I went to see the Joe Strummer art-o-bio-pic at Cinema 21 this weekend, by chance, bumping into a rival publication’s city hall reporter (Corey Pein) in the lobby—he likes the Clash, he said. Here’s Ezra’s review from Found It!

There is a large segment of Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, the new documentary from Julien Temple, that is so sloppy and haphazard that it borders on unwatchable. That segment in question is actually the entire first half of the film, which deals with arguably the most important band ever, the Clash. Despite grainy lost footage, archival clips, and raw soundboard audio of this seminal, and downright unstoppable band, one horrifying word can sum up how this film was nearly ruined: Bono. Temple marches out a nonstop parade of blowhards who wax poetic about the Clash: Want to hear Mr. U2, Matt Dillon, Johnny Depp, Flea, John Cusack, and Courtney Love all repeat the same old cliches about the Clash’s greatness? Of course not. But thankfully, The Future Is Unwritten is saved by an absolutely stunning second act that focuses on Strummer’s post-Clash output, his painfully lonely lost years, his family, and the man’s storied legacy following his sudden death in 2002 from an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. The footage of Strummer’s “wilderness years” are worth the ticket price alone.

I agree with Ezra: Bono’s a tosser, but poor Joe Strummer had a tough life. I was struck by his Machiavellian streak—firing 45 band members in less than a year, and by his deliberate isolation from anybody who got close to him, which the film traces, convincingly, I think, to the suicide of his older brother when he was a kid. The saddest part of the film for me was seeing a talented idealist lost in the thick of his emotions, who only seemed to find happiness in the last years before he died. Great stuff.

WHITE RIOT: The film’s still on tonight at Cinema 21…