Nonureva Really Surprised!

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

moonspinner55 Director Alan G. Parker, a self-titled Sid Vicious biographer, put together this overlong, scattered pseudo-documentary about '70s British punker and ex-Sex Pistols bassist Vicious and his American girlfriend, groupie Nancy Spungen, who was found dead in 1978 in the New York City hotel room the couple shared, stabbed once with a knife after a long binge of partying and drugs. Although it's her name in the movie's title, Parker hasn't much information on Nancy Spungen--no surprise then that the primary focus here is on Vicious (which probably also aided Parker in getting financing). We do get a shot of Spungen's nice childhood house in Pennsylvania (which Parker then compares to Sid's humble beginnings) and rare interview footage of Sid and Nancy together before the stabbing and Sid's eventual heroin overdose. The rest doesn't amount to much: Sid's arrest, his release on bail of $50,000, evidence at the murder scene unexplored by the police (which Parker obviously feels vindicates Sid), and dead-end interviews with friends and hangers-on who feed on the long-held conspiracy theory that Nancy was murdered by an outsider over a drug-deal gone bad. Newspaper headlines and vintage TV news clips do not a documentary make, yet somehow Parker has managed to stretch this thing out to an interminable 100 minutes (an abbreviated version runs 89 minutes). *1/2 from ****

Sindre Kaspersen English author, biographer and documentary filmmaker Alan G Parker's debut documentary feature, is inspired by a letter he received from an English mother named Anne J Beverly and twenty-two years of investigation. It premiered in the United States, was shot on locations in England and America and is a UK production which was produced by producers Ben Timlett and Christine Alderson. It tells the story about a son from Lewisham, London, England and a daughter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA who spent a fatal night at a hotel called the Chelsea Hotel in New York City, U.S. in early October 1978. Precisely and engagingly directed by English filmmaker Alan G Parker, this finely paced documentary which is narrated by UK radio program director Tony Hertz and from multiple viewpoints, draws a multifaceted, involving and somewhat subjective portrayal of an unsolved late 20th century American murder case which was closed after the death of the prime suspect in 1979, and of a young man and woman who became far more useful to the world than the word Punk would imply considering, without moralizing, those who profited from their passing. Through interviews with Punk rockers, friends of Sid, friends of Nancy, a filmmaker, a photographer, former members of the Sex Pistols (1975-1978), Sex Pistols' manager, a biographer and people who either knew of or had met Sid and Nancy, this narrative-driven and interview-driven story from the late 2000s about anarchism and a gravitating requiem for living up to an unattainable myth which is a re-examining and investigative attempt to prove the innocence of a prolific member of an historical late 1970s Punk rock band which was formed in London, England during a time when more than a million people were unemployed, former politician Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) became leader of the Tory Party and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 was initiated, comes up with a plausible theory regarding what actually happened thirty-six years ago at hotel room 100 where a woman in her early twenties died from a knife wound in her abdomen and her boyfriend was arrested by the New York Police Department. This biographical, historic, cautionary and humanly humorous remembrance of a disenchanting temporary romance between a punk rocker, performer, friend and fatherless only child and a groupie, sister and friend who nearly died after her birth which stands as an underlined warning and which densely examines the history of Punk and the personalities of Sid Vicious (1957-1979) and Nancy Spungen (1958-1978) through the stories of some of the people who witnessed their lives, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, subtle continuity, bilateral stories and use of music, animation and archival footage. An informative, straightforward and vindicating documentary feature.

D. B. This film is structured around the question of who killed Nancy Spungen, companion to Sid Vicious. The weakness of the film is that the filmmakers have not structured the film in a rigorous way to make their case questioning the conventional wisdom on the matter.The actual effect of this lack of strict focus, is paradoxically, a masterpiece in capturing the character and spirit of both the people involved, and of the music scene that they came from.Punk was, and is, purposely confrontational, and many punk documentaries are effectively impaled on these clashes; stuck on the 'spikes' of punk, and never really capturing a complete image of either the people or the scene. In setting out to chronicle a death, this film has actually captured that life.It would probably be foolish to imagine that any film can actually tell you all about punk; who has seen a documentary that actually even had all of the important bands in it? This film is not all of punk by any means, but it is one of the best documentaries to have come out of it, and that is what really matters.If you are focused on the film from the perspective of the mystery however, this film is still a great success, at least if you would like to make up your own mind. Most films of this sort would have the filmmaker smacking away with remark after remark, all up and down the length of the film, like a cook tenderizing a piece of meat. In this case, it seems like such remarks had to be pasted onto the end of the film, but since both sides of the evidence are presented relatively naturally along the course of the film, the effect is to create overall, an unusually unbiased presentation. This documentary is rough around the edges, but it is great.

Beginthebeguine Fairly amateurish documentary not just about who killed Nancy Spungen, but who killed Simon John Richie aka Sid Vicious. Did Sid kill himself with an accidental, yet inevitable OD, or was he given a "Hot Shot". Perhaps it was his Bohemian mother Ann Richie who gave her son too much drugs and later committed suicide out of guilt. ...and what about Nancy ? upper middle class Jewish girl turned obnoxious groupie, nobody liked her... was she killed by any one of six people who's fingerprints were left around the room in the dark and foreboding Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street in NYC. Sid was unconscious on the bed drugged once again into never-never land, the knife wiped clean. Did the mysterious homosexual drug dealer known as Michael kill her for the money thought missing from the room, proceeds from concerts and royalties from Sid's rendition of "My Way" all paid in cash, or finally did Nancy just do herself in because everyone knew she had a death wish and had cut herself before. Lots of questions and no answers.The players here have brains that are, well to put kindly beyond repair. Years of drug abuse have left them lethargic and incapable of even standing up on their own without leaning on something. As they scratch their heads and reach deep inside their foggy memories you almost wonder if you will hear one say "Sid's dead ?". I couldn't help but think that the film maker was interviewing zombies. One bloke tells the story of how Sid made a noose and hung a cat in his flat "I guess I regret that...He hung the cat and it was jumping about and it urinated and defecated all over his shoes. I guess I regret not stopping him. We put it in a plastic bag and took it down to the trash.", I mean could you have taken any more drugs then you have pal ?Some of the healthier survivors have some pretty good observations about what was going on during those early days of Punk both in New York City and London, but too much of it is lost in horrendous film making and poor editing. If you have the time, and you can see it for free and if you care about Sid and Nancy or even the Heartbreakers you should probably take a chance and see this film. I, myself, don't really give a crap about Sid and Nancy, it's thirty years on now and he has become more of an icon than a reality. I guess since I saw it for free I felt I should see it through to the bitter end. I did walk away, however, with a little more empathy for Sid though...he was doomed from the start.