Plot: What’s it about?
The movie starts out in 1979 and finishes a couple of years into the 80’s. This movie is about a young man from Jersey, Shane, (Ryan Philleppe) who is tired of the same old clubs in Jersey and wants to venture across to Manhattan to Studio 54 where all the stars go. He talks his two friends into going one night and in order to get into the club you have to be on the list or be hand picked by the owner Steve Rubell himself. (Mike Meyers) That night Shane is only let into the club and his friends are shot down at the door. While inside Shane gets a taste of the decadence first hand. This club was famous for not having any boundaries once inside of course. In the movie you can see that there was plenty of everything anything that you wanted. Whether it be sex, drugs, men or women, it was all there for the taking.
Shane was living at home with his father and his two younger sisters in Jersey. He got hired on as a bus boy at 54 and on his first night at work made friends with another bus boy Greg (Breckin Meyer) and his wife Anita. (Salma Hayek) He later would move in with Greg and Anita at their apartment in New York. Greg was trying to be a bartender because they made the real money in 54 and the only way it seemed to be a bus boy was to do sexual favors for Steve Rubell. When the next bartender job opened up it went to Shane. The popularity and money got to Shane’s head and he started to do drugs and sleep with any girl he could. Tension started to build with Greg and Shane as Shane’s ego seemed to be getting bigger and he Greg noticed Shane was around Anita a lot. Shane met a young actress at 54, Julie Black, (Neve Campbell) who he had admired before he made it inside 54. She was actually the reason why he wanted to go to 54 in the first place. They hit it off when they met outside of the club one day. Shane decided to get his life on track and kick his drug and sexual habits.
This movie was better than what I have heard. Maybe I wasn’t expecting much and it actually was bad, but I enjoyed it none the less. This movie is worth seeing once if you enjoy the old boogie days of that era. It had an occasional laugh now and then and the language and sex was not on overkill. You got the idea for that time what was going on in the club and that this was the club to be seen at. It was cool to see the actual pictures of the stars that were taken at the real Studio 54 back when it was open. The acting was fairly good, but Mike Meyers stood out above the rest in this one.
Video: How does it look?
This is a basic 1.85:1 letterbox only movie with no 16:9 enhancement. The picture quality was good and I didn’t notice any flaws that stood out in the picture. Most of the movie was filmed inside and the lighting was dim, but the picture didn’t suffer from the lack of light. The picture looked good form beginning to end.
Audio: How does it sound?
The forward sound stage of this soundtrack was pretty good, but I was a bit surprised that the rear speakers didn’t get any attention. They seemed to have a good opportunity to add to the soundtrack with the club atmosphere by adding some ambiance to the rear speakers, but they failed do get you into the club with the audio part of the movie. The music seemed alive in the front three speakers and the subwoofer got some work, but never stood out. A decent soundtrack, but it should have been better.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Well what can I say? All you get here is a video from the Stars on 45 for the song “If You Could Read My Mind.” I think Disney should have at least added the basic Cast and Crew bio, but that is not the case here.
