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Sid & Nancy - Criterion Collection

Sid & Nancy - Criterion Collection

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A literal highway to hell....
Review: I first saw this movie at age eleven having hired it out on video due to my two year love affair with the Sex Pistols. While I enjoyed it (despite it being the bummer that it is), I found it hard to be completely engrossed due to the number of historical inaccuracies contained within it. However certain scenes and images seared themselves into my mind enough to see it several more times and ultimately (years later) get this DVD edition.

While having a historical base to work from, director Alex Cox has seemingly decided to approach more the aura of the era and not the details (the exceptionally accurate wardrobe not withsatnding) and by doing so has created a nightmare of a film in which fantasy and reality are hopelessly blurred.

This carries the film on several different levels, aiding and abetting the story in the process. For example, incidents like the Jubilee Boat Cruise are true, but not portrayed totally accurately. Despite Sid's shortcomings as a muscian, I don't believe they would play without him. I've seen footage of Sid leaving that boat alone, but here he leaves with Nancy etc.

However, by doing so (or perhaps in spite of) the film create some absolutley haunting scenes. The bit when Sid first shoots up, Nancy and Sid kissing under a hail-storm of trash, the couple walking from the Jubilee Boat and into the night, Sid slashing himself while a bevy of groupies wait around in his hotel room and the incredibly moving ending. Each of these scenes is rendered all the more poignant by the music and both stick with you for a long time. In a way, it is appropriate for a character such as Sid who did confuse fantasy and reality to such a degree to have a biopic made the same way and indeed by doing so the film avoids having to form conclusions for the viewer, making it all the better for it.

As mentioned in the commentary and displayed somewhat in the DVD liner notes, the film is split into two halves, with the first setting up the period and story, while the second is like a descent into hell. When I was younger I found I could watch the first half quite frequently while the second half only now and again. It's that unnerving (and depressing), but it is also exceptionally well-handled. Cox allows some trite moments to creep in (like the guy from "Repo Man" talking about heroin), but overall the film doesn't look contrived and plotted, it just unwinds infront of you while you try and take it all in. Almost like sitting in the corner of their apartment and watching.

Both Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb are exceptional in their roles and this is one of the few times in which you forget you're watching actors and are just transfixed at the screen. The extras on the DVD are top-notch, especially the clip from the Bill Grundy show and the real interviews from Sid.

Overall, this is an amazing film, containing Gary Oldman singing, bravura performances from the leads, good music, a love story the likes of which I've never seen elsewhere, a historical context (if not always accurate) and above all some of the most haunting images I've ever seen. Believe me scenes and music from this will be burnt into your brain for awhile, and especially in this era of multiplex fiascoes that is a very good thing.

NB: I can't believe that after this and Repo Man, Alex Cox hasn't done better.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Harrowing As A Film
Review: This is a fantastic film filled with some wonderful performances about one of my favorite bands. But their is a book full of historic inaccuracies. This is a good piece of hollywood. Not a biography. If your looking for the true story of Sid Vicious , or The Pistols your better off watching "The Filth And The Fury" . Avoid The Great Rock N' Roll Swindle which is just ridiculous lies.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just like Romeo and Juliet...
Review: This movie is awesome,although not for the squeamish.Not everybody will be able to find the beauty in a guy shooting up,puking,having sex,and repeating!But their is so much more to it.In a way, it's a punk rock romeo and juliet.Nancy keeps talking about them dying together and in a weird way,it's beautiful.This movie is not about the sex pistols.Johnny hates it but then again Johnny hates everything.It's about two people that found each other and fell in love.One of the top 5 movies of all time.I reccomend this to any openminded person who wants to be genuinly touched for long after the credits roll.The fact that its true only adds to the beauty and sadness of it.A must see.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Gary Oldman at his best
Review: What can I say that hasn't already been said about this talent? I'll only repeat this: Gary Oldman is Sid Vicious. I could watch this movie over and over and not get tired of it. No matter how much people may bash the direction or the script, anachronisms, or the editing, et cetera, et cetera, I have yet to meet someone who disagrees with the fact that Oldman's portrayal was nothing less than perfect.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You've got to see this one to believe it. Flawless!!!
Review: After watching Sid & Nancy the first time, it was hard to believe that these two people really lived (and ultimately died), these lives! The performances given by Oldman & Webb, make it very hard to believe that you're actually watching a movie and not just looking at some home movie gone horribly wrong. It was and still is, the most powerful movie I have EVER seen. Sid & Nancy bring new meaning to the words '...through good times and bad...till death do us part...'. It would have been interesting to find out how these two would have affected the (music?) world had they lived. It stays under your skin from the opening scene and doesn't pamper your senses in the least. Their story lives on in celuloid...move over Romeo & Juliet, SID & NANCY have arrived!!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Minus 1 star for being a bit dated
Review: Back in 1990 this movie was ahead of its time. Having just watched it again I'd say it holds up quite well for a film from 1986. It is one of the first movies that that woke me up to what 'quality' filmmaking is.

'Sid And Nancy' is a story about how two weak and co-dependant people could fall in love and squander that love and everything else - including their lives. It is not a film about the Sex Pistols (of which I'm a huge fan), nor about the punk movement (which became mainstream and homogenized by its own popularity SO GET OVER IT), nor about music in the 70's. It is a sad love story about a guy named Sid and a girl named Nancy. It is called 'Sid And Nancy' for a reason, folks.

Gary Oldman is Sid Vicious, period, in all his humanity. I don't know if it's Oldman's skill as an actor or research beforehand, but his portrayal of Sid is convincing, engrossing and utterly amazing. And Chloe Webb plays Nancy almost as well. For those of you who think she overacted the part I suggest you read "And I Don't Want To Live This Life" by Nancy's mother. Nancy was out of control from the day she popped from the womb. And the use of drugs in this film isn't about heroin's destructive physical effects, but rather how two immature people so unhappy with life become enslaved to the promise of happiness via chemicals. A promise heroin cannot fulfill.

I have owned this tape since 1990 and the story alone is worth the price. The cinematography has some 80's-ish flourishes, but the context in which Sid and Nancy's relationship is set (70's London, the punk scene, Sex Pistols tour in the US) is icing on the cake. Sid and Nancy's gradual descent into their living hell and tragic end is pathetic but still grabs you, not allowing you to look away.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: HERO AND HEROIN
Review: 1977. I remember this period well. I was then in England trying to learn the local idiom in the middle of a hot summer. Every saturday night, in the streets of the little town I lived in, mods and punks fought for the pleasure. Beer was fresh and the girls rather strange with their yellow hair, their razor blades in the ears and their cockney accent. It was fun.

A punk group, the Sex Pistols, along with the Clash and a few others, reigned over english music. Director Alex Cox, with SID AND NANCY, films the relation involving Sid Vicious, the Pistol's bass player, and his girl-friend Nancy. "No future" is the motto and we are invited to follow the quick rise and the quicker fall of this boy unable to quit the image of loser he wears while a certain number of his fellow companions know how to separate show-business and reality. From London streets up to american deserts, Sid and Nancy, in a suicidal ride, drink, smoke, take drugs and, occasionally, play music.

SID AND NANCY is a pathetic homage to a musician who wasn't Jim Morrison nor Bob Dylan, to a boy who firstly was prisoner of the way of life he chose to adopt and later prisoner of the drugs. He was only a man totally in phase with this period, a man who symbolizes now these years, a man with no future.

Editing, cinematography and screenplay are of the highest quality. Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb are simply unforgettable and bonus features remarkable.

A DVD for your library.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great punk rock tragedy captured.
Review: I have seen Sid And Nancy many times.I am always saddened to see 2 very young people die as they did.The film focuses on the intense ,sordid relationship between Sid and Nancy.Their love for each other was quite intense.However,heroin was a even greater love,and it brought Sid to his knees.being accused of stabbing Nancy to death,and then dying a couple months later of a heroin overdose.Ultimately it seems like that both had a extremely strong death wish ,and it was granted.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: commentary better than movie
Review: I first saw the movie about 10 years ago and thought it was one of the greatest movies i had seen since a clockwork orange. A couple years ago i read a book called sex pistols and america which was about thier tour of america and i realized that there were a lot of inaccuracies about the movie in particular the stuff with the sex pistols. But everything after the pistols break up in the movie still really affects me like no other movie can.This DVD is amazing for historical accuracy. The commentary is outstanding and the stuff from DOA is downright disturbing. The only problem with the disc is that on the grundy show and the making of documentary they couldnt get the rights to use any of the sex pistols songs so they have been dubbed over with really annoying laughter.This DVD is a must for sex pistols collectors.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Vacant, Not Pretty
Review: Every punk I knew was disgusted when this debuted in 1986. We weren't expecting much from Hollywood, but this was still shockingly bad--just an ugly exploitation of punk rock's "weirdness" for suburban shopping-mall crowds. Alex Cox had the talent and the budget to make a probing film about pop culture, the media, our need for human contact and the hazards of all three, but instead he opted for a freak show.

Besides the shallowness of the whole concept and the triteness of the central "romance" (how much cartoon irony can we stomach past age 5?), several huge flaws dominate. Schofield is abominable as Johnny Rotten, Chloe Webb plays Nancy as a whiny, middle-aged barfly, instead of the manipulative but driven naif that she was, and the plot is full of fabrications and countless anachronisms. Not that there really is a plot--the (listless) scenes seem to have been cobbled together at random, following no logic and accruing no momentum. Every funny moment is followed by several minutes of dead air. The irony is that the filmmakers had so much exciting material, so many telling anecdotes, to choose from. And they wound up with something so vacuous and boring.

Gary Oldman gives an outstanding performance as Sid Vicious, immersing himself in the role until you would almost believe he was Sid, were he eight years younger. But even his genius can't save this lazy and ill-conceived mess of a movie.


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