Pistols or how I stopped worrying about The Boyle

 I love The Sex Pistols. They didn’t leave me with a lot to love but I love them all the same. 

And while I can’t go back in time and prevent them from firing Glenn or stopping Malcolm from mucking everything up. In truth everything about their decisions and lifestyles frustrate and anger me, I do love the Sex Pistols!

When I heard they were doing a FX mini series about punk rocks first prefab boy band I was both excited and repulsed. Eventually repulsion won and I decided I wasn’t gonna watch it! As aware as I was of the contrived origins of the outfit I felt like primetime Sex Pistols was in an afront on everything that WAS Sex Pistols!

Then I heard the series was going to be based on Steve Jones autobiographical recounting of his calamitous youth and punk rock experience titled “lonely boy” I was back on the barge and ready to scream God saves the queen as we sailed past Buckingham palace.

But then…

  …… Then ……

………  Danny Boyle…

…… I was off the barge

My introduction to boil (yes I did that on purpose) was his incredible thriller, 1994‘s Shallow Grave. I loved this movie! SG was a huge antithesis to the flash and garnish that was everything else that was going on in 90s low budget filmmaking. 

BOIL followed this up with “Trainspotting”, A film that was 100% in step with everything that was going on in 90s low budget filmmaking, but was somehow even more fucking obnoxious! 

That wasn’t enough to make me hate him.  

what really got my goat, what turned him to “Danny Boil” was his press tour for 2002’s “28 Days Later”. I saw the film without hearing Danny boy say a word about it, In fact I didn’t even know it was his film until Tiny wight and I were in the theater and his name flashed across the screen like a giant flickering middle finger. I was so turned off by Trainspotting that I had to consider if I wanted to take my popcorn and go home. 

But he did make “shallow grave” maybe this was more of that and Less obnoxious.

And it was. I Really like 28 days later and while it was not without its cliché zombie stuff it brought way more Originality to the table then picked at the left overs Romero and Fulchi’s stew.  In retrospect can be blamed for a lot of Awful that came after…. Apocalyptic cinema copied a lot of its bad habits , I mean it was definitely the Faith no more “Angel dust” to obnoxious Nu metal or perhaps more on brand the shitty unwieldy Quentin Tarantino Robert Rodriguez clones that came in the wake of “Reservoir Dogs” and “Desperado”.

The film is undeniably great and still holds up today, and is better than 90% of its impersonators and 100% of its plagiarizers. 

I was happy.

Then I picked up The most recent Fangoria.

I won’t bother quoting him because if I go search for quotes and read said quotes I’ll  be more angry than I am now (and thinking of this makes me pretty fucking angry)

he said, in some semblance of pretentious rhetoric that 28 days later was NOT a horror movie.

That the movie about people getting a strange infection and tearing other people apart like rabid dogs wasn’t a horror movie.

Shortly after that I would see him on a video magazine show and he reiterated as much. 

That’s  when my blood began to… wait for it… BOIL!! 

The way he said horror movie was full of hate and distain. He said it like a racist or homophobe would say a slur. I wanted to fucking brawl with him. I wanted him to gather five of his pretentious friends and rumble with The deadites! I hated the way this man talked about horror. I hated him. From that point on anything else I saw of his was by accident but for the most part it was full of the same overproduction as Trainspotting. His visual style constantly infringed upon the storytelling as if he had to be the most important thing and he wouldn’t allow his characters or his stories to live without a constant reminder of his existence. Flashy British God hanging ugly garish Fashion I on to stories of The real and downtrodden. He was in a lot of ways the Malcolm of his own product. Refused to let it rest on a song it had to be The Danny Boil show! 

“ take these huge expensive sounds and wrap them in these rags I found” - The other Dickinson

Anyway… What the heck was I talking about.. oh yeah the sex pistols. So between the overly good looking presss photos and the announcement the project was going to be helmed by “Mr. pretentious overwrought dummy dummy jerk face” I was out.

But that’s when fate intervened, and when I say fate I mean my special lady friend. When left my own devices I would watch “Predator” over and over again only ever stopping To watch a documentary about Predator or YouTube video essays about obscure cult cinema or Japanese wrestling. “L” as she will be henceforth refer to in this blog is a normal person who likes normal people stuff.

“ what do you think about watching that Sex Pistols show”

I dug my heels in the sand. All my hate for Danny Boil all my love for the sex pistols tose to the surface like a burning bile at the back of my throat. This could be a betrayal of every little bit of my punk rock credibility. The artistic integrity Johnny liedan police could come to my house and yell at me and he would be 100,000,000% justified. I took a deep breath looked into her beautiful in unknowing blue eyes and said

“ that sounds great”

I did give her the Cliff notes version of how I felt about the filmmaker and question and the band under the microscope. In truth if I really didn’t wanna watch it she wouldn’t of forced me I decided to try my hand at being a good boyfriend and a normal human being.

*Let this be a lesson to you lads when you are absolutely positively not “punching your own weight” you let your super cool way too pretty to be hanging out with you special lady friend watch whatever she wants. *

…… so what was I talking about? Oh yeah the sex pistols show!

(Sorry)

 

Pistols is a great show. In fact I think I liked it way more than The beautiful lady who got me to watch it in the first place did. 

What better director to tell the story of one of the most obnoxious schemes ever hoisted on an unsuspecting Music going audience than the person who had been telling glitter laced stories of cinematic poppers and LSD Laiden glorification of the worst people have to offer. 

*Editors note*

*If I’m being honest I’ve only seen at this point a few of his films it’s the duel distaste of Trainspotting mixed with the super sour gulp of his outright distain for my favorite genre. So if you find my opinions or descriptions of his filmography in accurate it very well maybe but ugly is every bit in the eye of the beholder as beauty is and up in to recently I would’ve died on the I hate DB Hill *

*Editors note 2*

It’s probably obvious by reading this and anything else I’ve ever written that there is no editor I just think “editors note” is a cool thing to say

Sooo?? Oh yes..

Taking us from the bands creation to destruction “pistols” Manages to balance style and substance in a perfect smorgasbord of filth and fury humans and icons. Mr. BOILS Worst habits are used in the best way. His art school pretensions and visual asides only complement the totally over-the-top and meticulously orchestrated chaos that was the short but infinitely important legacy of one of the greatest musical acts of all time. Whether or not any of What’s shown is TRUE is up for debate, but much like the pistols themselves, never let boring truth get in the way of a great legend.

I knew old DB had me at the third episode, when A pre-credit scene of British model and Vivienne Westwood Devotie Pamela Rooke walks down a darkened hall bowlegged, her high heels failing her under the weight of The television she carries towards an open window. On the flickering burden Rick Wakeman obnoxiously drolling all the way on some grandiose and unnecessary Solo….

*Editors note 3*

*I love Wakeman and I especially love yes I’m just being an edge lord.…sorry*

…. This aside is intercut with a famous riot the pistols caused during their first show. Rooke arrives at the window She releases it as we jump back-and-forth with visions of spiting and thrown punches. The television Falls un plugged but still playing The prog gods never ending sermon. The TV finally hits the wet street smashing into pieces signaling the explosive change that has just over took the music industry.

It is fucking beautiful and I cried.

You son of a bitch Danny Boyle you’ve won me over. 

      (Don’t   Gloat you  cheeky bastard)

Every little bit of pistols nuance is covered, at least everything I was honestly interested in.

Almost every character throughout their light speed ascension towards their hair dyed apocalypse had at least has a cameo.

The most important being Chrissy Hines. Portrayed to perfection by Sydney Chandle, Hines is Alice  in wonderland. Having a front row seat to the tornado of addiction, mental illness and talent that is The story of Steve Jones and his equally broken and even more talented associates. Chandle is so good and so real her character immediately pulls each of these mad hatters up and out of the rabbit hole transforming them into real life human beings, and in most cases broken children.

A lot of these performances especially those of Sid and Nancy could easily roll into parody if transformed onto  on a different Canvas, but boil gives these big personalities the perfect backdrop to be every bit is ridiculous and punk rock royalty as they are.

The last episode is incredible. The beautiful surreal interaction of rotten and Jones. 

The pretenders begin in their own journey which represents Our proxy in this bizarre story safely from removed from the fire of the final days of the UK is most notorious entertainers. This crazy is this episode and the band meetings brawls and deaths of the characters are in this last act it’s somehow way more real than the real life Beatles documentary Disney+ dropped this year. Somehow Danny boil managed to create an alien world of London in the 70s that was probably more fantasy and reality but the construction of this kingdom was important because it was that very mystical level of importance that crushed five young British boys and in their distraction made them rock royalty. 

This  Final episode does so much perfectly blending everything I love about the quietness of Danny Boyle and everything I hate about his bombastic flourishes into something new that I absolutely adore. 

This show is great. And while it’s to bodacious of a tale to not have it missteps Every part of the production managers to quickly recover from the small disasters much in the same way the actual people did until they didn’t anyway. As outrageous is everything is it’s also very real in its ending. As the dream in the glamour wash away the survivors are just as lonely and just as broken as they were on the start with their journey. Is this the story of someone who used a group of gullible lads who intentionally destroyed them when they got bigger than him and his aspirations for them or is it the story of a group of young people that became friends despite the machinations of higher powers.. yea.. it’s both. It’s great.

Somehow this small review I sat down to write turned into a bit of therapy and turned into a bit of an apology to a filmmaker that I had long held a grudge against. Maybe that garage was warranted or maybe we both just grew up but I loved this show I’m glad I watched it and I think you should too. That said it’s not for everybody you don’t have to be a pistols or even a punk rock fan to enjoy it but it’s definitely a Russian nesting doll of triggers inside of triggers. There’s a lot of ugly in the story of the sex pistols but there’s also a lot to learn.