day.

Straight-ahead documentary about Kathleen Hanna. If you don't know who that is, there's probably no reason to see this movie. But, if you, like me, want revolution, girl-style, now... then this will definitely hold your interest.

Cool. Informative. Talking head-y, though. I nodded off a time or two, truth be told.

Four words: Fuck Yeah, Kathleen Hanna!

there are few things more incongruous than a tame, conventional, fawning talking heads documentary about a revolutionary feminist punk band. speaking of incongruity, hanna's whole "i don't give a shit what people think *whines about what people think for entire movie*" thing is pretty annoying. most of my favorite musicians are people i'd prob hate to hang out with though, and that's ok. bikini kill is pretty wild; do yourselves a favour and go listen to them instead of watching this.

good music, wonderful editing, good story, below-average story-telling.

That's one tough lady!

about kathleen hanna, important member of the riot grrrl scene. fine enough for what it is, pretty standard documentary though. i must admit, i raised my eyebrows *just a wee bit* when the first wave was mentioned with all the legal triumphs et cetera, and then they moved straight on to the third wave.