Thursday, April 17, 2014

Penny Thoughts ‘14—The Clash: The Last Gang in Town (2013) ***½


NR, 7 min.
Director/Writer: Fred Armisen
Starring: Fred Armisen, Paul Simonon, Mick Jones

Last week I reviewed a new short mockumentary featuring Fred Armisen reprising his fake punk rocker Ian Rubbish from Saturday Night Live. The film, titled “The Sexiest Elbows in Rock”, featured the frontman from the band Split as the owner of the titular body parts. It’s a fun send up of the rockumentary format with many real rockers participating for authenticity. “The Clash: The Last Gang in Town” is another fake rock documentary by Armisen in which his Ian Rubbish interviews two of the members of the iconic punk band The Clash. It’s been nominated for a Webby Award.


The 7-minute documentary is really less of a tribute to The Clash than it is an opportunity for Rubbish to further exemplify his ineptitude as a punk rocker. Paul Simonon and Mick Jones are good sports and go along with the joke. Rubbish claims that his band’s motto was generally to agree with anything thing The Clash said. He shows how every Ian Rubbish & The Bizzaros album cover were just recreations of The Clash album covers. His funniest bit involves an album he was so excited about that the band forgot to record any of the music.

In terms of the Ian Rubbish persona, this short is probably the best of the lot. Armisen really dives into the Rubbish persona on this one, nailing both the referential jokes and the nuances of the punk persona and the British accent. I could watch a television series where Rubbish interviews all kinds of celebrities. I could see every episode involving how Rubbish based every aspect of his own celebrity off whatever his current guest is famous for. It would be bloody brilliant.

Funny or Die won't let me imbed it here, so you're just going to have to follow this link to watch it.

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