Amateur movie with Big budget

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Really interesting film for anyone familiar with the hardcore music scene that deals with the problems and moral dilemmas of a reunited band. The problem is the movie is mismarketed as a comedy. Humor in the movie is quite present though dark and dry (though still very funny). This movie is actually quite a bit better than spinal tap. It's not mocking a bad band of a genre, but exploring the problems of the scene by looking at what's viewed to be a good one. The only similarity between this film and spinal tap is the narrative framework, which is that of a documentary, though in this film, that device becomes less obtrusive, and in all honesty could have been removed. Also, this movie has much more of a human heart than a film like spinal tap or fear of a black hat (another movie that got lumped into the "mockumentary" genre). The big problem I think is that this movie is represented as a comedy, and it's as dramatic as it is humorous. Terrific ending too. Recommended to those who enjoy dark comedies and punk rock.

I've seen most of director Bruce McDonald's films. He's pretty well-known in Canada, and almost all of his films are "road movies" in one sense or another. In this film, he follows Hard Core Logo, a Vancouver punk band reunited for one last tour across western Canada. Though there are lots of laughs, This Is Definitely Not Spinal Tap. Even though his characters look like typical rocker louts, there is so much going on under the surface that it breaks your heart. A funny but heartfelt exploration of perpetual adolescence, male bonding, ambition and desperation, Hard Core Logo is even more enjoyable for anyone who's ever been (or wanted to be) in a band. (As a bonus, the film stars Canada's own version of Brad Pitt, the excellent and very cool Callum Keith Rennie). (8/10)

According to this website, "This is Spinal Tap" was released in 1984. That movie was a satire of Heavy Metal Rock Stars. It was funny, and it had at least a few good tunes that were actually written by the actors who played the band. So, in a way, they were a real band.All I see in this movie is that 12 YEARS LATER, someone decided to try to jump on what was hardly a bandwagon; the success of "This Is Spinal Tap" hardly created a new genre.This is what I expected when I first rented the film, as I love Punk music, among many other genres. About 30 minutes into the film, I had to turn it off as I realized that what I rented was exactly what I expected and GOT: Just someone trying to jump on the bandwagon or milk someone else's cash cow.And there was nothing to laugh at, either. I expect Something to keep me at least remotely intrigued to watch more of this. But, there's nothing. No jokes, no idiocy, no nothing.Fortunately, I only lost one dollar of my money and half an hour of my time watching this feeble attempt to copy a film from 12 years before it was made. This feeble attempt is even worse than "Mac and Me" (feeble rip-off of E.T.), "Battle Beyond the Stars" (one of the many feeble rip-offs of Star Wars), as well as many others.This is not a satire; this is a Rip-Off of a Satire!!!And a weak one at that.

While I was watching my ultra rare, bootlegged, wide-screen edition of "Hard Core Logo", ( that I actually came into possession of just one week after the film's theatrical release in October of 1996) a couple of punk songs kept running through my mind. One of the songs was "Proud to be Canadian" by Dayglow Abortions, the other was "As Canadian as F--k" by The Ripcordz. These songs are fiercely, uncompromisingly Canadian just like the film. That the film is about an aging Canadian punk band trying to make a comeback, makes my mention of the songs all the more appropriate. The film, despite it's quality, will never be able to be enjoyed on the same level anywhere else in the world than here. That's not a bad thing at all though. There are so many jingoistic flag waving American films that get seen here ("Armageddon", anyone?). Yet HCL, isn't even anywhere close to patriotic propaganda. It just lets it's Characters talk like real Canadians without worrying if people will understand the Canadian references. There are ample references to cities, people and politics that are strictly meant for Canadian ears to appreciate. At on point the band's bassist Mentions why he likes playing in Calgary: "...better than Toronto with it's smug little rat race faces, or Montreal with it's separatist chain smoker faces..." Would an American audience even get what "separatist" was in reference to? When I mentioned before that HCL was not propaganda, I think I was right. The film is a bleakly cynical look at the state of Canadian music. When at the end of the movie, band frontman Joe Dick (played by real life Canadian punk rocker Hugh Dillon, of "The Headstones") cleans his head out with a bullet, it is not only symbolic of the death of the golden age of early eighties Canadian punk, but also Canadian music's selling out to The States. The guitarist joins a trendy L.A. alternative pop band, and the bassist joins a Texas based country band. The irony also spills over into real life. The film's director, Bruce MacDonald's next film was also about a rock band, but it was the superficially stylish TV movie "Platinum". Quentin Tarantino saw the film. Loved it an promised to release it in the U.S. under his lable . It didn't make much of an impact after its U.S. release (2 years after it premiered in Canada). "Hard Core Logo" is not only too Canadian for most Americans to take, it is also too good, too honest, to strong and too smart for most of them to understand.