Who Killed Nancy? (2009) and The Real Inglorious Bastards (2012)

Who Killed Nancy? (2009) – The question of who killed Nancy Spungen, the girlfriend of punk icon Sid Vicious is examined in the context of the punk rock scene of the 1970s.

 Why I Liked It – An insider look at the punk rock scene of the ’70s through the life and death of an icon and his girlfriend.

Let me be straight up here, the movie title should be “It Wasn’t Sid”.  Whether or not the NYPD did an appropriate investigation of the death is a legitimate question.  Nancy was found dead in the bathroom of a hotel room where Sid was passed out on the bed.  There are questions here.  Sid was a hardcore junkie, who took a handful (or more) of drugs the night of her death.  The problem is that the movie offers no solution and no particular insights into what might have happened.  Most of the screen time is devoted to the story of Sid and Nancy and making sure the viewer knows that no one really liked Nancy.  I’ll give the director credit for not playing into the Sid/Nancy relationship as doomed romance a la Romeo and Juliet.  Two people with serious personal issues who found a companion on their way down the path to destruction.

The movie is long on style, but short on facts.  There is an unknown suspect who doesn’t appear until the final ten minutes of the movie. The title question is never answered, nor is an answer even attempted.  But everyone in the movie wants the audience to know three things – Sid was great, Nancy was awful, and Sid didn’t kill her.  Call it a post mortem PR piece.

An interesting look at the two principal characters, but the title is total clickbait.  The rock and roll history aspect pushes the move just over the line on the rating.

Rating – *** Worth A Look

The Real Inglorious Bastards (2012)  – The true story of OSS agents dropped into the Austrian Alps during WWII.  Their operation resulted in the bloodless surrender of the Tyrol region.

Directed by Min Sook Lee

Why I Liked It –  The segments with the original members of the team are worth the time to watch all by themselves.

Have to be honest, I did not like Quentin Tarrantino’s movie of this title.  It is all of his worst directorial habits lumped together and thrust into the spotlight.  Take Christoph Waitz out of the movie and it leaves nothing I’d recommend.  So I approached this documentary cautiously.  As is usually the case, actual history isn’t as exciting but can be far more complex.  A group of Jewish operatives with the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the CIA) were asked to go on a mission that offered a massive reward, but with little chance of success.  Go behind German lines to bring down the powerful Nazi leader in the region.  The challenges these real heroes faced and the historic victory they achieved are far more dramatic than the nonsense “alternative history” version of Tarrantino.

This one is not without flaws.  I continue to be amazed at how often the audio portion of any media is clearly an afterthought.  The mix of parts of the narration are awful.  The narration overall is dull and adds little to the experience after the dry recitation of the facts.

But what makes the movie shine are the moments when the last surviving members of the group are on the screen.  Decades later, they remain vibrant and clear-eyed about what they had been asked to do, and what they accomplished.  These are what heroes look like.

Rating – *** Worth A Look