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The Filth and the Fury - A Sex Pistols Film

The Filth and the Fury - A Sex Pistols Film

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $15.98
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You can almost FEEL the spit.
Review: In a day and age awash with formulaic drivel from boy bands, Britney, Madonna, Kid Rock, etc., this film is a breath of pure fresh rock n roll air. A must for any devotee of the band. The movie contains incredible live performance footage and fascinating interviews with the surviving members of the band. John Lydon emerges as an erudite, sensitive, creative, and deep thinking punk rock pioneer, but above all a sincerely motivated social critic. Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in the flesh here have the effect of rendering the Alex Cox's "Sid and Nancy" obsolete. What this documentary primarliy impressed upon me me was the strong political streak that runs through the Sex Pistol's work. And on top of it all, it ROCKS.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sex Pistols live!
Review: Filth and the Fury is a great documentary from director Julian Temple on the Sex Pistol's.Film shows how the Pistol's became England's public enemy#1 in 1976 and 1977 by shaking up the status quo.They went against the grain and took no prisoners. The main speaker is Johnny Rotten,and he gives his version of the story,which sounds a lot better than their manager,Mclaren.Has a great interview with Sid in 1978,a year before his death,he seems quite lively and funny, and it's quite sad that he died at 21.Overall a great flick.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An awesome documentary.
Review: The Filth and The Fury, in my opinion, was a very in-depth documentary about one of the greatest punk rock bands ever. Peering into the personalities of the members of the U.K. band, this movie would give even the most skepitcal person a whole new perspective on the Pistols. You get an inside look at what really went on within the band. There was more to them than their rude, obnoxious exteriors. In Filth, John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) cries over the death of Sid Vicious. For anyone who thought that all he could do was yell and spit, this film is a must-see. For anyone who was and/or still is a fan of the Sex Pistols, you should definitely check this out.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Human Side Of The Sex Pistols?
Review: No, "The Filth And The Fury" is not a concert movie, unfortunetely. What I wanted to see (and hear) were some of their rare live performances, but what I got was the album versions of their songs slapped on top of live footage--at least the music was remastered (it was done at Johnny Rotten's command). What I wasn't ready for was the honesty. Rotten finally admits that he respects Glen Matlock, and he even cries over the loss of Sid Vicious. The best part is the Sid Vicious interview which sheds much of the bogus rock n' roll myths that surrounds him. It's good to see that he wasn't as stupid as we all think, but rather a human being possibly victimized by the industry. "The Filth And The Fury," is good because you do see the human side of the band rather than the image their manager (and sometimes members of the band) had concocted.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Now I Got a Reason, Now I Got a Reason, Now I Gotta Reason..
Review: ...to pull out all my old Pistols LPs and remember how fun they are to listen to.

This movie almost seemed to zip by too fast, but then, so did the Sex Pistols. Come to think of it, the last 20 years (when I first started listening to them in junior high and chopped my hair off into a spike) also zipped by pretty fast...they put all the best songs, the best performances in here, along with some rare footage.

Sex Pistols fans may have already seen the interview with a nodded-out Sid Vicious and sleazy girlfriend Nancy Spungen (who makes Courtney Love on one of her bad days look like Grace Kelly in comparison) trying to wake him up for the camera as he snores ("Sid, wake up...they're tryin' ta interview ya..."). But what no fans may not have seen is a short, heartbreaking clip of an interview with Vicious after he is out on bail after being arrested for her murder. When the interviewer thoughtlessly asks him if he's 'having fun right now' (what was that reporter thinking? the kid looks completely miserable), Vicious just chuckles bitterly and asks him, "Are you kidding? No, I'm not having any fun, at all." When the interviewer asks him where he wishes he was right now, Vicious' quiet, calm answer to the question is so chilling and heartfelt that it made every hair on my body stand on end. In a scene shortly after, John Lydon talks about Sid getting his aforementioned wish, and for a minute you think that in the voice over he is laughing, because as a rule you don't see John Lydon displaying any other emotion other than general crankiness. Then you suddenly, shockingly realize he's actually in genuine tears over his dead boyhood friend.

But you can also see the fun the Sex Pistols had while it lasted-especially memorable during a retelling of how they played a children's party (still not sure what the story behind this was, or what the people who organized it were thinking, but it was a stroke of genius), with footage of them covered in cake after they start a food fight, to one of the Pistol's best songs (in my opinion), "Bodies". What struck me is how the Sex Pistols (who, at the time, were not far out of their teens themselves) look and act about the same age as the kids at the party. They are obviously having just as much fun as the kids, too- they try to look like tough punk rockers but can't wipe the smiles off their faces as they joyfully have a ball.

The soundtrack, timing, and editing are all perfect. "Submission", another of my favorite songs (and in my opinion, one of their more underrated ones) is played over the credits, and it fits perfectly. As I said, my one complaint that was it zipped by too fast, but talking with my husband after the movie, so did the Sex Pistols. One of the better rock documentaries I've seen. A must see for Sex Pistols fans.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: At last,the truth is finally told
Review: I was born in 1983,so I never had any real insight on how influencial the Sex Pistols really were until I saw this film. Britan in the late 1970s was a grim place;unemployment,IRA bombs,recession,depression.These were the reasons why punk had to happen. The first truly great Pistols movie(after the disapointing Great Rock'N'Roll and Sid & Nancy).Excellent retropective interviews with the four surviving Pistols,a dazzling array of clips and concert footage and,best of all,previously unseen interview footage with the late Sid Vicious,who proves to be surprisingly articulate and intelligent.You can't help but feel touched when John Lydon sheds a tear for his deceased friend. An exhilerating,funny,tragic and insightful documentary.A must see.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Filth & Fury with a new name called the Pistols
Review: If you think your the only one who saw The Great R'n'R Swindle and thought something was screwed up your very wrong. Your not alone... There are mad loads of us Pistols fans still out here after 20 some odd years waiting for a movie about Sid, John, Paul and Steve that actually portrayed truth. We wanted more than fiction, we wanted to see what it was like as a Sex Pistol first hand, and who would know better than the Pistols themselves? Thats what The Filth & the Fury was made to correct: the deciet that Malcom McLaren projected into the enraged "punk-rock" audiences of the late 1970's England scene. And amazingly, that fraud has lingered on into the late nineties where the confusion about the true Sex Pistols is still being pondered. As you will see, this film is based fully on the truth; no scripts, no rehersals, just truth. Or as Mr. John Lydon would say, "No lies, No fake, No FRAUD!"

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Never Mind Anything Here's the Sex Pistols
Review: Somewhere in a Snow-White-and-the-Seven-Dwarfs suburbs a soccer mom just unloaded her brood for the match after the Soccer-mom 7-3 shift at the office and now has to go home help the digital-literate Nascar dad with the dinner and hope that the kids are home and the plates are in the dishwasher in time for American Idull, only to find a friend of a friend's copy of The Filth and the Fury laying about, daring you to pop it in the player and find out what rock'n roll was meant to be about before she swoon's to another syrup drip balladeer over-singing supper club karoake standards. Maybe it would be of interest to the aspiring American consumer stereotypes that much of Simon Cowell's ubersnob delivery can be attributed to Pistol's head snarler Johnny Rotten. Their curiosity peaked, they drop it in and discover the Amercian consumer's lifestyle is under bombardment, even though the Filth's recollecting anti- establishment and chaos in the 70's.
Remarkably, one of the instant revelatory moments in this film is how up to date the Pistols look compared to the ridiculously vomitous slabs of polyesteryear fashions their supposedly hip hosts were wearing during the old interview clips. What's more, this is exactly what Lydon (Rotten) hates the most about the Pistols legacy: the mall culture they so deplored finds "punk fashion" cool and watered it down to flavorless damp 4/4-time whining while doing nothing to deconstruct the world into a better place. This is also where the Pistols couldn't last. They were too messed up to fix a world they wanted to destroy. Rotten remains gloriously disgusted throughout the film often leaving your Mom and Dad (who grew up familiar with the Pistols and continously failing to understand them) wondering why he's still in it (to give bollocky pissoff to mums and dads of course).
The other Pistols will continue to provide vigor towards their old antics in rollickingly funny interviews. The serious viewer will understand that Chaos was their goal and not making punk fashionable. And if the soccer mom and Nextel Cup Pops take a second or two to think about how this film and the Chaos that was the Pistols' true legacy are meant to affect them..just imagine..perhaps the world may be a little more dangerous, but it won't be boring and we won't feel cheated.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Get down and dirty
Review: It's not immediately apparent where Punk stands in historical terms. There were only a handful of great bands, the music was rarely memorable, and the whole thing (the real thing I mean, not the post-punk posing) was practically over within four years. Compared with the sixties, when the pop movement encompassed a revolution in sexual habits, drug-taking, fashion, music, film, civil rights, concepts of individuality and community, and even took on and managed to end a major war, it looks like Punk was just one of a number of notable ripples (another being Red Brigades-style terrorism) which extended outwards after 1969.

But ripple or not, it had a bigger cultural impact than anything else on my teenage years: I clearly remember in 1978 a friend pulling out his latest purchase, a record called "Never Mind the Bollocks" and how completely staggered I felt when I looked at this luminous urine-yellow cover, took in the ransom-note font and then heard the noise - I couldn't comprehend it as music at first - of the first few tracks. These bits of vinyl and card seemed at the time as dangerous a thing as a shipment of heroin.

Basically I and most of Britain was in a daze when the Pistols appeared. The sixties had been a huge upheaval, but the energy seemed to dissipate as rapidly as it had appeared. By 1974 the oil embargo, massive inflation, strikes, terrorism, pomp rock, et. al. had all but crushed the mod movement and the airwaves were jammed with coma-inducing pop like the Bay City Rollers and Abba. Moreover, the "establishment", that is the traditional structures of power, having been battered halfway to oblivion in the sixties, were gradually and rather insidiously reasserting themselves.

What this film captures is the electrifying effect the Pistols had on a country that had become complacent in its own dismalness. The famous Grundy interview is as notable now for the toe-curling triteness of daytime TV of that time as for the naughtiness of the Pistols. Footage of the housing estates from whence the group emerged reveals the brutal starkness of urban working-class Britain. With the rubbish piling up on the streets thanks to another strike and utter shabbiness seemingly everywhere, there's a strong impression of a country at the nadir of a massive multi-year hangover. The Pistols woke the country up like an exploding alarm clock, caused an outcry that seems almost funny in retrospect, and made flares, permed hair on males and Emerson Lake and Palmer utterly unfashionable for a couple of decades.

On a more serious note, it is also worth considering that Punk probably helped Mrs. Thatcher get elected in 1979. Much of the population was shocked into believing that a strong law and order Government was the only hope for Britain. So perhaps a bit more than just a historical ripple, albeit in a very ironic manner?

As for the Pistols themselves, it is not hard to see why they only lasted a couple of years: they are the (mostly) living proof that anarchy is great in theory but hard to sustain in practice. There is a lot of bitching between the boys twenty-plus years on, and while most other reviewers seem to have found Rotten inspirational, I thought he was full of s***, moaning about just about everything including bizarre things such as once having had to stay in a motel. Apparently blind to irony, he even at one point launches a heartfelt attack on the people he considers let Sid down: "they had no respect" he wails.

Good film of a fascinating time with well-chosen footage, witty asides (nice idea to compare the Pistols with Richard III), wild music and interesting interviews. My only complaint is that it was difficult to work out who was talking in the voiceovers and not always easy to hear them either.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: disapointment
Review: I found this DVD very disapointing i love the sex pistols but this DVD didnt do as good of a job showing them as i hoped for. Ive read "i was a teenaged sex pistols", "the sex pistols and america 12 days on the road", and "ROTTEN no blacks no dogs no irish" and i have to say this is not near as good as any of those were. There is to much focus on the late pistols and sid vicios and not enough on the glory days


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