cult films

a film about the career of the notorious punk rock band, the sex pistols.

dir.: julien temple
documentary / biography / music
2000

the 1st movie j.temple made about the sex pistols was the great rock and roll swindle, which was released in british cinemas on 1980. this earlier effort was heavily criticised for being too skewed towards the pistols’ manager malcolm mclaren’s version of events about the band. “the filth and the fury” tells the story from the viewpoint of the band members themselves (albeit in silhouette during their contemporary interviews).

the title of the film is a reference to a headline that appeared in the british tabloid newspaper the daily mirror after an interview on itv’s today presented by bill grundy. the title of the daily mirror article was itself inspired by william faulkner’s novel the sound and the fury.

it shows the rise, decline and fall of the sex pistols from their humble beginnings in london’s shepherd’s bush to their disintegration at the winterland ballroom in san francisco. temple puts the band into historical context with britain’s social situation in the 1970s through archival footage from the period. this film was seen in some ways as an opportunity for the pistols to tell their side of the story, mostly through interviews with the surviving members of the group, footage shot during the era, and outtakes from the great rock and roll swindle.

+: imdb / wikipedia
+: read / watch an excerpt from the incident with bill grundy (yes, that blonde one is siouxsie sioux)

unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly jewish jewelers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.

dir.: guy ritchie
crime / thriller
2000
jason stratham / benicio del toro / brad pitt 

facts:
- nearly every death in the movie takes place off-screen. body count: 26.
- every mistake that sol, vincent and tyrone make were inspired by various late-night tv shows about real-life crimes gone horribly wrong.
- the word fuck is said 163 times.
- the producers couldn’t afford enough extras for the boxing match sequences. whenever a camera angle changed, the extras had to move around to create an impression of a crowded house.
- the film’s title only appears once throughout the entire movie, where vinny tells the dog: don’t snatch! as it takes the squeaky toy.
- when mickey wins a new trailer van for his mother from turkish, he specifically picks out periwinkle blue as the color. in hitchcock’s psyco (1960), we are told that norman bates helped to pick out a periwinkle blue dress for his dead mother.