Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

lasttimeisaw USA conversationalist Whit Stillman's third feature, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO trades on his personal experiences of NYC's disco-scene (salted with Harvard-disparaging quips) in the early 80s, ebulliently scrutinizing a coterie of freshly out-of-college yuppie-wannabes, who are habitually congregated in their common haunt, an unconscionably popular nightstand, meantime, their love life and career path wax and wane variably, signposted by its title when their disco days are unexpectedly being put paid to, time to grown up when reality bites. Alice (Sevigny), a self-contained sylph dithering about making the right decisions - don't be judgmental, be sexy, always at the bidding of her more popular but stuck-up friend Charlotte (a fresh-faced Beckinsale, looking ghastly under the slap), both girls work in the same publishing house and mingle with the likes of Tom (Leonard), a spiffy environmental lawyer, Jimmy (Astin), an enterprising adman, No.1 and No.2 prospects on Alice's infatuation list, then there are Josh (Keeslar), a young assistant district attorney and Des (Eigeman), a college-dropout who becomes one of the managers of the said nightclub, both take a fancy on the quiet but intelligent Alice.Gender study and sex politics are thrown into the mix where philandering and mendacity (using "gay excuse" to break off relationships), gender double standards (you are a titillating slut, I will not forfeit our chance of a one-night-stand, but afterwards, we are finished.), treacherous friendship (Beckingsale is totally in her wheelhouse as the paradigm of the so called "green tea bitch", avant la lettre), even venereal disease, collectively roil the dynamism of their pairing-off games, to somewhat wacky but consistently buoyant vibes, however, a byplay relative of an undercover police investigation is only patchily introduced as a frivolous plot device, fails to emphasize what is at stake, and the manic-depressive Josh, accorded with a forthright quirkiness and spontaneous elocution, potentially the most fascinating character among the posse, is wasted by the wooden, stilted performance from the blandly handsome Keeslar, whose recapitulation of the film's tenor near the finish-line comes off as a deleterious overkill.However, club-scene hasn't died out, has been continuing luring new generations of hipsters and scenesters with theme-specific variations to this day, over three decades later, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is, to each their own, a sparkling eulogy of Whitman's own youthful abandon and disillusion, and on a sociological level, a zeitgeist-reflecting conversation piece that thankfully doesn't belie its maker's undue conceit and guile.

SnoopyStyle It's the very early 80s in NYC. Alice Kinnon (Chloë Sevigny) and Charlotte Pingress (Kate Beckinsale) are recent graduates working at a publishing house as low pay readers. Dan Powers (Matt Ross) is their annoying co-worker and Holly (Tara Subkoff) is their quiet roommate. Jimmy Steinway (Mackenzie Astin) tries to bring his elderly client into the club. His club manager friend Des McGrath (Chris Eigeman) throws him out. Tom Platt (Robert Sean Leonard) is a charming environmental lawyer who gets together with Alice. They and others spend the nights in and out of the disco club.The cast of characters is a bit too large. I wish Whit Stillman could trim a few out of the group. Alice and Charlotte are quite a pair. They're not real friends but rather opposites stuck together. Their relationship is fascinating. There are fun bits coming from Charlotte like Des' gay mouth. Chris Eigeman continues to be the best of the Stillman disciples. Dan is probably a necessary evil. I would like this movie more if the membership in the group is more stable and restricted to fewer people.

sandover I do not mean it as an aesthetic judgement, just a sort of an essay in translating in logical terms the hard to pin down effect it had on me, for all the shallow characters on display, it is affectively rich.It is a film difficult and at the same time deceptively simple to summarize - the only way I feel I can do it is pin down the tone as I see it: Chloe Sevigny plays Alice who is not in Wonderland or Oz (even if the occasional characters appear in Discoland) but actually seems more like Voltaire's Candide, candid even when confronted with her "best friend"'s common, constant, bitchy smugness, who in fact turns into some kind of likable caricature in the end, likable that is when you think she is some kind of irony's scapegoat: she simply HAS to end up in TV, that is the crippled purgatory she deserves.Along with Alice, Josh (Matt Keeslar) has his Candide moment in the end, as outsider spokesman for the disco era: I do not think Stillman is ironic here - and the reason why is that in the comedy of human flaws Stillman wants to present us, we get our ironic portion of that in Chekhovian levity, so I do not think that anyone would end up something in a flat note.The film ends in a lively manner that is also nostalgic and shorthand, that is affectionately shorthand as, one supposes, all Stillman's films are. How can it be otherwise? Here he offers us - could we call it a vision? - Candide (in his simple, clear morality) in a Chekhovian play keeping time in Bret Easton Ellis' era. It can't equate into more than zero, but it warps itself out unbalancing that 80's nothing, proving in a blink of an eye the famous less is more.

Rodrigo Amaro The plausible reason the Disco's gone in the 1980's, the period portrayed in the movie, was that people needed something different, something that would define a new era with new songs, new groups of people and many other things. Disco was becoming an corny attitude in the 1980's. Now we're entering in the movie. The reason given by the writer and director (this is my opinion based on the way I saw what was showed on the screen) Whit Stillman why Disco was through is that everybody focused on their work, they didn't have much time to go party, to dance and everybody's frustrated in their relationships (sexual relations and/or not helpful friends). Here we met all sort of characters, liars, arrogant, stressed, non trustful at all, but lacked one to make this movie nicer: the likable character. Where's it? Where was it? Why a friendly and nice, she or he, didn't appear in the whole movie? I didn't liked any of the characters and even the one I liked it in the beginning, turn out be a jerk.The ensemble cast is overwhelming. Chlöe Sevigny ("Boys Don't Cry"), Kate Beckinsale ("The Aviator"), Mackenzie Astin ("The Evening Star"), Robert Sean Leonard ("Dead Poets Society"), David Thornton ("Alpha Dog"), Matt Keeslar ("Splendor"), Chris Eigeman (I didn't remembered any other work with him but he's got a tremendous job in this movie), Matt Ross ("American Psycho") and Jennifer Beals ("Flashdance"). But none of them has a likable character. It's almost impossible to relate to one of them. The story itself was boring. People come and go out of the blue and their motivations on doing things are unfunny, ruthless and without a single care to bring the audience to the experience. The female characters are completely dead inside, talk to much and overreact to a simple touch of a stranger, or look into someone in the eyes and make an character judgment simply calling him as gay or non trustful. The ideological aspects in this sad movie doesn't work. If we're watching a movie that the main plot is to tell about the last days of disco why we're seeing people who aren't having fun, aren't dancing (dance in this movie was not convincing) and their only preoccupation is how to pay the rent? Only the discussion between "The Lady and The Tramp" was effective and kind of funny. I'm giving 5 stars to it because it was not a case of bad acting, and not even bad directing. The songs played in the movie are quite good but it lacked joyful moments where it could be played in a memorable way. The main problem is an story with no positive characters. In the middle of "The Last Days of Disco" there's a conversation between Kate and Chlöe and one of their bosses about how to make a best-seller's book. And the response of their boss is partially right and the writer of this movie should have thought about it and include some nice characters in it. Then this would be a hit! 5/10