30 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
30 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
to sum the entire film " 54 " up in one sentence , it would be : watch a vh1 documentary instead .
|
|
" 54 " , seems like someone brought william faulkner into 1978 , brought him into studio 54 , got him really drunk , told him to write about it , and then dumbed that down to be released to the public .
|
|
a sloppy version of almost stream of conciousness spirals down into an oblivion of the illusion of sex , drugs , and disco .
|
|
the narrator , shane o'shae ( ryan phillippe ) , works as a grease monkey in new jersey who , of course , on a whim decides to go into new york and try to get into studio " 54 " .
|
|
phillippe gives a passable performance which could have been made by any young , attractive actor with a six pack stomach .
|
|
he is let in by steve rubbell ( mike myers ) , the infamous co-owner of studio 54 , because he is attractive .
|
|
he eventually becomes a bus boy and then a bartender .
|
|
.
|
|
.
|
|
you expected more , didn't you .
|
|
there isn't .
|
|
the film builds up from nothing and becomes nothing as it's climax ( isn't that an apt word for studio 54 ) lands with a thud .
|
|
the glitz of the club and perpetually semi-clothed patrons are used in an to attempt to show the it's glamour .
|
|
for much of its target audience , college age to early thirties , it attempts to show celebrities mixing with " normal people . "
|
|
this even fails since the only two celebs truly introduced are andy warhol and truman capote .
|
|
you can be sure that half of the audience hasn't heard of them , another quarter only know their names , and the other quarter knew they were there already .
|
|
the humor , if you can call it that , is built on an eighty year old woman getting high and 70s references like john travolta and olivia newton john making us laugh at how stupid we were back then
|
|
the best performance in the film is given by mike myers as the perpetually high , sexually ambivlaent , very new york steve rubell .
|
|
he seems to play rubell better than rubell would if he was still alive .
|
|
he looks like rubell and sounds just like him while giving a subdued , almost nostalgic performance , when needed .
|
|
it reminds you of his saturday night live character linda richmond on " coffee talk " sans dress and wig .
|
|
the supporting cast of salma hayek , breckin meyer , and neve cambell are their only there to give added subplots which are introduced but lead absolutely nowhere .
|
|
the romance between phillippe and cambell , as a soap opera star , is completely implausable .
|
|
the two share about half as much screen time as there are shots of the eighty year old hooked on amphetimenes .
|
|
hayek's wanna-be singer seems extremely forced and her husband , greg ( meyer ) stands in as shane o'shae's surrogate best friend .
|
|
the subplots seemed forced and seem like they have been added just to make sure the film was over an hour and a half long .
|
|
overall , " 54 " tried to give a view of the brashness of the place where crack flowed like heroin which flowed like wine .
|
|
the film never leads to anything , has no obserable point , and covers up a lack of real plot with a veil of beautiful people .
|
|
in truth , that reminded me of the eighies .
|