Wednesday, May 28, 2008
BAD CHILDREN
Against my better judgement, I subjected myself to watching the NYTimes Best 1176 movie
What a bunch of sick motherfuckers.
The film is almost incomprehensible given the noise and thrash of the punk sensibility and the ugliness of the people and their surroundings is unrelieved.
Other than that, it is a passable film.
It has an arc. Sid sitting in front of a NYPD detective after stabbing Nancy does a long, way too long, walk down memory lane.
The couple meets, they get high together, they get higher. They fight. The Sex Pistols become famous. Sid is the bass man not the singing star.
Nancy the ultimate groupie. Well, not so much that as Sid's enabler and heroin/booze buddy.
They trash one motel room after another. Their talent for vandalism is unparalleled. What a lovely couple.
She is a real harridan. It is a relief when he kills her.
There is a lot of bullshit in this picture and it was too much for me so I skipped. I admit it.
As it turns out, I saw most of the sequences mentioned in the review at the link. Maybe he skipped around too.
There is a fantasy reunion with the dead Nancy at the end. Spoiler if this film could, in any way, be further spoiled. And we learn that Sid OD's of heroin a while later.
What a surprise.
If the real life Sid and Nancy were anything like the film ones I would think that we are well rid of the little bastards.
Another thing. There is absolutely no background about these people. We pick them up in the middle of their drunk and they stay that way all the film through. We do meet Nancy's family but they are as grotesque as she is on the other, straight side of the spectrum. Another traditional family bashing. Cliché!
I am glad that Gary Oldman made a decent career for himself after this picture. But he has almost always been typed as the sick outcast. Too bad. You can see the acting chops here and they are formidable.
I do not relate to the punk sensibility. I did find Iggy Stooge amusing but he was/is more of a parody than the real thing. The Ramones were half civilized and some of their music shows the tongue in cheek aspect of the whole thing. A sense of humor.
So I am a poor target in the audience.
Overall, this film was nasty and repellent enough to earn itself a 1 out of Netflix5. I didn't see all of it and I would never, ever see any of it again.
Incidentally, I also resent, somehow, that I can write more about shitty movies than I can about the good ones.
I could do another paragraph but I am sure you have heard enough and so have I.
Did I say that this is a Netflix1? One.
Labels: best films
