THE LAST POGO (Colin Brunton, Kire Paputts). 203 minutes. Opens Friday (November 1). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NNNN
Documentaries don’t come more hardcore than The Last Pogo Jumps Again. Colin Brunton and Kire Paputts have turned Brunton’s enduring short doc The Last Pogo – which captured the Horseshoe’s final punk showcase in 1978 – into the cornerstone of a three-and-a-half-hour record of Toronto’s 70s punk scene.
I don’t know how this will play for people who didn’t grow up with that world in the background, but it certainly worked for me as an unapologetically nostalgic wander through T.O.’s underground history, with cultural figures like Ron Mann and Nash the Slash serving as our present-day guides.
Is it too long at 203 minutes? Yeah, probably. A documentary half this length would be just as definitive. But somehow the epic running time didn’t wear on me as I feared it would. I can never get enough of the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, and Teenage Head, the Viletones, the B-Girls and the Ugly deserve their moment in the sun.
And, of course, the music holds up. You really can’t go wrong with those three chords.
