“We want to start where we began,” Tina Weymouth said.

“He kept us alive,” Weymouth said of the inscrutable club owner. “He fed us and he supported us in every way possible.”

“He told us we needed to expand our sound and get a little more interesting,” she said. “And he taught us a lot about ethics, about how to treat people.”

One of the best moments in CBGB involves Talking Heads. The band takes the stage in the nearly empty dive and launches into “Psycho Killer.” And then Kristal and the handful of listeners catch each others’ eyes, as if it’s just now occurring to them that they’re watching something historic.

The testimonies from Weymouth and David Byrne are shown during the closing credits of CBGB, but — bizarrely — we never see Kristal, (played by Alan Rickman) interact in any way with the band. He doesn’t even talk to them — much less feed them or teach them about ethics.

And that’s sort of the pattern of the entire new film CBGB: fabulously interesting figures from the history of punk and rock pass before us, but we pretty much never see any real human interaction between those musicians and Kristal, the man responsible for so much of their future success.

Sure, there were a lot of major stars who came out of CBGB, and not all of them can be fully realized characters in a feature film.

But only rarely does the script allow any of those musicians to live and breathe, even for a moment — rarely do they become more than just mimics or caricatures.

Later in the movie, as Kristal, now manager of The Dead Boys, tries to respond to the stabbing of Johnny Blitz, he yells at Stiv Bators (Justin Bartha) and Cheetah Chrome (Rupert Grint):  “Iâ€m not your father! Iâ€m just your manager! I canâ€t do this anymore!”

Huh?

We haven’t seen anything remotely paternal in Kristal’s relationship with the young punk band. The sudden outburst comes from somewhere out beyond left field.

The lack of human contact between Kristal and the musicians is perhaps the most puzzling of all the choices in the script by husband and wife team Jody Savin and Randall Miller (Miller also directs).

The poor character development is especially notable in the brief appearances of Iggy Pop (Taylor Hawkins) and Lou Reed (Kyle Gallner), both of whom come across as self-obsessed buffoons.

Terry Ork (Johnny Galecki) gets even worse treatment. A band manager, label owner, and something of a visionary, Ork was largely responsible for Television and deserves considerable credit for putting both the band and the club at the vanguard of American music. But in CBGB, all we see of Ork is his slightly smarmy attempt to get the band on stage and his offer to give  Iggy Pop a blow job.

So, if we aren’t seeing Kristal interact with the musicians, what takes up all the screen time?

Ashley Greene as Hillyâ€s daughter Lisa is especially unlikable. We donâ€t see a single moment of true warmth between father and daughter, and there’s even an embarrassing moment when Greene seems to be channeling Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny.

Twice in the film, characters fall asleep with the water running, flooding the floor below. Really?

We’re treated to several uninteresting scenes with Kristal interacting with a stereotypical cop.

The club might have been legendary for Hillyâ€s dog Johnathan taking dumps everywhere, but dog shit jokes wear thin pretty fast on screen. Ditto for jokes about rats and roaches.

And do we really need to see a montage sequence of a character buying a pair of boots?

The filmmakers have tried to deal with the episodic nature of the script by using comic book imagery reminiscent of Punk magazine to leap from one scene to another. At first this seems like a clever framing device, but it quickly wears thin, further diminishing the already shallow story.

But the music is at least great, right?

The film uses studio versions of classic songs even when there are existing live recordings from the club — raw renditions that might have given CBGB a much-needed jolt.  (Click here for a post with a number of live videos from CBGB’s early days.)

And, inexplicably, hardly any of the performance scenes in the film continue for more than 30 seconds without being interrupted by distracting dialogue, running jokes about the club’s seediness, or other extraneous elements. Viewers are given only the briefest of chances to immerse themselves in the music; we never have a chance to feel either the innocent wonder or the sordid seediness at the heart of the story.

I could go on and on.

As negative as this sounds, I’ll say that I didn’t find the movie boring — it moves too fast for that.

And there are a few touching moments here and there, and a few stirring musical sequences, and I don’t think I could ever get tired of watching Alan Rickman, who famously made drinking tea a work of art.

But you’ll likely walk out of CBGB feeling like you felt after one particularly mediocre night at some second-rate club.

You’ll feel like you just missed all the good stuff that surely must be going down at some other club down the street — one with better music, better sex, better drugs, and better conversation.

I spent part of several days hanging around the public outdoor shoots along Congress Street.

On this particular day, the shoot just moved west over a period of several hours, with exterior filming near a somewhat dilapidated store, on a vacant lot across from Belford’s, and in front of the former location of Universe Trading Company on Ellis Square.

You’ll see the dog playing Johnathan here, plus his handler Renee’ DeRossett. My friend Ian is one of the bums stumbling across the street there at the end.

You’ll note that, as Hilly Kristal, Alan Rickman (yes that’s him with the poofy reddish hair) hardly changes expression in these photos. That’s because the character hardly changes expression in the film. A challenge, to say the least, to have a lead character who emotes so little and so subtly.

So mostly here you can see the crew, the cars, and so forth.

These shots begin with a couple of evening shots on set, including one of Alan Rickman talking to famed Savannah producer and ice cream man Stratton Leopold, and another of Estelle Harris.

The rest of the pics here were from one of the less exciting days (and, as I recall, one of the hottest) on the CBGB set on West Congress St. last July in Savannah.

You’re seeing Alan Rickman as club founder Hilly Kristal on the ladder talking to Terry Ork (a fabulously interesting music promoter and band manager played by Johnny Galecki), who is with the young members of the great band Television, played by Max Reinhardsen, Evan Alex Cole, and Luke Dressler.

Then Ork is walking out of the club to speak with Kristal and Merv Ferguson (Donal Logue).

This moment — the one when Ork gets Television onto the CBGB stage — could have been one of the most interesting and dramatic in the movie.

I’ll have a review of the film here soon, and the impending release has prompted me to go back and take a look at some of the photos I took here in Savannah during summer of 2012 while CBGB was being filmed.

I obviously didn’t have access to the set at Meddin Studios, nor to any of the interiors where the film was shot.

But there were quite a number of shooting days on West Congress Street and nearby areas when the goings-on were largely visible to the public.

I don’t have the kind of zoom really needed to be shooting actors a block away, but I had fun hanging out.

Versions of some of these photos were already published, but I’ve re-edited in ways that might make some of the images a little sharper (or not). And now I have a better sense of the mania of all you Rupert Grint fans, so I’ve included more of these images.

So here’s mostly just one scene, with Rupert Grint, Justin Bartha, and Bronson Adams as The Dead Boys Cheetah Chrome, Stiv Bators, and Johnny Blitz.

The scene involves the three band members storming out of CBGB and into traffic, with Hilly Kristal — played by the great Alan Rickman — and Merv Ferguson — played by Donal Logue — coming out behind them.

I’m also including one stray photo of a scene that was shot immediately afterward with Cheetah Chrome (Rupert Grint) giving some money (or something) to a bum on the street. Presumably the bum is Idaho, played by Freddy Rodriguez, but I’m not 100 percent certain of that.

I’ll post some more photos take at other times over the next few days.

But the listing is a little clearer at Spin:

CBGB: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack track list:

1. Talking Heads – “Life During Wartime”
2. MC5 – “Kick Out the Jams (Uncensored Version)”
3. New York Dolls – “Chatterbox”
4. Television – “Careful”
5. Richard Hell and the Voidoids – “Blank Generation”
6. Flamin’ Groovies – “Slow Death”
7. The Velvet Underground – “I Canâ€t Stand It”
8. Wayne County and the Electric Chairs – “Out of Control”
9. The Count Five – “Psychotic Reaction”
10. Tuff Darts “All For the Love of Rock ‘n’ Roll” (Live)
11. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers – “All By Myself”
12. The Dictators – “California Sun” (Original Demo)
13. Dead Boys – “Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth”
14. Joey Ramone – “I Got Knocked Down (But I’ll Get Up)”
15. The Laughing Dogs – “Get Outta My Way”
16. Blondie – “Sunday Girl” (2013 Version)
17. The Stooges – “I Wanna Be Your Dog”
18. Dead Boys – “Sonic Reducer”
19. The Police – “Roxanne”
20. Hilly Kristal – “Birds and the Bees”

Spin’s article asks, Will the ‘CBGB’ Soundtrack Give ’70s American Punk Its ‘Big Chill’?

God I hope not.

If there’s one era that doesn’t need “Big Chill” sentimentalizing, it’s punk.So who’s missing?

There is one Joey Ramone track, but I don’t see The Ramones anywhere.

I know that The Shirts appear in the movie, but their sound wasn’t so much punk and they’ve largely faded from rock history.

And here again are a few photos that I took in July 2012 during CBGB shooting here in Savannah. These pics include Rupert Grint, Justin Bartha, Alan Rickman, and Donal Logue.

XLrator Media has acquired U.S. rights to distribute CBGB, the film about the iconic New York City club that gave rise to the punk movement in America.

It will be released during the CBGB Musical Festival, which runs from Oct. 9-13 in the Big Apple.

The Randall Miller-directed film stars Alan Rickman as CBGB founder Hilly Kristal and Ashley Greene as his daughter, Lisa. Also: Malin Ackerman as Debby Harry; Rupert Grint as Cheeta Chrome; and Joel David Moore as Joey Ramone, among others.

Here’s the slightly too long preview video about the CBGB Festival:

I noted the good reception at a recent private screening here in Savannah for CBGB, but it will be interesting to see if the movie truly catches the flavor of the historical scene and if moviegoers propel it to screens nationwide.

While I’d say it’s still likely that CBGB could play at the Savannah Film Festival in the last week of October, the timing of the release might mean that the film has already been seen widely in theaters.

Click on through to find CBGB on Facebook:

A friend who attended wasn’t even quite sure who was behind the event, but at least one key player from Meddin Studios, where much of the film was shot, was prominently greeting guests.

“I really liked it,” reported a friend who saw the film, while also acknowledging that it’s possible he/she was being overly generous since he/she had been one of the select few who got invited to the screening. This friend was impressed by the work of Alan Rickman, but said no when I asked if, as CBGB owner Hilly Kristal, the character was “interesting and compelling.”

Some of us had been concerned that the plot would focus too much on Hilly’s daughter Lisa, played in the film by Ashley Greene, but my friend said that the family dynamics did not get in the way of the main story about the founding and early years of the iconic club. My friend was impressed with the music and all the songs that the filmmakers secured rights, as well as with the performances of some of the big names attached to the project, including Rupert Grint as The Dead Boys’ Cheetah Chrome and Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins as Iggy Pop.

My source in attendance did note the stark difference every time the shooting location shifted from Savannah to New York City. Now, this is someone who knows Savannah really well, and it’s common knowledge that the filmmakers did not make extreme changes to the streetscapes that were used. I will likely have the same problem when I see the film. Will an unbiased viewer buy into the illusion, even if just for two hours, that the action is really taking place in NYC decades ago?

CBGB has a really active Facebook page these days, filled with photos and interesting updates, including this pic (presented here through the ethically dubious process of the WordPress embed plugin, if it’s working today):

There’s also this funny clip with Justin Bartha on Conan talking about his full body waxing.

Of course, I’ve done zillions of posts here at Savannah Unplugged about the film.

I also posted a fair number of pics from the outdoor sets last summer. I have more shots, actually, that I’m holding off on until nearer the theatrical release date, which is yet to be determined.

Click here for CBGB on IMDB.

UPDATE: There has been some suggestion that a key reason for the screening was to court potential investors in the Gregg Allman biopic that the filmmakers are planning.

Here’s one of the galleries of photos from the CBGB set that I posted last year:

I had a good time talking to this guy.

Today, the CBGB Facebook page posted this great video of John Holmstrom, co-founder of Punk Magazine, talking about the authenticity of the production.

The post also plugs the new book The Best of Punk Magazine, which you can read more about on the publication’s website.

I suppose I should note that in a recent Savannah appearance, Punk co-founder Legs McNeil directly questioned whether Holmstrom’s memories of the CBGB era would be reliable. I suspect there will be many different memories of CBGB, even from those most involved in the scene.

In the clip below, you’ll see shots of the exterior set on Congress Street, as well as the reconstructed interior of the club at Meddin Studios.

Just for the heck of it, I’ll also append a gallery of photos that I took of the filming, including shots of Rupert Grint, Justin Bartha, Donal Logue, and — of course — Alan Rickman. For more info on these pics, click here.

I had a good time talking to this guy.