SID: THE FINAL CURTAIN /
NIGHTCLUBBING: THE BIRTH OF PUNK ROCK
IN NYC (Chip Baker Films)
LEEDS & TORONTO CINEMA SHOWINGS
City Varieties Music Hall, Leeds, UK, 12th August 2022
Rich Lawson reports: I
have seen this pairing in the last few weeks in England and would like
to submit an alternative review. I went to see these films at a picture
night at City Varieties Music Hall, yes ,the one that used to host
'The Good Old Days' which is quite ironic in itself. Lovely venue with
beautiful original fittings in places and thankfully, a bar. Sparse
audience, about 80-100 at most.
Proceedings start with a
variety of trailers for various remotely connected music shorts by the
same producers. One is going on longer and seems to have mostly old
Sid/Nancy footage we have seen many times before. When they show some
New York gig footage I'm thinking this is going to duplicate 'The Final
Curtain'. It dawns on me that they have slipped the ''film'' in without
any proper titles!
I was concerned that this film would only
last 20 minutes but thought we might get a full number or some unseen
footage. It's a cut and paste job, most of the people involved are dead
(''These are people who died''). Why did they not try to get an
interview with Mick Jones from The Clash who knew Sid well and played
one of these shows?
Nightclubbing is mostly about Max's Kansas
City. There's not enough band footage and too many people of no real
concern giving their opinions. It just goes back and forth with no real
chronology. I don't know when his interview was shot but Alice Cooper
looks great for his age and is both amusing and insightful. Billy Idol
puts in a few appearances and is also funny (mostly because he looks
and sounds like his own 'Spitting Image' puppet). Some good footage of
Wayne County I had not seen before is counter pointed by a bloated
Jayne County in a ludicrous orange wig, apparently bed ridden and
rambling on about Warhol.
Overall a disappointing night. I'm
not sure there is a cinema audience for him any more, but if someone
was to make a proper documentary about all aspects of the Sid story I
think it would have to be Julien Temple who knew him, is a professional
director and perhaps is sitting on a great deal of unseen footage from
the era.
Paradise
Theatre, Toronto, ON, Canada, 15th August 2022
Andrew McIvor reports:
This was in a nice Art Deco renovated cinema of about 200 seats; the sound
quality was excellent. I thought
the Sid documentary would be 20 minutes of Sid Vicious at Max's but
it's very limited
footage of Sid, slowed down and not always matching the sound. Very
little has not appeared or been seen before.
The
Max's Kansas City documentary had lots of cameos. Jayne County steals
the show, and Billy Idol is quite good.
Overall
worth seeing.
Special thanks to Andrew
McIvor for the pictures used in this feature.
Although every
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as possible, errors may have occurred. Please
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additions and/or corrections. Errors that may have occurred will make it
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Rich Lawson reports
