SXSW Film

Punk Like Me

D: Zach Merck

If you've ever played air guitar in your bedroom with the music cranked to jet-engine level, Punk Like Me is your film. Rich Wilkes is in his late 30s, married with child. But he never quite recovered from a deep, dark desire to become David Lee Roth, or his punkish doppelganger. What's a former geek dangling in a midlife crisis to do? How about convince (lie to) Warped Tour organizers that he'll do a participatory journalism piece for Rolling Stone if only they'll let his punk band play. Check. Now, he needs to talk mostly fellow midlifers into forming that band. Check. Oh, and they need to have some songs. How about playing punk versions of mariachi songs? Welcome to the world of Carne Asada, a faux punk rock band barreling down the road of lost teenage rawk star dreams in the finest tour bus money can buy. The result is a hilarious, honest film about never, ever growing up. How good is this film? I'm wearing my Carne Asada T-shirt as I write this.

9:30pm, Alamo South Lamar