
Criterion has made anew Blu-ray version of Alex Cox's seminal Sid & Nancy (1987), which i probably hadn't seen since it was released in 1987. It holds up remarkably well. I was surprised to learn that the Coen Brother's frequent cinematographer, Roger Deakins, was the Director of Photography for this film. Burt that explains why it looks so great. It is Gary Oldman's second screen role (I recently saw his first in Mike Leigh's Meantime), which he said he was best known for on the 1994 commentary, I wonder if that is still true-it is something of a cult classic (it was recently being shown in a small theater in the hip Koenji area of Tokyo). Chloe Webb was also quite impressive as Nancy and the short snippets of the show scenes were quite entertaining. I had forgotten some of the great hi-jinks like Johnny and Sid screaming "exterminate!" as they chow downed on beans and Nancy's wail of "What about the farewell drugs!" when Sid storms off for the American tour. The Criterion extras include: a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack, alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio, two audio commentaries: one from 1994 featuring cowriter Abbe Wool, actors Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, cultural historian Greil Marcus, filmmakers Julien Temple and Lech Kowalski, and musician Eliot Kidd; the other from 2001 featuring cowriter-director Alex Cox and actor Andrew Schofield, England's Glory, a 1987 documentary on the making of Sid & Nancy, infamous 1976 Bill Grundy interview with the Sex Pistols on British television, rare telephone interview from 1978 with Sid Vicious, interviews with Vicious and Nancy Spungen from the 1980 documentary D.O.A.: A Right of Passage, archival interviews and footage, and an essay by author Jon Savage and a 1986 piece compiled by Cox about Vicious, Spungen, and the making of the film.
Recent Comments