BEFORE: Moving from jazz clubs to a film about a very famous NYC nightclub. Linking from "Mo' Better Blues", Samuel L. Jackson was also in "Changing Lanes" with Ben Affleck, who was in "Dogma" with Salma Hayek (last seen in "Grown Ups"), who also gets a Birthday SHOUT-out tonight.
THE PLOT: Famous 70's NYC nightclub seen through the eyes of a young employee.
AFTER: This was the film I had to buy at the $5 DVD store, to make my chain work. I think I might have paid too much.
You'd think that a film about a NYC club in the disco era, with all the sex, drugs and music of that era would be exciting, or at least tittilating, but nope - they found a way to make it boring.
I don't think it's a coincidence that this film was released a year after "Boogie Nights", at the height (?) of 70's nostalgia - these things tend to run about 25 or years back, as adults fondly (?) remember their youth. But the film really seemed afraid to be shocking. What do we learn, that people did drugs in the 70's? That actresses and singers sometimes slept with the right people to become famous? None of this is really groundbreaking.
Now, Rubell seems like an interesting character, a nightclub owner who's making a ton of money, catering to the top celebrities, and treating the (mostly male) staff like his own personal playthings. But the movie chickens out and only allows the sexual harassment to go so far. I guess audiences in 1998 still weren't ready for "Brokeback Mountain"-type plots.
And in 1998, movies were STILL using those spinning newspaper headlines to set the scenes? God, that film cliché goes back how far - to the 1930's? Is this really the best way to tell a story? Or is it just the easiest way to reveal information that they weren't able to film?
NITPICK POINT: The film claims that Steve Rubell had the registers at Studio 54 emptied halfway through the night, and that money was secreted out of the club in a garbage bag, and therefore was off the books. The whole point was that the money wasn't counted - so how did he know it was short?
Also starring Ryan Philippe (last seen in "Flags of Our Fathers"), Mike Myers (last seen in "Inglourious Basterds"), Breckin Meyer, Neve Campbell, Sela Ward (last seen in "My Fellow Americans"), Heather Matarazzo, with cameos from Thelma Houston, Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "Date Night"), Lauren Hutton, Michael York, Cindy Crawford, Art Garfunkel, Valerie Perrine (last seen in "The Electric Horseman"), Donald Trump.
RATING: 2 out of 10 capuccinos
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