Last night I watched 'Johnny Thunders: Born To Lose, The Last Rock and Roll Movie' (1999), although such was its harrowing nature that 'endured' fits better. He starts off in the New York Dolls; glam-punks with attitude and style, and -crucially- two guys who aren't completely stupid (David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain). Away from the limos and the satin Johnny and his drug-buddies set about gradually destroying themselves until you can barely watch them doing it. A parade of the dead and dying (one guy clearly has AIDS) fill in the tale, but all you really have to see are those last two chilling photos on a Bangkok tattooist's wall, in which Thunders looks gravely thin and pained, full of disease and not happy to even be alive. I love his and the Dolls' music, but this (occasionally inept and incoherent) documentary made me feel like taking a shower. And never taking drugs again.
