The Fall: The Wonderful, Frightening World of Mark E. Smith/We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen (Fri.-Sat., Dec. 16-17, 7 p.m., $5-$7, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-895-6542) I-House calls its double bill "Punk Rock Docs," but neither Britain's long-running Fall nor the '80s trio Minutemen fit the strict definition of punk. Well into their third decade, The Fall, which these days amounts to sallow, temperamental frontman Mark E. Smith and whoever's backing him this week, have outlived any scene they might once have belonged to, while The Minutemen, of San Pedro, Calif.,were in the punk scene without being exactly of it.

Dionne Newton's hourlong overview, produced for the BBC, goes all the way back to The Fall's late-'70s beginnings, which leaves precious little time to cover the band's turbulent history: three dozen albums, as many lineups and innumerable turns of fortune's wheel. In the U.K., Smith, who looks like a cross between Blade Runner's J.F. Sebastian and Hustle & Flow's D.J. Qualls, partakes of a particularly British kind of celebrity: a clip that's recently made the Internet rounds shows Smith reading soccer scores in his impenetrable Mancunian drawl; it's the equivalent of Sonic Youth turning up on Monday Night Football. He's become a kind of pet eccentric, not least to his current band members, most of whom grew up Fall fans. Should Smith pick a midshow fight or simply quit the stage (what fans call a "walkoff"), they soldier on until he returns, or else throw in the towel. Though Newton rounds up an impressive assortment of past and present members, there are a few noteworthy omissions—notably guitarist Craig Scanlon, the band's longest-running member, and Brix Smith, who married Smith and helped craft the abrasively catchy sound of the band's highest-charting years. (They divorced in 1989.) Newton only skims the surface, but casual fans will find the entry-level intro a helpful leg-up, and the committed will savor testimonials from the likes of Tony Wilson and the late John Peel, who booked the band for a record 24 (or so) sessions.

Tim Irwin's fannish We Jam Econo has plenty of room for tributes, but not much insight, apart from bassist Mike Watt's revelation that the band's name was not a reference to the length of their very short songs, but a tweak to the nose of right-wingers and rock-star grandiosity. (It's minute men.) Watt, a childhood friend of late singer D. (Dennis) Boon, is the movie's muscular heart, choking up as he treads the patch of grass where he and Boon met at age 13. Fans will delight at reams of unreleased concert footage, but the dimly recorded live songs are hardly the best way for newbies to experience the band's instrumental interplay and complex lyrics. Still, Irwin manages to capture both the trio's ambition and its modesty. When they said, "Our band could be your life," they meant both that you could devote your life wholly to them, and that their story might as well be yours.