Punk Like Me

Of the films I've seen at SxSW, the documentary Punk Like Me is the one that made me laugh and grin the most. It's a silly little movie – practically everything about it is contrived – but it comes off as natural and the picture has a strong voice that knows how to engage audience.

Rich Wilkes is a writer in Hollywood who decides to pursue his life-long dream of being a rock star – at the age of 38. (36? I'm pretty sure it was 38. Too late, that's for sure.) Figuring that punk rock is the easiest to fake your way through, he cons his way into joining the Warped Tour by telling the tour organizers that he wants to write an "undercover" piece for Rolling Stone. The Warped Tour buys it, and though Wilkes' own bunch of rockers breaks up mere weeks before the tour starts, he manages to cobble together a band from old friends and acquaintances. (The band's name is Carne Asada, "the world's first punk rock mariachi band," and their album is on iTunes now.) Using his own funds to pay for a swank bus and supplies, Wilkes takes the group on tour – including his half-nervous wife Amy as "manager" and, for a short time, their infant daughter.

Wilkes wrote and narrates the film in such a convivial way that it's easy to overlook the fact that most of the "drama" in the film is manufactured. With little real conflict other than that in Wilkes' head, the movie hangs on a flimsy thread. Somehow, though, it works – at least, it works in a largish theater with a big audience rocking out to the strains of the improbably-named song "Dirty Sanchez" or an ode to Star Trek's Wesley Crusher. At home on the small screen it might seem sorta dumb, but I had a great time and I suspect the audiences at the film's remaining SxSW screenings will too.

Learn more about Carne Asada and their first album, "Full Contact Mariachi."