Father Malone's Weekly Guest Spot - Sid & Nancy (1986) -The Kulturecast

Bah no, no, not to say you make me uncomfortable, but I know how much you like this movie. I know how important this movie is to you. We have talked about movies that are important to you several times on this show. I believe the last one that we did was The Cook, the Thief, her Lover a Cook. Yeah, all of that, the title who I can't ever get right.

And now we're gonna be talking about a movie whose title does not have that many names, and it has all of two names in it, but it always it does make me feel a little weird to talk about movies that are important to you, because you know, there are movies that I really like, like Freaked and Goodfellas, and I guess they're probably important to me in a way. But I think when we talk about ourselves and and you know, you and I and other people we know, and I'm not saying everybody does this. I don't, and I don't think everybody can do this, but when we when we talk about ourselves sometimes and when we mythologize ourselves, there are some things that matter a little bit more than others. You know, I've heard you mentioned this before in passing, So I've got to understand that this is probably one of those movies for you.

We've never really done any of those movies for me yet maybe we never will. I don't know, you know, I know we haven't actually because I don't know what they are. Not sure. Well it's not that I don't know what they are, but it's I would have to sit and really think about something that. Like formative films is what we're talking about.

Yeah, I mean, there are movies that are formative for me. Like I think Fletch is a lot more formative than I mean it is. Letch's probably the closest I've ever gotten to talking about something that's like like I love Glengarry Glenn Ross, but I mean, and I mean there's some things about it that have influenced me. But like I when I watched this movie, I was like, man, man, I get it, Like I get I get it, and I get why I get at least on a cursory glance. Why you you know, have resonated with this movie and on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host Christashie, much to the chagrin of at least one person out there in the world.

And now I can now I can say there's at least one. Uh yeah, right, honestly, well three maybe, actually at least two. You're right in my case, if you know me, if you know you know that it is too boy, Aren't I a lucky boy? And I'm joined by my good friend all the way from midnight viewing. It's a bi weekly show, and not twice every other not twice every not once every other week.

It's twice a week. That kind of bi weekly, the kind that's actually a lot of work. Your friend and mine father alone. Hello, I wish I had some snappy to say about sitting Nancy. I could probably throw any number of the million quotes.

But anyway, Hi, I'm here. I'm also you said you're uncomfortable talking about movies that were formative for me. Well, this is the one that I'm actually kind of uncomfortable talking about. So there's that. Yeah, I'm I am excited to talk about it with you, But I am also excited to give you kind of a wide berth here in a little bit of a way, because I was going to jokingly say, and you were like, I didn't have anything snippy.

They're snappy to say, and it's like, well, I think you're about to be given the opportunity to, as we say in the industry, wax rhapsodically. Because it is September and it is Father Malone Month. We don't have a clever name this year because we well we just don't, but we will next year. I think I think it's a fine. Name, Father Malone Month.

All right, I mean, yeah, as long as you're cool of it. We are about halfway through the month and we are taking a look at nineteen eighty six's bio pic, which is a thing that wait, that raises the hairs on the back of my neck immediately. Sid and Nancy, Why. Yes, Ed've got company. I love the sex Express.

Are you going to make an honest woman out of a nancious si? Okay, because it needs more than a mere bass player. He's a fabulous disasst. I shot answer sex pistol. All your human needs to same to.

I didn't. S I agree? Don't you were there? What sport? When that was?

Like? Spot? Really think you can spy? Sit off of me? Well?

I love you. So. The film is directed by Alex Cox, written by Alex Cox and Abby Wooll, and its stars Well Gary Oldman, but Hey let's just make the joke now, Gary Youngman, Gary. Get the Youngest Man like Gary Boy almost child Man. Gary child Man and Chloe Webb play the titular Sid and Nancy, Nancy Spongeon and Sid Vicious.

There you go. If you know nothing about their story, we will be talking spoilers. If you do know about their story, boy, I bet you're along for a ride, just like I was. I'm going to turn it over to you father alone by because again, like I said, I know cursory as to why we're picking this movie and talking about it, but I'm going to turn the floor over to you, as they say, and let you get as comfortable and uncomfortable as you wish. With the nineteen eighty six's sit In Nancy colon Love Kills, which, by the way, terrible title.

Terrible secondary title sounds like drag you. The original title was love Kills, so it got swapped to Sid in Nancy. I know, which is even It's worse that they left it in there, but it's un grateful that that was not the original title. Sid Nancy. Uh.

There's formative and then there's formative. There's movies that you kind of feel a kinship to that you feel it reflects you, and then there's movies that kind of change you in a fundamental way. This is the most romantic movie of all time for me. People give me, give me a sideward glance when I when I say that usually, but it really so. I get it, I one hundred That is not a surprising thing to hear you say.

I get that one hundred percent. If not agree with you one hundred percent in a lot of ways. I was thinking about this movie today and when I think of images in movies, I'm always looking for a poetical moment in a movie, a lyrical moment in a movie, moments that are for the characters and not for the viewer necessarily, moments where we get to peek in on their lives in a way that is a little bit more representational, you know, a little bit more as I said, a lyrical, a little bit more fantasy almost, And this movie has my favorite moment of all time with that to me, the most romantic image of all time. But then I started thinking, well, yeah, that one, but then there's this other one, oh and another.

I think there are five moments in this movie, five shots scenes that I think are some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen committed to film, and only sort of hammered home to me how romantic the fucking movie is. So movie came out in nineteen eighty six. I was thirteen years old. I was in eighth grade. I got on the train and went into Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I saw this at the Lowe's Cambridge Square, I believe, which is also the theater where they performed Rocky Horror on weekends. So I was actually at this theater quite a bit. By this time, my musical taste had already sort of shifted from regular kind of pop music to the Cramps and flirting with punk rock but more rockabilly psychability than anything. The Blasters, you know, those kind of events. And I caught a television trailer for this movie where I only caught the very very end of it, and it's the my Way sequence.

It's sit in Nancy standing on the stairs, one of those images, by the way, and I thought, well, I have to see that. So I went in on the weekend and I saw it, and I feel like everything in my life changed kind of at that moment. Musically, Like I said, I'd already been leaning in that direction. But the next couple of years of my life are full one thousand percent punk rock. And you know, I was thirteen years old and young, and you know, feeling romantic feelings anyway, and certainly had had my glut of what we're told what romance is and what love is supposed to be.

And here was a whole other way to fall in love, it seemed to me. And as great as any other romantic film has been, none of them ever really spoke to me in a way that shows you the immediacy of love, the addiction of love. I mean correct, correct, correct, correct, that's yeah. Now here's the thing. Alex Cox.

I've read an interview with him maybe five ten years ago, criticizing himself for the movie, saying that he didn't lean too He didn't lean heavily enough into the grubbier aspects of their lifestyle and didn't sort of hammer home the tragedy of their life. He leaned too hard into the romantic, he felt, he. Didn't give me the schnook moment that Scorsese does in Good Fela. Yeah, you know what, fuck you you made the movie. It's out there here, it is right, and you know what, like The only people who are going to respond to the romantic aspects of are the people who feel that way anyway.

You know, this isn't going to change anyone's mind and go make them be a heroin addict or anything like that like that. The movie is what it is and the real life is, but it is what that is. Like you can go read Nancy Spungen. I've heard plenty of horror or horror stories about her as a person, and and Sid as a person, and you know, musically he was terrible, and you know he was basically just a sweet kid who kind of got swept up into this whole thing. And uh, but none of that matters, because what matters is this movie here.

Can we just get that out of the way here immediately, Like if we're talking about this as a realistic thing that's portraying the real lives like further this could not be further from reality in a lot of ways, Like every piece of research that I did and you're going to echo it here. This is just we're talking about the movie. The real people, better worse, doesn't matter. This is not representative of them in most stiff not always, I think, is what I could at least suss out and glean from all the research that I did. It's there are two people.

They were based off of these two people. But to what end? Not this end? Okay, I think I've now explained just how fucking transformative this movie was for me, right yea, yeah, yeah. So I moved to Los Angeles in nineteen ninety one.

I mean two years later, I'm friends with a cinematographer named Tom Richmond who shares a house with Alex Cox and Alex is in Europe, I believe. When I'm friends with Tom and hanging around at said house. But one evening, I find myself on a couch next to Abbi Wole. In a holiday inn. Paramus, No, that's they know, how off you how many times it took me looking at her to realize that's what she was from, God of all the goddamn things.

So so I kind of we didn't become friends or anything, but I was around Abby enough that I got to talk to her about this movie a lot, and it was one of the weirdest moments in my life where I got to thank the person for the movie that they had given me. And look, the fact is that that script says Alex conx Abuel wrote that, in fact, the more romantic portions of the movie all come from Abbey. One of the I'll just mention it here because it's in the trailer and everyone's seen it. It's the most sort of iconic image of the It's on the poster for Fox's sake, when Sid Nancier in an alleyway kissing and garbage is raining all around them in slow mode. It's gorgeous.

It's probably my favorite piece of film in general. And that was Abby who it was the end of the day and saw this alleyway and grabbed a camera and grabbed those guys and made them like do that shot. So anyway, Abbuwell's influence on this movie is sort of inestimable, and it was just weird to be able to pick her brain about certain things, including the veracity of the movie as suppos they were hitting certain beats, as. Certain things happen to happen in like. Nearly everything that happened in this movie happened a side of flights of fancy and those kind of things.

Obviously, they've condensed and shrank events to fit it into this two hour time frame, because like the sex pistols thing. Clearly you can make an entire television series out of the sex pistol story. But that's only like the first maybe third of this movie, right, maybe half? Yeah, first half, I would say for sure. Right because the movie is called Sid Nancy, Like, this isn't an Oliver Stone situation where he calls a movie that doors and just focuses on Jim Morris.

And now this is this is about Sitt and Nancy, not the sex pistol. Bohemian Rahtsody, Freddie what what? Yeah? House a Ooh, it's bad news. Why would you name that movie Bohemian raps?

So what does that even mean? I have no idea, Like how does that? I mean, yes, we know it's the name of the fucking song whatever, but like, how does that relate to the story being told? Is this a Bohemian Rhapsody we're seeing? Is this it's just the name of this not almighty Man?

So Abi Will would not go on to write a whole hell of life else that would make as big of an impact as this, which is surprising. No, but you did write Direct Road Sign Profits. This is another favorite movie of mine, just unbelievably good. The all too easy. Catchphrase of it was or description of it was easy writer for the nineties, which it was.

It's John Doe from X the band X and Adam Hort's from the Beastie Boys on a road trip to deliver a friend's ashes to Jackpot, Nevada, and they're on motorcycles. It's great, sounds interesting, and. They just run into fucking kooky people along the way. It's wonderful. It sounds a little bit more upbeat than this movie.

It's shockingly upbeat compared to this movie. I bet it is remarkably upbeat in comparison. Yeah, it's not that this isn't an upbeat movie. But Gary Oldman's performance, yes, is. I mean, it's something right.

Are you saying it's something like over the top? Are you saying something. I'm saying it's something amazing. It's just I mean, look, we all know Gary old like all of us know Gary Oldman from a certain time in a certain place, and like you know, it's gonna your entry point to Gary Oldman's career has a is a very long range at this point, like this was clearly yours. I think that mine really probably the first time, and you're gonna laugh.

I think was his Commissioner Gordon and those. Batman that is fucking shocking. I mean subsequent have seen him in plenty of others. Oh yeah, I mean he's a RoboCop. Was he in RoboCop?

I think he's in real bo? I believe he's like nor is that Michael Keaton that's in. Real it's Michael Keaton. Sorry, he was in addition to Michael Keaton. That doesn't sound We couldn't somehow make this worse.

Trying to think if Gary Oldman has been in any like because Batman is kind of like that. The big thing he was in, the big mainstream thing. That Eman. That was a very popular movie. That's not a movie that I would ever because of the Chris Tucker of it all about I stay away from that one.

I think most of America got your actual taste of it from Air Force One. Actually, we're fucking morons and people are screaming at us right now. Oh I can't serious Black No. Harry Potter, well, Tracula, he was Harry, but he's fucking serious Black and Harry. But I know that's for your generation.

I'm talking. I'm not saying for my I mean, look I think that's for a lot of people. Oh yeah, that's what they know him as now. Sure, But like I'm saying, when he made his big splash like look when he hit the scene with true Viz and then fucking Rosenkrantz and Guilden dead and then state of grace, I was the only one going, yeah, I love this guy, you. Know what I mean?

I guess actually know that that's right. That would have been the same year, so I saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead in two thousand and eight, the same year I saw The Dark Knight. I didn't watch the movie again for this because I don't have to. This is one of the ones that I don't. But I did watch the opening, say twenty minutes or so, right, and our first dealings with Sid when he's in that cell or you know, the the interrogation cell on the cops cop comes and gives a cigarette.

He is so shattered as a human being there, and part of it is he's dope sick, and part of it is he's completely in shock, and part of it it is he knows Nancy's gone. It's incredible. So this so Gary oldman was when it was in one other movie before this one, but it was in eighty two, and so is him and Timothy Spall and a couple other people. That was their first movie. But this is his first leading obviously.

And yeah, to open the movie with the murder of Nancy and to have him essentially a where we're going to end up seeing him at the end of the movie. I think it's really smart to open the movie that way because we get to see the juxtaposition of, Oh, look at how fucked up he is. You're about to see how fucked up he really like, because this is fun. This is a different kind of fucked up than what we see throughout the rest of the movie. I mean, this is like unable to exist fucked up.

All that's left is pizza, dancing with kids and waiting for. A calf well and Heroin. No, wow, it doesn't figure into the ending. No, I mean it does, but its a stage and he gets some pizza, he dances with some kids, and he dies. Yes, of course, he fucking died of a Heroin overdose, but but he died off screen.

He went back to his home planet, he Puoci. They even they even put up a little Chiron at the end, a little Gurafiti Chiron let us know he died a few days later. Yeah, but we don't have to see it because we know, because we know it's over. But it's but it's but it's a parent that it's over when the movie opens, is my point, and that's your point as well. It's like he's just he's gone beyond before we even get to see him as a character in the movie.

It's already too late for him as a character. And what a character. I think, Yeah, ChRI Jesus h Christ Good for Garry Oldman being this talented at something like Jesus fucking christ Man, Like, good for him, you know. Yeah, And he's charming too in this you know, like, uh, there's a lot of the there's a lot of drunken, stupid SID. There's a lot of smacked out, drooling SID.

But then there's a lot of charming SID as well, and that that may be what what Alex cox Is can get. Like there are moments where he's like like a normal human being. But at the same time, I don't think the character's not on drugs from frame one in this movie, Like I think they're all fucked up on something or rather than the whole time. Motherfucker's eating beans and champagne pain, it's five minutes of the movie, Like they're all fucked up. Like, yeah, I guess like Alex Cox, my response to him would be yours, Like do we think people became Heroin addicts from watching this movie?

Like come on, dude, If anything, people want to be rock and rollers from watching this movie, but probably not. I again, like it's it doesn't have to be a self destructive lifestyle because there are plenty of people that do it all the time that don't. But those stories are uninteresting. Right exactly, Like you know, where's the Jimmy Buffett story. I mean, I'm not saying James Taylor didn't do Heroin, because he did.

He did fucking Heroin, you know he did. But James Taylor's story is not as nearly excitingly self destructive as Sid Vicious is. Here's the sund but brutal meathook reality. Had Sid and Nancy not die and they just continued their lives, we wouldn't be talking about them right now. There'd be no movie, there'd be no nothing.

They would be a footnote in history. He would have died some other way, and then when the sex Pistols got back together for their Filthy Lucre tour, you'll talk about hanging a lamp on it. Fuck you guys like you don't get to cash in and say, oh look to look at us sketch again, and we would never heard of them again. It's a sickening fact actually that I know Elizabeth Short from Medford, Massachusetts because she was the Black Dolly. I would never have heard of her before.

But I do. I think, if anything, Alex Cox maybe let Nancy off to light and not sit because the stories that I read about her and the things that I read about her, she's a lot more charming in the movie than I think she may have been. And I think it was also some of the I think I think it's some of the mental illness of it all of the movie, and that's not something that they really touched on, which I understand why they wouldn't have, because I mean it's a touchy subject. I mean, we don't have the open conversation about mental health and I think we should be having in a lot of ways, but we're definitely not having it when this movie's coming out, and they're not I mean, like, we understand that it's part of it, but the movie doesn't really make it as clear as I think just doing the cursory research did that she was really not okay.

I mean, it's clear that he's not okay, but it's not as she seems a little bit more high functioning than he does. I've read everything there is to read about these two in the story and seeing every documentary imaginable, and I find myself falling basically where this movie ended up landing on with Nancy, Like, I bet a lot of people found her annoying. A lot of people found her to be a mooching whatever, right, But I think that was fucking everybody on the scene then, right. Yeah, only he's a hanger on, Like what the fuck? You can't can't hate somebody for love and rock music so much they want to be around the music all the.

Time, right, And and she's a brash, fucking American, so she's not gonna go her all that well with these punks who are fuck you to everything anyway. But I bet she was really annoying from time to time. But here's the thing, I'm not looking at her from John Lyden's point of view or Malcolm McLaren's I'm looking at her from SIDS and the movie is looking at her from SIDS and we're getting Sid from her point of view, and like, you know what, they bicker and they fight and they go through tumult. But like when they're at their best in the movie, it's only when they're with each other each other. You never see Sid as charming with any other character in this movie.

Same with Nancy. How could somebody love this guy? Well, let me show you the person who does. But you know what, that's fine, because they're they're it, They're. Perfect for each other.

Yeah, It's just I don't know. It just seems so simple to me. And you know what, I'm with you. I get most people's reaction. And I've read tons of reviews of this movie that just sort of dismissed them as a couple of fucking pathetic junkies.

Right, they threw their life away, bah blah blah blah blah blah. Yes, that happens. Happens all the time, you know what. And some people fucking have miserable lives and they get hit by buses. Finding somebody that that you connect with on a subp atomic level is rare and amazing.

And why this movie is so important to me is because it's all well and good for happy guy with the good job and pretty Sally you know down the street, like falling in love and having their perfect fucking life together. Yeah, that's that's the love that we've been getting served to us in every fucking TV show and movie since time immemorial. But you know what, the junkies, their version of love is just as strong as anyone else is and just as worthy of documentation and prey. This reminded me a lot of Barfly, because again, in that movie, we have you know, struggling and you know, suffering alcoholics. In this movie, we have struggling and suffering you know, drug addicts.

I don't need that. The word junkie is to terrible first off, right, Like it's an awful word. Calling people junkies is bad enough calling them like pathetic junkies. Right, Like, the moment people start like referring to people that do that, that that that you know, have alcohol issues or drug problems as alcoholics and drug addicts and junkies, it's like, WHOA, right, Like we're already probably not having right not having and I'm not talking about you, but just broadly obviously right, like, we're probably not the right people to be having the right conversation here. So yeah, I mean when someone watched this movie and that's their reactions, like you're not being you're probably not even the right person to watch this fucking movie again with like, because like you said, we're being peddled one idea, especially with our media for a very long time.

In the movies that we watch about like man, Wife, house Dog, maybe a cat picket fence, two cars, happy, maybe there's kids, maybe there's not like there you go like there. Will a lot of room. I mean, there's those shows that are entirely predicated on they will they won't they get together thing. I don't fucking care about those. If you guys, if you guys don't have that electric snap and fucking pop that that that Nancy gets.

Here's one of those scenes when we first get the sex pistols on stage and they're doing the Monkey's stepping Stone and Sid can't even get his fucking base to work right. He's in the foreground, completely on focus. Poe going up and down like an idiot and like spitting beer out onto the audience, and the entire shot is composed of Nancy watching him and you can see the moment there. You can see her actually fall in love with him. There.

It's fucking incredible. It's an amazing shot. It's an amazing it's like thirty seconds, like I'll put that one second next to the trash in the alleyway making out. As far as romantic images that are burned in my brain, I. Get it, like I get the love as an addiction thing to Jesus.

You know, I knew it was coming, and you see it coming from a mile away. The end of the movie, I mean, even if you don't know what's going to happen, you know that this motherfucker's playing with knives, and the playing with knives can't be good regard because again they're also using hard drugs, which means at one point they light the room on fire. I mean again, like there's things that are happening here that they're out of their control because they are out of control, because that's part of it, and I don't know, it's just yes, there is something romantic about two people ending it together. But this movie really makes the case that, like you know, you get to sit in bed with your partner after you've been stabbed and you let yourself die.

I get it, but it's a really hard scene to watch. Yes, that's that was the roundabout circular way of saying I knew it was coming, and I still went, oh my god. Yeah, And it's that part of it that you're describing. It's the crawling back into the bed part. It's the fight and the stabbing looks.

That's all conjecture. Nobody knows what actually happened in that hotel room with those two people. Only two people, however, however, there is a very very very very good case that there was a third person who actually Killednancy spung In. In the movie, Xander Berkeley plays a character named Bowerie Snacks, who is their dealer. I've seen interviews with friends of Nancy who had always said that Nancy was that tough and would fuck you up if if she thought you were crossing her right, she had to be.

She was licid visious. What the fuck? Why would anybody even question that? Their theory, and I don't remember all the particulars of it. I hope they believe that their dealer came into the house to steal because they had gotten some money and she confronted him and he stabbed her and then took that money and fled.

Hmmm. So it's like an El ducea Courtney Love Kirk Cobain thing where it's like there was a third person possibly this I would believe. This is actually yeah, yeah, see, this is actually realistic. I was just thinking it. I was thinking that Courtney loved because she's.

In Oh yeah, she definitely is. She wanted to be Nancy so bad. Thank god she wasn't. Hey jesus, she was not. My god.

Yeah, we really haven't talked about Chloe Webb a whole lot. Oh boy, I love her so much. She's great. She's a fucking adorable man. See.

That's the thing, like when you're saying, like, you know, they maybe did this or that with the character, whatever they were gonna do with the character, they ended up casting Chloe Webb, who is just sweetness personafied. So even when she's being her most shrill, like I'm down with. Her, right, you know, I don't it'll I don't mind that kind of shrill. And that's what I make, and it makes it makes the scene where she gets stabbed by him so much worse. See, there's a lot of condensing facts.

Like I said to like to get it all into one movie. You know, there's a this is a digression, I apologize, but something I'm struggling with. I'm a fucking Saturday In Live fanatic, right, I've seen every episode from every season here we go, I've read every book on it. I have been obsessed with it. Right.

So, now there's a Saturday inn a Live movie coming out at the end of the month. Jason Rightman did a movie about the first broadcast, right, So it's seemingly a nice minute movie about the ninety minutes leading up to getting Saturday Night Live on the air. Right, So, just from the trailer, I can already see that they're condensing facts from later seasons and stuff and putting them in here. And it's it's really bugging me just because I'm I have such an encyclopedic knowledge of the thing. But I but when it comes to sit in Nancy, I'm like, yeah, I know that that didn't happen then, and they conflated this fact and then they moved this around and they did all this and I'm like, I don't care who cares.

So I'm struggling with myself now when I'm gonna sit down and watch the Center Live movie that I if I give Sid and Nancy a pass, I might have to give Jason Wrightman a pass like the first time I watched that. Anyway, Sorry, weird digression. I would say that I don't think that it's I think to speak broadly about biopicks, because that's the other thing that we haven't talked about is this is a biopic. And brother, I don't know about you, but when I hear the genre the subgenre biopic, I want. To run, Oh yeah, real fast man at.

High fucking speed, often downhill, and if not, I will make that uphill look like down noll. Like I am not like biopicks in me. Oh, I have some thoughts on biopicks. First of all, if you're about to make a biopic, you're gonna sit down and write one Watch Walk Hard, the Dewey Conk story. If any of your script is going to be echoing anything in that movie, then you need to rethink your script.

Because one of the best things Jake Kasden has ever done. Dude, it's so. Good it it hits every problem with biopicks with a head, and it's sort of zeroing in on, you know, walk the line the Johnny Cash thing. And it's funny that you bring it up because I think about that movie sometimes too, where it's like, yeah, the big fucking triumph at the end of the movie is like he goes to rehab and he kicks heroin or whatever. Right, he loves his wife at the end of the movie is technically the triumph.

Right, But then they don't talk about the relapse in like nineteen eighty you know. Or what that didn't happen, that didn't have the movie character that happened to the real life guy. Right. See the problem when you try to sum up everyone what someone's entire life is you you can't leave out the later on savory stuff to have your victory earlier, unless you're making a movie about that moment in that person's life. Like, look, the best book of all time is ed Wood.

Larry Kerris, you're still never seen it? Oh my fuck it. The opportunity that you had this month and we missed it because I assumed you had seen that. That's absurd, Okay, Anyway, what Larry Karazuskin and Scott Alexander have figured out, if you're going to do a biopick, don't make it about their life. Make it about a moment in their.

Life, which I think for me is I think I think for me, that's always been the better idea anyways, or to go one step throther and kind of maybe like not a step thurther, but kind of a side step to your idea. The ones that I also like are events that have famous people in them, so it's it's you know, like I mean, Zodiac is kind of one of those, right, Like Zodiac is more of a time and of a place of three people. It is kind of a biopick in a lot of. If you're painting with a biopic brush. There's a lot of those movies that fall into the category.

But I'm also with you, like a specific time, a specific place, or a specific event. Also, those kind of biopics I think are smart, Like Lincoln. I mean, Lincoln is a very smart biopick because it's not, you know, his whole life, it's like we've got we've ultimately got For me, as far as I'm concerned, the reason you do a biopic that way, and the reason you would do a biopick at all is to give an actor the opportunity to do the fucking thing that actors want to do so well. And like when really good actors are given the opportunity to do something like, they can fucking kill it. And I would want to give an actor an opportunity to play a character or a human or a real person at a specific time and not have to cast five different actors.

That's the other thing you run into, right, is you have to co opt all this time for the one actor. When you pick your actor, pick the age of the moment in that person's life. Don't age them down, don't put them in a wig that it's a little too shaggy. Like Timothy shallow May as Bob Dylan. All right, you know I'm curious about that one.

Amen, Like, what the fuck? And he's singing too, it's James Massel once again. Right, I know, he's doing a really good vocal performance. It's a very it's a very understated Bob Dylan, which is needed for a role like that. It's just that Bob Dylan was a troll and Timothy Shallamy has a little angel, you.

Know, like you know Bob Dylan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that's the thing. When you cast Austin Butler as Elvis, it's like, Okay, Elvis was a good looking guy, so you cast a good looking guy. Yeah, but like Emma Stone as Billy Jean King, are you kidding?

Kidding's own? But but Gary Oldman at a quick glance looks looks like Sid Vish with his sunglasses on. Oh yeah, yeah, thelasses off. Maybe not so much. When he's on stage and the cameras in the back of the auditorium, Yes, he looks just like.

Yes, very similar, but when you get up close. But that's the thing. He has the energy. He I think he embodies the energy perfectly. That's that for me.

Is I think what really comes through and look like looking like him or not doesn't really matter. I was I was being facetious because he captures the energy. Of Sid Vicious perfect You know Gary old movie, Yes. But would you like to tell the audience at home with Gary Oldman. Hates well, he hates punk rock.

First of all, he's never into punk. They didn't like it and didn't. Like, don't get it, I'll just get it. Didn't like the story. And then I think part of it is that he heard about it forever, I think, I think for the next ten years.

Every interview he did included let's talk about Sid Nancy. Oh really love you? In the sex Pestose movie. The fucking the accents in this movie are off the cha baby, They're all over the we get like the dirty scuzs to the non scus. I love it.

My favorite performance in the movie, aside of the leads, obviously, is I believe his name is Andrew sco Failed or Skofeld. He plays John Lyd and John Rotten in the movie. He's he's almost a better Jounery Rotten than Johnny Roup. He's such an asshole. I mean they all are.

I love it. I mean, look, I guess when you were around someone like like like Sid Vicious, you probably had your patience worn down real quick, right like that's. You know, yeah. But you know here's the thing, though, you know those two were friends like they like like John got him into the sex Pistols because he wanted a friend around, like because it wasn't his band. And and and I know that I know that John Lydon has to on some level.

I don't know to how much this to this day, but you know feels guilty for pulling Sid into the band, right, well, who would say, you know, but no, I love their relationship. I love how annoyed he can be with them, But like you can tell that that's just John Lydon in general, and the fact that he's still hanging around with him tells you that he loves them, you know. Like, well, well that's the thing, like I was going to say, like, I think we all have a friend like Sid Vicious. Maybe as we've gotten older we should not, but I think we all have like that still. We all might have that one friend who's like kind of just like a lot all the.

Time, like a jig man. Yeah, like and it's like like and you know, sometimes I think, I I think sometimes I think that you've gone all the way to the bottom of the well for all of the pomp and bullshit that may have come with him, Like he was a lot as a human being. Clearly that's okay those parts of Sid Vicious. Sid Vicious was a lot like Johnny Rotten. I mean, look, he's still around, he's still kicking it.

Like he figured it out eventually, like you know, at some I mean, and that's the thing in the movie it's clear that they're already figuring it out that like, we need to stay away from Sid Vicious. He's kind of, kind of, kind of not able to get his shit together ever. Oh my god. You know, there's so many fucking poetical moments in this movie, Like when Sid is on his downward spiral, there's a John Kale song. There's a montage of like, you know, money tumbling through space and him by Day's too drunk and he's trying to read the lyrics and you can't even fucking mica.

And they cut to John Lyden who's in the bar just like watching him, and he's just so disgusted. He gets up and walks out, like, oh my god. So they go and visit her family. It truly is the best part of the movie. It's like the greatest part of the movie, because it's like, what happened if you went and took your crazy significant other with you to your overwhelmingly normal family's house, who, by the way, are still normal and you are in fact no longer normal if you ever were, because you were probably the black sheep of the family.

It's the funniest part of the movie. It is high comedy but it's also so fucking sad because the scene where he's passed out in the chair, which is not a great look, and then with drinking peppermin schnapps of all fucking things, like the worst of the worst things to just be like fucked up lot. And she comes in, you know, they come in there to talk to her, and she's just like, oh, why are you kicking it? Like they're they're trying to without saying as much like Harry and the Hendrons. Harry and the Henderson's are like, we want you to fucking leave.

The sadness there is how excited Nancy is to be back home. Uh huh yeah, well ultimately that too. And look they are just being themselves. But my favorite part of that scene is how into it the like her younger brothers are like they you know, they're delighted with with the spectacle going on in their living room. Wouldn't you like, holy shit, Like sid Vicious is in my house, Like it.

Must have been great. You know, it's been a. Wild Yeah, but it's so sad because you see, like, because you see, as do I, the way sometimes the rest of the world looks at people like us, and it's like. Sid, You're gonna make an honest woman out of our Nancy. She's never lying to me.

So sad, it's so sad. It's like, it's like this guy is so sad. He's so sad, isn't he He's like the original MOPy rock star? Oh? Oh no?

Yeah? But I just love him. Yeah no, I know, like I love how sad and miserable and pathetic he is. It's like that that's on stage. Ship was just an act.

Brother. He was like the saddest dude on the planet. Clearly, I love all the flavors of Sid Vicious. You know, the padlock around Gary Oldman's neck is Sid's. Right, his real his real padlock, right.

Yeah, Abby Will told me, like Sid's mom came to sad and like David to him, say I could use it. It's a great shame that Gary Oldman doesn't look yeah, man, Like that's probably the biggest bummer for me, you know. You know, like you know, he just didn't want to do this movie, and but he took it because he's an actor and work an actor and it's a fucking role and whatever, and he did a good job. But like, we're just a working actor playing Sidfishous in a fucking movie be a working actor, I guess, baby. Look at the rest of his career though, like he doesn't come close to one of these roles anymore.

Well, that's so, That's what I was going to ask you, because again, you know the Gary Oldman of it out? What is what is for you? Like? Is this the quintessential Gary Oldman role? And if and if it's this one, let's remove this one from the equation, and let's talk broadly about mister Gary Oldman, who again in this movie is very Gary Youngman, a could rap group Barry, Gary Youngman and Gary Oldman.

Here's the thing about Gary Oldman. He was very actorly in his younger years, right, So let's be an even he put in some really great performance. But I think he's gotten better and better with age, which I guess is the point of life. If I were to point to his early performances, him and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Like that's the one I think of when I think of young Gariolman.

I don't even think of him in Sid Nancy. I just think of Sid Vicious when I think of this movie. I Gary Oleman kind of doesn't even factor into the movie anymore in my mind, you know what I mean. Like he to be he's it's part and Parcel. I have to be reminded of Chloe Webb's name, not I don't, ye know, I know, I.

Get, but I get you like they're they're they're just part of it. If when I put the movie on, it's Sid and it's Man, and that's all there is to it, right, it's not Gary Oldman as Sid so from yeah, from early performance, I would definitely say rosecrans dead from like the nineties nineties. Gary Oldman probably fifth element, just because he's so weird in it and appropriate. I think he's at it professional. I was just about to say, I think he's at his worst in the professional.

You know. It's funny, Chris to see an early screening of the Professional for for Bookers for movie theater Hookers and I went with my piled CARDI and we walked out of the theater and I said, what do you think? And he said, I think Gary Oldman's gonna die because that was like at the height of all of his problems like that, that was when he was at the most drunk and drugged out stuff, like he went to rehab directly after that movie. But I just thought that was really funny, Like, yeah, he looked kind of rough, like that didn't seem all like performance there. He was not Gary Oldman was in fact not having a good time.

That's a great moment. I get sweating for me. Really, Oh my god, he's so sweat Yeah. That's all I think of when I think of that movie, is him just being sweaty as fuck. Like and then late era, I guess I think of him as Commissioner Guard, and I thought he was a really good Commissioner Guard.

Dude. I mean, you know, I think I've been watching stuff about those Nolan Batman movies. I don't know why, but it's kind of made me want to rewatch them, only because like not to give them another chance per se, because look, I'm not going to sit here and be like they're not good. It's not that they're not good movies. I don't like that version of Batman, like it's it's a Batman.

The Nolan Batman movies kind of echo late seventies Batman in the comics. That's when they kind of turned Batman into James Bond that's when he moved out of Gotham City and suddenly there's the League of Assassins and then there's you know, rash Ah Ghoul and all that shit. And to me, that was the most boring run of the comics, and they know, consequently the most boring run of the movies. If Batman isn't patrolling around Gotham beating a penguins, I don't really give a shit, you know, like I don't need him going to Hong Kong or something to like pull people out of skyscrapers with jets and like, what the fuck is happening here? It's Iron Man.

I mean it's great. I mean again, I go back to the thing I think I said on that Batman Returns episode. How did nobody just go the really rich guy's Batman? Right? Yeah, right, yeah?

That is now in those movies, it's like super fucking obvious, like the rich guy with all the money can make the cool cars and flying things like and then he disappears in dark Knight rises like what are you guys a bunch of fucking morons like put this is their conspiracy theories in our world right now that are less tenuous than this like you fucking idiots, Like my god. Yeah, that's the problem with DC and generalists, that they're still stuck onies on secret identities. Yeah. I thought that that was the real innovation with Marvel, Like that's why that first Iron Man movie is so fucking important, is because he's like, I am iron Man. From now on.

Our heroes are gonna be our fucking heroes, and we know the perils that come with our families and all that shit, but we're we're confident enough in our heroism to fucking triumph. And meanwhile, over at d C. Clark Kent is still trying to fool everyone with fucking glasses. And by the way, motherfucker twenty fourteen's RoboCop did in fact star Gary old Man, I was right. I was right, and you like talked me out of it, and I was like, wait a second, No, he plays he plays the guy who makes RoboCop.

Michael Keaton plays the Sea Oh of Omniicourt. Oh all right, why did we need any We didn't. It was a terrible idea and execution. Joel Kinneman everybody, and I love Joel Kinman. Yeah, he's not terrible.

I don't think any of those, Well, there are of those actors. Sam Worthington is one of the. Ones that show. Did you watch that show with the crossings? No, it's a murders.

The one with Gillian Anderson or the one that was in the one that was in like in his native Sweden. He was in the original Swedish one, and then he was in the American remake. I'm talking about the American remake the Killing Yeah TV series. Yeah, I have not seen it, but I he's he's great in that suicide squad. Watch the Killing, Bro.

This is Katana. This is Katana God. That is Joel Kinneman. For the record, everybody got. Oh man, he's great.

He's great. Look imagine being forced to say those words and like and like, well, yeah, we're making fun of it. But now because him, no, the line reading solid. Yeah, Gary oldman. He's been in a lot of stuff.

He has. They they haven't gotten him into the Marvel yet of it all. But he's been in the DC so he doesn't have to. He's getting money, still's getting. Old did his time in Superheroville.

Yeah, yeah, they can cast I Actually what's funny is if I sit and think about it, he also looks the most like Commissioner Gordon out of any actor that's ever played him, like like the comic book version, at least for a certain time in a certain place. Like Yeah, just the glasses and the hair and the like the facial hair, just everything. It's like, yeah, kind of Gary, It's it is kind of just Gary Oldman. Yeah. I mean, look, all we've gotten beforehand is uh, the horrible the you know, the sixty sixth version, which is fine comic book.

But then uh, well we had pat Hingle as commissioner book. Oh yeah, in the bat in the Burton movies. Did he carry over? Was there? I don't think there even was there a Commissioner Garden in the Jil Schumacher movies.

I think it was pat Hingele, Patle and Goff come back for those subsequent field Yeah. So then the next one we get is that dude, Gary old. Matt, Gary Oldman. And then after him we oh, and then we got Jeffrey Wright, who's a really good But there was one in between, which one was that that was the that was the Snyder verse one. The Ben ben Affleck had a Commissioner Gordon.

Do you remember who was commission j Simmons. Also Simmons buff JK Simmons and a slouch hat in a trench coat. Well, they had to put him. Now that he's buff, he can be Santa Claus. That was the long con.

He's like, I want to play Santa Claus. So I'm gonna get buff to play Commissioner Gordon because that's what people wanted, Commissioner Gordon, who could break the joker's neck. Yeah. I'm looking at him like going like, who needs Batman out of the way. She's yoked, motherfucker, you got this Thowe ben Affleck over here.

JK Simmons is bending steel off to the side. Look. JK Simmons is great, but you know he's already fucking Perry White and that's all he needs to be. Not Gary Oldman. Excuse me.

J Jones Jamison, Jesus. Yeah right, you god, he is the perfect j Jonas jameson Gary Oldman, Gary Oldman, Like I think he is the perfect Commissioner Gordon. I think Gary Oldman look and his because that's the other thing. His personal problems, aside of which he has had many that resurfaced when he won his Oscar. I think Gary Oldman is a great actor, and I think that this movie is carried by two great actors because, like we've already alluded to, Chloe Webb really is probably better than Gary Oldman.

Really, I mean, oh, she definitely is. She's she's been given less opportunities to be the star actor in stuff. I mean again, Holiday inn Paramus, Like, yeah, she crazy to me that that's what I know her from. Like it is because like I, like I said before, like I had to sit and like stare at her a bunch and be like, oh okay, like I've not never seen her seen her in anything where anyone's given her any time to do anything. It was like a fucking throwaway gag in Ghostbusters too.

When I saw Ghostbusters two in the theater and she came out and we're like what he like that? And everyone in the theater turned it liketed me. That's what I was gonna ask, Like, you had to have like recognized her because this this came before that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I love when She's the only other thing I can really think of her in was Practical Magic. One of the aunts in Practical Magic.

Oh, and she was in She's My. God, You're right, Wow, aren't. Yeah, you're right, Okay, practical, I'm gonna be watching that next month. All right, that's a good movie. What are you doing?

That's a good movie. She was also in a movie that I liked when I saw it initially, and then when I rewatched it, I was like, what were you thinking? A movie called Queen's Logic. It's it's sort of like a Slice of Life, a bunch of fucking jamokes in in Queen's and like, you know, oh, it's like, oh it's oh my. God, it's got Kevin Baige in.

Is he going a Brooklyn accent? Oh? You'd better believe every just doing an accent in that movie. Linda Fiorentino, Hey, Yoe web It's just like my well she was also Chloe Webb was also in the award winning American Film Institute classic Hurt Condition, the film where Bob Hoskins plays Hoskins a cough and Denzel Washington ghost. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember, Oh geez Loie.

Yeah, she's but but you know what, like I think, like we both kind of already alluded to she's better than Gary Oldman because I think you expect less from her and she she has a lot more heavy lifting, because he's clearly having the time of his life. He may not have liked performing as Sid Vicious, but he's having a good time. My the version that they do of my Way in the movie is I think for me the scene the scene of. The movie right, pretty great, Yeah, quite good. It's another another of those moments, another of those poetical moments, because uh, you know that's that's in the movie the Great rock and Roll Swindle that his version of Byeway like that that was film for for their movie.

But you know, it certainly doesn't end with Nancy coming up those stairs and then those lights clacking off one after another. Oh my god, it's so gorgeous. Here's okay. Other beautiful moments in the movie. During the boating sequence at the end, they get back to the dock and the police are raiding the boats, and it's just a two shot of them pulling them, and it just stays on them the whole time as they slowly descend the gangplank, move across the dock, and then ascend another gangplank up onto the street, and everything around them is total motherfucking chaos, with everyone being beaten and like dragged off by the police and everyone's riding and screaming.

The police are chasing people around them. I don't like to say things like, you know, you don't have a heart if you don't like if that doesn't do it for you, But like, if that doesn't do it for you, then I don't know that I can talk on a romantic level with you, like you know, like that. It's it's just and I haven't mentioned we haven't mentioned the music for this movie. Obviously, it's Waldwall Sex Pistols and a couple of the covers like the Simigi pop covers and stuff like that, but the actual music for the movie it was written by Prey for Rain, which is a little band consisting of Abul's brother. I believe zam Under schlosses in that band.

Anytime you hear an instrumental track, well that's not true, anytime you hear this is hard because the music is credited to Pray for Rain, Joe Strummer and the Pope. Right. So when Sid Vicious does Heroin for the first time, there's a track playing that's the Pogues. That fucking gorgeous wide angle lens scene of when they're touring America for the first time, and with the bus keeps disappearing under the hills and the helicopters flying behind so gorgeous that that track is called Chinese Choppers. That's Pray for Rain.

I just want to mention how awesome Pray for Rain is as a band. Like they're completely unheralded. They only did a few soundtracks. I encourage everyone to seek them out. I'm sure you can Spotify, playlist them or something, but like all of their work is so evocative and wonderful.

And in the scene we're talking about as well, I. Love the music in the movie, I mean, and I love that they actually had Gary Oldman sing. Oh yeah, I mean he does a good job. Look, punk punk music wasn't about being able to be the most talented at singing, and so it was about the most energy that you could bring and the kind of what you're doing on stage. And I think, you know, I think Gary Oldman weerson if I said Vicious well enough, And I think the voice is close enough close your eyes.

No, I mean it's his voice, that's the thing. Like, not whiny enough, is that what it is? Of course he has a better singing voice than Sid Vicious, Like all you gotta do is listen to the end of the Goodfellas. That's the said vicious version, right, Yeah. It's yeah, yeah, I mean I was gonna say that's what ties this to one of my two to a movie that is important to me is the end of Goodfellows with My Way, which is the best version of the song as far as i'm.

Is that the best version of My Way? Yeah? Probably it is. For me. It's the version that makes the most sense because of the the juxtaposition of the punk with the fucking originally.

To be honest, I I listened to this soundtrack version more than I've ever listened to the sid vision really. Oh yeah, I mean I had the Great Talking All Swindle like It's one of the first CDs I bought. I was so excited. I went into I went into yeah, Tower Tower Records in Newbury Street in Boston. I bought The Great Rock and Roll Swindle as an import.

I was so stoked. And and I and and I got a cassette with the Bill Grundy Interview, which is they featured in the film where they cut to a clip of them on television like being interviewed, and like Steve Jones is like, you know, leaning into the camera and like swearing. That was a famous thing that happened on national television in Britain. I guess in seventy six, the Bill Grundy thing. Then I think they made an entire movie about.

That, right, Yeah, that's not surprising, like. A BBC TV movie or something like that, about the Bill Grundy interview. Starring Bob Hoskins as Sid Vicious in the role he was meant to play. Baby? Who would you cast as, said Vicious in the nineties, Like well, you know, nineties.

Yeah, like say we say we took this movie a couple of years forward, we still cast Gary Oldman. Yeah, of course, No, I don't know because by no, because like by ninety three, he's all looking fucking pretty bad man. I mean he's he's baby faced here. It works like. Yeah, he's treating himself pretty poorly.

He looked too bad to play a junkie. You know what they say, Gary Oldman. You might not have liked playing said Vicious, but you sure did live the lifestyle there for a while afterwards. So maybe it's like that Austin Butler, like his voice became Elvis thing like Gary Oldman just became said vicious for a while. I'll let him go.

No, probably said stal in me. Oh failing hate tugs at me out strings. No, you know, like the next year he's doing Restacrats and Guild and. Are you yeah, Yeah, it's so different to compare to this, like God, good Lord, anything else we want to talk about with Sid and Nancy. It's just endlessly beautiful, I mean, filmmaking wise, so much gorgeous photography in this movie, so many beautiful scenes in the movie.

The ending obviously, like that's to me. I I walked out of that theater so it elated. It was not lost on me how good I felt walking out having watched a murder suicide at the end of this movie. And maybe that's what Alex Cox is like saying, and that he fucked up the ending, like maybe he couldn't have had the taxicab to Heaven, but you know what, he did have the goddamn taxicab to Heaven and here pray for rain returns with it. That's a pray for rain track called Taxicab to Heaven.

And oh my god, I cried so fucking hard when that cat. I might do it now when he moved. When he leans into that window and she's in, there's just smiling, she's so she's so excited to see him. It's just it's kind of everything you hope the after life would be. And they don't have to say anything to one another either, which is the part that I really appreciate.

There's there's no button put on it, no. Her look to him has looked to her. That's it, Like, that's what life's all about. Right. I think by the end of it, is not on board with it.

You probably want to go watch something a little bit more pastoral, because this is not going to be your speed. So there's something that about apocalyptic love that just gets me where I live. Love in the face of everything ending is the greatest kind of love. So we keep being promised to an apocalypse and it just keeps not coming. I wish these doom sayers would get their shit together and fucking name the date already.

When you're love with this person is so kind of nuclear that it destroys everything and anything around you, you kind of don't care. It's kind of okay. That's kind of the point. It's all consuming, which you know, I get it. So Father Malone I'll give you the last word and then we'll go to ads.

In a preview for the second to last episode for September. This isn't everyone's cup of tea. I get that, and I don't expect anyone to have as important and impact on their lives as this movie had for me. All I can hope is to encourage people to see it and see romance from a different point of view. Maybe it'll resonate with like with the people it's going to resonate.

It's like we were saying about, you know, would this movie inspire somebody to go do heroin? No, probably not. But would it resonate with somebody who thinks that love can be like this and that's acceptable, Then yeah, then that will affect them, but not in any kind of negative or self destructive way like that. This movie doesn't make me want to throw my life away for love either. This movie just highlights the importance of it.

So go see said Nancy, get you on the other side of the break.