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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 15810
Released: December 19, 2000 |
| Our Price: $16.25 |
| Used Price: $13.98 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Gary Oldman (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Lost In Space) and Chloe Webb (The Newton Boys) execute performances that are nothing short of phenomenal (Los AngelesTimes) as Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his unforgettable junkie girlfriendtwo socialmisfits who literally love each other to death. In this riveting biography of burnt-out icons (The Washington Post), award-winning* writer/director Alex Cox (Repo Man) creates a great film ('siskel & Ebert ) about the destructive lives of two 1970's punk legends. Their love affair is one of pure devotion. Sid falls hard for groupie Nancy Spungen, who seduces him with her affectionand addiction to heroin. Their inseparable bondto each other and their drugseventually corrodes the band, sending Sid and Nancy down a dark road of despair. Out of money, hope and options,the despondent two hit rock bottom while living in squalor at New York's infamous Chelsea Hotel. But their journey takes yet another tragic turn as they face their final curtainand attempt to fulfill their destiny of going out in a blaze of glory! *1986: Critics Award, Sao Paulo International Film Festival
Description of Sid & Nancy:
After the cultish success of Repo Man, maverick director Alex Cox made the film that remains his masterpiece--a loud, brash, abrasive, painful, funny, and utterly brilliant screen biography of British punk rocker Sid Vicious and his American girlfriend Nancy Spungen. As played to perfection by Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, Sid and Nancy are made for each other, serving their mutual strengths and weaknesses and rising with the punk-rock fame of Sid's group, the Sex Pistols, while falling into the ultimately lethal pit of drug abuse. Cox doesn't pull any punches or compromise the unsavory aspects of this passionate love story, so the film presents a harsh mix of emotional and physical anguish tempered by the very poignant and genuine love shared by its tormented central characters. Through it all, the film emerges as an intimate and yet oddly epic chronicle of punk's glory days of anarchic sex, drugs and rock & roll. It's as dynamic and confidently directed as any screen biography before or since, no less fascinating for its unpleasant aspects as for the touching emotions at its very human core. --Jeff Shannon
Sid & Nancy Reviews:
The Passion of Sid and Nancy 
2009-10-17 - "Sid and Nancy" is Alex Cox's electrifying biopic from 1986 about Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his brief, fatal fling with Nancy Spungen. Gary Oldman is excellent as the first punk rocker (there's even a cameo by the Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop),while Chloe Webb is powerful as the deeply troubled,and most likely schizophrenic/manic-depressive Nancy. In an ironic twist, Courtney Love stars as one of Nancy's junkie friends--and that was before there was that little Seattle grunge band called Nirvana.
"Sid and Nancy" chronicles the couple's journey of sex,drugs, and rock n' roll. The couple is self-destructive- from Nancy's addiction to Sid's violence against himself. The two share a fatal attraction. Sid Vicious goes from fronting the Sex Pistols to living a claustophrobe's nightmare of addiction in his apartment with Nancy. They love each other, they hate each other, they're violent, needly--and sometimes sensual. Alex Cox perfectly depicts the punk rock era. There are some self-referential digs at its predecessor,the hippie era-such as Johnny Rotten mocking sex as ugly and degrading, or Nancy freaking out when she thinks she looks like Stevie Nicks. Music is used deftly throughout- to represent fine living, Beethoven's music is played (Oldman would later star in "Immortal Beloved") and before the credits,the final music is disco. Though the movie is about the Sex Pistols, ironically, there's no Sex Pistols music (it's Joe Strummer, the Pogues, etc) Cox is also a visual auteur-from the growing darkness of the film's harrowing final half hour, to the pair kissing among falling garbage. Vicious' rendition of "My Way" is a trippy spectacle. Sometimes,the line between reality and hallucination is thin.
"Sid and Nancy" is an excellent biopic because PUNK ROCK IS NOT FOR THE WEAK!
Sid and Nancy 
2009-08-18 - This is a pretty good depiction of life in the culture as I remember it growing up. My teen is really happy to have this.
80s Film, Yeah
2009-07-27 - Of the five American films made in the 1980s I would save at all costs, three are by Alex Cox, which I like to think says more about his brilliance than it does about the wretchedness of that decade. Cox is above all a political filmmaker, which is both why he can't get a film produced in this country, and also one of the reasons many people don't understand "Sid & Nancy." The idea behind the film is that while you could do what you wanted in the anarchic late 1970s and it was all good, or at least not all bad, you really were a disposable piece of garbage in Reagan's America. So while the historical action depicted takes place in the 1970s, the film itself is firmly set in 1986. When Sid looks out the window of his room at the Chelsea, it's 23rd street in all its 1986 madness, the Iggy Pop character has New Wave hair, the cars are all mid-1980s and Gary Oldham is about the age Sid would have been had he not died in 1979. At any rate, anyone who watches this film has to contend with Chloe Webb's performance as Nancy Spungen. While Gary Oldham is good enough as Sid, this is Webb's film, which makes sense, as "Sid & Nancy" is less about the Sex Pistols than it is about being poor and marginalized in the US. Webb is so good in the scenes with her dealer, here called "Bowery," that she never had to act again, which she more or less didn't. I reckon no one noticed just what a knockout beauty she is, but you can, if you see the final scenes of the film. Just be prepared to spend some time completely devastated afterward.
Not for fans! 
2008-09-18 - If you're not a Sex Pistols or Sid Vicious fan you could really like this movie, but don't trust anything it shows, it's all lies. The movie was made without the concent of any of the Sex Pistols members, they consolted Joe Strummer from The Clash instead of going to Johnny Rotten. It's all BS! If the movie had been about other people, let's say Sam & Natalie, it would have been a lot more enjoyable, but as Sid & Nancy it's worthless. If you want to see a good Sex Pistols movie watch "The Filth and the Fury". Gary Oldman is a great actor and, even if some other people have said his performance was off, I think he did a very nice job, most of all in singing "My Way". Still he was nothing like Sid. Chloe Webb was fine as Nancy, almost the same annoying voice, but not really like her.
Don't watch it if you're a big Sex Pistols fan! It's enraging and depresing.
THIS DVD IS NOT OUT OF PRINT!!!
2008-02-05 - DONT GET HUSTLED!!! This DVD is for some reason listed as out of print on AMazon. IT ISN'T!!! I just bought a copy from a seller fon here for around $38.00 only to see several copies of it at my local BestBuy two days later for only $15.00! The Sid and nancy Collectors Edition specifically! IT IS NOT OUT OF PRINT!!! Amazon is off!!!!
