Suburbia

Outside Los Angeles, beside the freeway, there are abandoned houses, and kids who have run away from home live in them. They call themselves T.R., go into the city for shows, steal, fight, and the adults nearby decide to clear them out of the area. Penelope Spheeris made it with the documentary experience she brought from the punk scene: most of the cast are not professionals but come out of that scene, and the concert footage was shot with real bands. Flea, then unknown, is among them. The film neither glorifies nor excuses the violence, and what it actually says is that the homes these kids came from are no safer than the street they fled to. Roger Corman produced. Who it is for: viewers who like punk culture and eighties American independents. Who it is not for: anyone with no tolerance for scenes where animals and children come to harm.