Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Hard Core Logo Blu-ray Movie Review

This isn't Spinal Tap, eh?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 13, 2012

Note: This film is currently available only in this set: Hard Core Logo/Hard Core Logo 2.

The end of the year is frequently filled with holiday gatherings, family reunions, and, for young ones, visions of sugar plums (and perhaps costlier items) dancing in their heads. It’s also the time that all different kinds of Ten Best lists. Film lovers are used to seeing not only these annual lists from all sorts of sources, but other lists from such vaunted organizations as The American Film Institute which has given us everything from The Greatest Movies of All Time to, well, The Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time. What those of us in the United States probably don’t think about very often is that other nations have their own “best of” traditions, and in fact there are actual lists devoted to the best films of any given country, as incredible as that may sound to the more chauvinistic (in the true sense of the term) among us. A lot of film fans who probably consider themselves at least relatively well versed in the history of the art form have probably never even heard of Hard Core Logo (despite the fact that none other than Quentin Tarantino helped distribute it around the world), and yet this 1996 Canadian film is routinely listed among the best films that country has ever offered the world, at least if those lists are being compiled by Canadians. Hard Core Logo might be thought of as a distant Canadian cousin to the iconic mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, but large swaths of Hard Core Logo are not only not funny on their face, but seemingly intentionally skewed more toward elegy and even melancholy, a perhaps fitting epitaph to the punk era the film’s (fictional) titular band was supposedly a legendary part of. Few will probably find much to laugh at in Hard Core Logo, despite the assertion of the filmmakers and many critics that Hard Core Logo is indeed a comedy. And some curmudgeons may even question if this slight but weirdly effective piece has any business being on any “all time greatest” list at all.

This is Spinal Tap was such an exhilaratingly hilarious experience because it so completely skewed the over the top lifestyle of the arena rock musician. But trying to do the same in the somewhat less, well, awesome world of punk is kind of like trying to craft a comedy about a disabled person, with the uneasy feeling of urging the audience to laugh at someone’s infirmities. The original source novel that Hard Core Logo was adapted from was itself a kind of melancholic affair, at least as concerned with what happens to some musicians once they’re past their prime as it was specifically about punk, and that’s certainly a subtext here, though the waning punk movement is front and center in terms of how the film goes about making its kind of sad little points.

The main character in the film is the self-named Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon), a once “nearly famous” punk rocker who has fallen on harder times as he’s arrived at something close to middle age (at least for punkers, who sometimes tended to die young). His crowning achievement, Hard Core Logo, fell apart years previously due largely in part to some injudicious behavior on Dick’s part, behavior which may have prevented the band from being signed to a supposedly major deal by Sire Records. However, a reunion may be in the cards, if Joe can convince former lead guitarist Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie) to return to the fold, forsaking a probably much more lucrative and high profile gig with a more mainstream band called Jenifur.

The other members of Hard Core logo are Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson), the kind of “go along to get along” drummer of the group, and John Oxenberger (John Pyper-Ferguson), a schizophrenic who manages to scribble out a journal about the band’s road tour despite having lost his lithium. Dick has managed to pull his erstwhile buddies together again despite a paltry budget of some six thousand dollars because he has found out that his personal mentor, legendary punk artist Bucky Haight (Julian Richings) has been shot in a John Lennon type assassination attempt, one which happily failed but which left the musician paralyzed and with two amputated legs, and Dick’s hope is to give a huge benefit concert to help out the now disabled man. As with so much else about Hard Core Logo, what turns out to actually be the case is a far cry from what is advertised.

Hard Core Logo is a rather dour outing, which is not say that there’s not a sly sense of incredibly black humor running just beneath the surface. As band unity begins to fray on the road tour, especially between Dick and Tallent, there are several telling interchanges that have both the bite of verisimilitude as well as a very sardonic flair. One brief respite finds the guys in a roadside diner (every place they stop seems to have “Where You Going, Billy?” playing on the Muzak system), where Dick launches into a cutting diatribe analyzing all of the other customers there. The subtext is that that same cutting analytical power has been turned on the band members themselves at various times, as indeed is mentioned discursively in some of the faux confessionals that dot the film.

One of the oddest elements about the relationship between Dick and Tallent is a rather strongly hinted whiff of homoeroticism. There are several moments when Dick seems just about to lean in and plant a wet on Tallent’s fulsome lips, but it never comes to pass. It would have been a really interesting path to take, and the film seems to be hinting at it rather strongly without ever actually getting there.

Hard Core Logo may simply be too realistic to be laugh out loud funny. These guys are all obviously washouts to one degree or another, and the film is so relentlessly aggressive about showing their personal peccadilloes that there isn’t the outright cartoonish quality that made Spinal Tap such a delight. I’m actually kind of surprised that some fans find this film at least amusing, if not downright hysterical. For me it was kind a slow sad dance evoking the end of an era. As a mockumentary, this film may leave something to be desired, at least for those expecting a Spinal Tap rout of an idiom. As a documentary, Hard Core Logo is surprisingly effective and visceral.

Hard Core Logo Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hard Core Logo is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Video Service Corporation with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This film was shot on the fly with an absolutely miniscule budget, and it looks like it. Even given the less than stellar filming conditions and money involved, the elements here have either not been properly curated or are in pretty ragged shape for other reasons. Color is very badly faded, to the point where some of the color segments actually look little more variegated than the actual black and white segments. Detail is often negligible in all but extreme close-ups, but in those close-ups, things improve dramatically, as can be seen in a couple of the screenshots accompanying this review, but overall this is a pretty soft and fuzzy looking presentation. Other than the fading issue, there isn't any horrible damage to report, and despite the interlaced presentation, there really aren't any major artifacting issues either.

Hard Core Logo Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hard Core Logo features only a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix which may be a deal killer for longtime fans of this film who have probably wanted to hear some of the very well done music in a lossless setting. That said, if you can get past the Dolby Digital hangup (not always an easy thing to do in the Blu-ray age), things sounds pretty spry here, with a decent midrange and nice thundering low end. The surround activity tends to be most effective in the snippets of songs that dot the landscape, though occasionally there are ambient environmental effects and even some dialogue that spills into more than just the front channels. Fidelity is very good and dynamic range is quite wide.

Hard Core Logo Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Bruce McDonald, Actor Hugh Dillon and Screenwriter Noel Baker. This is a really well done commentary that manages to be both anecdotal and informative in equal measure. There are a few "noisy" moments where the guys get excited and talk over each other, which does no one any good, but there's a lot of interesting information imparted both about the film, Canada's punk scene, and what has happened to them since the film's release.


• Hard Core Logo – "Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?" Music Video (480i; 2:20)


• Excerpt from the book Bruce McDonald's 'Hard Core Logo' by Paul McEwan features eight "pages" of text and pictures.


• Original Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1:43)

Hard Core Logo Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I have often been accused of having one of the most politically incorrect senses of humor this side of Bill Maher, but for some reason I just found little to laugh at in Hard Core Logo. That shouldn't be interpreted as meaning that I found the film to be a failure, simply that I was so drawn into the sad little world of Joe Dick and his cohorts that I really felt like I was watching an actual documentary, not a mockumentary. This Blu-ray has questionable video quality and its audio is lossy, so even fans of the film may think twice about springing for this release, unless they're excited to see the long talked about sequel, which is also included (see our review of Hard Core Logo 2).