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Working links in the
members' page, text-only in the AdultCheck
version Thanks to
astute readers for catching gaps in my comments
yesterday. Writing about good singer-actor
crossovers, I forgot Mandy Patinkin, who sings
like an angel, and Richard Kiley, who did a
helluva job in Man of La Mancha.
Scoop's
thoughts on "The Last Days of Disco"
OK, I admit it, our
boomer generation is snobbish about nostalgia,
especially among us New Yorkers. We remember
riding with the Freedom Riders, smokin' dope with
Abbie Hoffman and Mark Rudd at Columbia, and the
night that Richie Havens played all night for
free in that village coffee house. We have Cuban
Missle, Woodstock, and the JFK assassination as
the great markers of our youth, and our
recollections seem to imbue these milestones with
the significance of the French Revolution or the
Renaissance, or the raising of Lazarus. (Hey,
imagine the nostalgia when those apostles got
together. Puts us to shame.)
So you can assume I'm
going to make some snobby comments about this
movie, which treats the end of the disco era, and
may include some of your most revered memories,
although I hope not. It's pretty damned hard to
see how you younger guys can feel any great
nostalgic reverence for Leo Sayer, or nights
passed in places too noisy for conversation,
wearing clothes that would be embarassing even on
the PGA tour. Put those mirror balls, away, boys.
Rick Dees and Disco Lucy are just a faint memory.
But I'd probably like
the movie a lot better if it got the period
details correct, or if something happened. My
personal favorite aspect is the fact that our
protagonists actually hold down their pseudo-wise
conversations in discos, sitting in relaxed
poses, and speaking in normal tones of voice. In
real life, most of the time those conversations
consisted of "WHAT? You own a Buffalo? You
have a Buffalo nickel? Oh, you LIVE in
Buffalo!" This did have its advantages, in
that you had to stick your mouth in a girl's ear
in order for her to hear you without any
shouting. The downside is that you also had to do
this to speak to guys that looked like Harry Dean
Stanton with more ear-hair. So here's a tip for
you youngsters. If you are going to make
"The Days Immediately After the Last Days of
Disco", remember that your characters can go
to discos, but the actual conversations will have
to take place later, in quieter places.
Also, if you are busy
working on that script, do not crib wise quotes
from the characters in Charles Schultz's
"Peanuts". That's where they got all
the dialogue in the first film. Perhaps you might
try Bloom County instead for the sequel.
The movie was supposed
to be about smart folks having witty
conversations. Unfortunately, the authors never
actually met any smart folks or heard anything
witty, so the dialogue in this movie makes an
episode of "She's the Sheriff" seem in
comparison to be as erudite as Proust's
"Remembrance of Things Past". Pretty
much all reviewers agreed that the dialogue was
dopey and self-absorbed, but some critics claimed
that it showed a masterful ear, and was a
marvelous parody of those dopey self-absorbed
times. OK, maybe. Ebert sure knows a helluva lot
more about movies than I do, and he's usually
right about these things, but I just don't want
to listen to two hours of dopey, self-absorbed
dialogue, whether it is intended as realism, or
parody. Neither interpretation makes it any less
dopey. Maybe this is brilliant parody if you
actually knew the characters in the writers' life
upon whom these characters are based. You might
say to yourself, "whoa, he really got ol'
Crockett Tubbs down pat". But I assume not
that many of you guys knew ol' Crockett.
Personally, I'm planning to write a parody of a
guy I got paired with once when I went to the
golf course by myself. Whoa, what a character
that guy was. He did this thing when he talked,
and he always said "that'll be handy",
and I think he sold insurance or something. Oh,
what a character. Man, I'll love that movie.
Well, the rest of you won't get it. You had to be
there.
Here's the plot of
"Last Days": the characters say stuff
to each other. The girls appear to be Stepford
Babes, delivering lines in monotones, without any
emotion. The guys are creepy, sex-seeking
narcissists who undoubtedly still buy the new
issues of Silver Surfer every month, in order to
complete the formation of their personal
philosophies. They say some more stuff to each
other at the club. One of the guys pairs off with
the virginal girl. She gets laid and, gosh darn
it all, gets VD in her very first try. Drat the
luck. This requires them to say some more stuff
until the credits start to roll. Near the end
they say some stuff like "this disco era
seems to be ending. I've never been part of
something ending before". That's how you
know the credits are near.
Well, they left plenty
of room for a sequel.
"The
Last Days of Disco" from Tuna
The Last Days of Disco
(1998) is a homage to a period that, thankfully,
died in 1980. When reading my comments, keep in
mind that I think of Disco Music and Disco
Dancing as oxymorons. The film is about a group
of Yuppies who interact in an exclusive Disco run
by criminals. All of them are shallow,
pretentious, self-serving pseudo-intellectuals
who seem to have two agendas with regard to their
peers -- have sex with them, or put them down
viciously. Not much happens in the film other
than insipid conversation about such important
things as Lady and the Tramp as an establishment
tool to teach women to be subservient to men.
Yes, we do get to follow the investigation of the
Disco club for tax evasion, and the eventual
raid, which shuts the club down a few weeks
before the death of Disco would have anyway, but
that was hardly enough to sustain 112 minutes.
The highlight for me was a touch of irony, when
the least obnoxious character lost her virginity
at her friend's suggestion, and got herpes and
the clap in the process. Every single character
was shallow, the boring conversations that are
supposedly the highlight of the film could never
have happened in a noisy disco.
I always watch a film
and form my own opinions before reading reviews
and comments from others. I was amazed when I
started looking at comments and reviews to find
that most people loved this film. I can
understand a certain nostalgia for yuppies who
lived the Disco era, but wondered if I had simply
missed something about this film. Then I found
Scoops review from two years ago, and discovered
that he found the film as devoid of merit as I
did.
Nevertheless, I produced
6 images of Jaid Barrymore showing the only
exposure in the film. I have not seen 1 and 2
done before. Note that the images on the top are
clearly not Jaid, but rather the main actresses
in the film. At least they provide a little
decoration,
Thumbnails
Jaid Barrymore (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
"Strangeland"
from Tuna
Strangeland has a
wopping 3.9 user rating at IMDB, with over 25% of
those voting giving it a 1. It is basically a
tired horror film with a familiar plot. Captain
Howdy (Dee Snyder, who also wrote and directed)
uses AOL chat to find young people, and invites
them to a party. His idea of a party is
mutilation, piercing, rape and torture. His
personal favorite seems to be sewing mouths shut.
When he kidnaps a police detectives daughter, the
(typically) stupid cops arrest him, and the trial
results in his being found not guilty by reason
of insanity. Four years later, he is freed to
start another party.
While I also think it
was a pretty bad film, I have to admit that Dee
Snyder was believable as the sick and very bent
Captain Howdy. A better picture could have been
made with the same characters, and a little more
acting talent in supporting roles.
Thumbnails
Leslie Wing (1,
2)
Xanthe Cook (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
New
from Graphic Response
Glynnis O'Connor,
"California Dreaming" Kelly Preston,
"Spellbinder" Keri Russell, "8 Days a
Week" Kim Cattrall, "Sex and the
City" Rachel Griffiths, "Among
Giants"
In addition to the
pictures that go with these daily member's
bonuses every day, the subscription area now has
two years' worth of back issues of the Fun House,
plus the rasslin' babes site, the fakes, the Fun
House, the Encyclopedia, and the Mardi Gras pics.
Click here to sign up or get info
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