If you bought the soundtrack to this film a year ago you might have wondered why the film wasn't simultaneously released on DVD. The probable reason is that the producers had not yet finished compiling the generous amount of bonus footage included on a second disc.

Clocking in at 100 minutes, the bonus disc features "campfire" commentary from a who's-who of Strummer's friends and associates, folks like Bono, Flea, Matt Dillon, Johnny Depp, Courtney Love, Jim Jarmusch, Joe Ely, John Cusack and Grandmaster Melle Mel. Of course some who were really close to Strummer---Mick Jones, Topper Headon and Lucinda Mellor (Joe's widow) are featured too.

Strummer was fond of relaxing around a late night bonfire and the gatherings portrayed here are a tribute to that. The film itself is thorough and enlightening and has an autobiographical feel to it since it is narrated by Strummer himself. Producer Julien Temple reveals Strummer's transient youth and how it progressed into his being a bad student, a brief stint at art school and eventually the move into music.

And while this is the story of Strummer's life it is also the story of the Clash and pretty much everything you'd want to know about the history and inner workings of that band can be found here. With tons of priceless footage and a real story to tell, The Future is Unwritten is easily one of the best rock docs ever made.

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The Clash - Live Revolution Rock
Epic/Legacy

This film is a collection of twenty-two songs performed live, shot at mostly British and other European shows from 1977 to 1983. The selections are basically laid out in chronological order and begin with a dozen tunes from the '70s including "I Fought the Law," "White Riot," "Capital Radio One," "London's Burning" and "I'm So Bored With the U.S.A.," a song that Joe Strummer explains came to being after he overheard an off-hand comment about a boring relationship with a girlfriend.

There's commentary throughout the movie but the DVD can be played with that feature turned off if the viewer so chooses. The material here was gathered from disparate sources including from the film Rude Boy but perhaps the most interesting cuts are two that were recorded on the set of the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. The band performs "This is Radio Clash" and "The Magnificent Seven" for the show, not so startling in and of itself unless you've already watched the bonus interview that a clueless Snyder did with the band; the Clash must've thought they were performing for a complete putz. Another bonus clip features a similarly dim-witted interview conducted by Sue Simmons for her NBC program Live at Five but one of the concert clips from American television actually makes for a highlight as Paul Simonon takes a rare turn at singing on "Guns of Brixton" for a 1980 broadcast of ABC's Fridays.

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Attitude For Destruction
Deadline/MVD

This film is not a comedy but it doesn't take itself too seriously either and thusly is good for lots of laughs. The basic plot is that you have a Guns N'Roses-type band (played here by the band Hollywood Roses) that is offered a recording contract with one slight catch---the lead singer must go. Really go, as in die. So he's offed, only to come back and exact his gory revenge.

Stir in a few buckets of fake blood, a dump truck full of bad acting, a bunch of strippers who want to be actresses and actually some pretty good music from Hollywood Roses and you have one of those train wreck movies that you just have to keep watching because you can't believe how bad it is.

You could say that Attitude for Destruction is a commentary on how the music business wrings the life out of the very thing that sustains it but really there's no message here; just goofy low-budget fun.

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Dead Boys - Return of the Living Dead Boys
MVD

The Dead Boys only put out two albums before their career fizzled but that was enough to secure their stature as one of the seminal bands of American punk music.

The Dead Boys broke up in 1979 but reunited for this show at the Ritz in New York City in1986. After a very brief introduction from Joey Ramone the band launches into their signature tune, "Sonic Reducer."

The rest of the show is a good representation of the band's oeuvre---loud and wild garage rock that bears little resemblance to what is thought of today as "punk." The show finds lead singer Stiv Bators in fine form as he leads the band through favorites like "Son of Sam," "I Need Lunch," "Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth" and a nod to Iggy Pop with a cover of the Stooges' "Search and Destroy."

Bators is also very animated between songs, joking and jiving and at one point introducing shaved-headed guitarist Cheetah Chrome as "Uncle Fester from the Addams Family."

This footage was captured by just one camera that was at the back of the hall so there are no close-ups and occasionally the cameraman is focused on the wrong thing, like zooming in on the bass player while Chrome is reeling off a hot solo. With limited material to work with the band runs out of songs so they close the show the same way they opened it, blasting through "Sonic Reducer."