Sid and Nancy
Added 11/20/2009
Gary Oldman owned this role as Sid Vicious, guitarist for Sex Pistols! His portrayal made this movie shine! I recommend this to anyone with a respect for the punk rock genre.
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Bleak But Vital Biopic
Added 11/16/2009
Alex Cox's 1986 film Sid and Nancy is more than a biopic of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen it's more of a moral tale than a biopic at all. There have been many reviews saying how Cox got it all wrong. Filmaker Julian Temple in his contribution to the commentary track agrees with this position but maybe we need to look at the film for what it is, a slightly fictionalized view of a star on a downward spiral of self destruction. The film is a metaphor of punk culture not an accurate depiction of it.
I remember seeing this film when it was released in 1986 and hating it for many of the same reasons that other reviewers have. The subject was just too fresh too well known and the warts were all I could see. Seeing the film after the passage of time improves it. The performances of Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb are excellent if inaccurate. Goldman fold himself into the role with utter abandon. Webbb's lacerating performance as Nancy while not spot on represents an entire mindset of the rock groupie culture. Cox blends fiction and fantasy into a film that is both cautionary and bleak. Under Cox's direction the film plays as a junkie lovestory a sort of twisted Romeo and Juliet for the late 1970's. The film is far from perfect but it is not as bad as many of the Sex Pistols fans say it is. I too was a fan of the band and would agree that the movie does not do justice to the band and its ethos but it does do justice to a time and a place that are now fading memories.
The Criterion disc is well worth seeking out. It features a commentary track that is well worth the purchase price alone. Also included are a phone interview with Vicious, segments from the film D.O.A. and a film on the making of the film England's Glory. Of special interest is the now infamous TV interview with Bill Grundy.
See this film as one of the essential pieces of modern cinema not for its accuracy but for its powerful portrayal of a culture that is now gone.
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The Passion of Sid and Nancy
Added 10/17/2009
"Sid and Nancy" is Alex Cox's electrifying biopic from 1986 about Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his brief, fatal fling with Nancy Spungen. Gary Oldman is excellent as the first punk rocker (there's even a cameo by the Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop),while Chloe Webb is powerful as the deeply troubled,and most likely schizophrenic/manic-depressive Nancy. In an ironic twist, Courtney Love stars as one of Nancy's junkie friends--and that was before there was that little Seattle grunge band called Nirvana.
"Sid and Nancy" chronicles the couple's journey of sex,drugs, and rock n' roll. The couple is self-destructive- from Nancy's addiction to Sid's violence against himself. The two share a fatal attraction. Sid Vicious goes from fronting the Sex Pistols to living a claustophrobe's nightmare of addiction in his apartment with Nancy. They love each other, they hate each other, they're violent, needly--and sometimes sensual. Alex Cox perfectly depicts the punk rock era. There are some self-referential digs at its predecessor,the hippie era-such as Johnny Rotten mocking sex as ugly and degrading, or Nancy freaking out when she thinks she looks like Stevie Nicks. Music is used deftly throughout- to represent fine living, Beethoven's music is played (Oldman would later star in "Immortal Beloved") and before the credits,the final music is disco. Though the movie is about the Sex Pistols, ironically, there's no Sex Pistols music (it's Joe Strummer, the Pogues, etc) Cox is also a visual auteur-from the growing darkness of the film's harrowing final half hour, to the pair kissing among falling garbage. Vicious' rendition of "My Way" is a trippy spectacle. Sometimes,the line between reality and hallucination is thin.
"Sid and Nancy" is an excellent biopic because PUNK ROCK IS NOT FOR THE WEAK!
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Sid and Nancy
Added 8/18/2009
This is a pretty good depiction of life in the culture as I remember it growing up. My teen is really happy to have this.
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80s Film, Yeah
Added 7/27/2009
Of the five American films made in the 1980s I would save at all costs, three are by Alex Cox, which I like to think says more about his brilliance than it does about the wretchedness of that decade. Cox is above all a political filmmaker, which is both why he can't get a film produced in this country, and also one of the reasons many people don't understand "Sid & Nancy." The idea behind the film is that while you could do what you wanted in the anarchic late 1970s and it was all good, or at least not all bad, you really were a disposable piece of garbage in Reagan's America. So while the historical action depicted takes place in the 1970s, the film itself is firmly set in 1986. When Sid looks out the window of his room at the Chelsea, it's 23rd street in all its 1986 madness, the Iggy Pop character has New Wave hair, the cars are all mid-1980s and Gary Oldham is about the age Sid would have been had he not died in 1979. At any rate, anyone who watches this film has to contend with Chloe Webb's performance as Nancy Spungen. While Gary Oldham is good enough as Sid, this is Webb's film, which makes sense, as "Sid & Nancy" is less about the Sex Pistols than it is about being poor and marginalized in the US. Webb is so good in the scenes with her dealer, here called "Bowery," that she never had to act again, which she more or less didn't. I reckon no one noticed just what a knockout beauty she is, but you can, if you see the final scenes of the film. Just be prepared to spend some time completely devastated afterward.
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Sid and Nancy
Added 11/20/2009
Gary Oldman owned this role as Sid Vicious, guitarist for Sex Pistols! His portrayal made this movie shine! I recommend this to anyone with a respect for the punk rock genre.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Bleak But Vital Biopic
Added 11/16/2009
Alex Cox's 1986 film Sid and Nancy is more than a biopic of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen it's more of a moral tale than a biopic at all. There have been many reviews saying how Cox got it all wrong. Filmaker Julian Temple in his contribution to the commentary track agrees with this position but maybe we need to look at the film for what it is, a slightly fictionalized view of a star on a downward spiral of self destruction. The film is a metaphor of punk culture not an accurate depiction of it.
I remember seeing this film when it was released in 1986 and hating it for many of the same reasons that other reviewers have. The subject was just too fresh too well known and the warts were all I could see. Seeing the film after the passage of time improves it. The performances of Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb are excellent if inaccurate. Goldman fold himself into the role with utter abandon. Webbb's lacerating performance as Nancy while not spot on represents an entire mindset of the rock groupie culture. Cox blends fiction and fantasy into a film that is both cautionary and bleak. Under Cox's direction the film plays as a junkie lovestory a sort of twisted Romeo and Juliet for the late 1970's. The film is far from perfect but it is not as bad as many of the Sex Pistols fans say it is. I too was a fan of the band and would agree that the movie does not do justice to the band and its ethos but it does do justice to a time and a place that are now fading memories.
The Criterion disc is well worth seeking out. It features a commentary track that is well worth the purchase price alone. Also included are a phone interview with Vicious, segments from the film D.O.A. and a film on the making of the film England's Glory. Of special interest is the now infamous TV interview with Bill Grundy.
See this film as one of the essential pieces of modern cinema not for its accuracy but for its powerful portrayal of a culture that is now gone.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
The Passion of Sid and Nancy
Added 10/17/2009
"Sid and Nancy" is Alex Cox's electrifying biopic from 1986 about Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his brief, fatal fling with Nancy Spungen. Gary Oldman is excellent as the first punk rocker (there's even a cameo by the Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop),while Chloe Webb is powerful as the deeply troubled,and most likely schizophrenic/manic-depressive Nancy. In an ironic twist, Courtney Love stars as one of Nancy's junkie friends--and that was before there was that little Seattle grunge band called Nirvana.
"Sid and Nancy" chronicles the couple's journey of sex,drugs, and rock n' roll. The couple is self-destructive- from Nancy's addiction to Sid's violence against himself. The two share a fatal attraction. Sid Vicious goes from fronting the Sex Pistols to living a claustophrobe's nightmare of addiction in his apartment with Nancy. They love each other, they hate each other, they're violent, needly--and sometimes sensual. Alex Cox perfectly depicts the punk rock era. There are some self-referential digs at its predecessor,the hippie era-such as Johnny Rotten mocking sex as ugly and degrading, or Nancy freaking out when she thinks she looks like Stevie Nicks. Music is used deftly throughout- to represent fine living, Beethoven's music is played (Oldman would later star in "Immortal Beloved") and before the credits,the final music is disco. Though the movie is about the Sex Pistols, ironically, there's no Sex Pistols music (it's Joe Strummer, the Pogues, etc) Cox is also a visual auteur-from the growing darkness of the film's harrowing final half hour, to the pair kissing among falling garbage. Vicious' rendition of "My Way" is a trippy spectacle. Sometimes,the line between reality and hallucination is thin.
"Sid and Nancy" is an excellent biopic because PUNK ROCK IS NOT FOR THE WEAK!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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