The last days of disco how to#
The last days of disco movie#

What once was fresh, now is stale - the same humour, the same conversations, the same suits-and-ties, the same Chris Eigeman (he of the startled eyes), the same intonation, the same been-there-blown-that attitude. Although billed as the third in a trilogy, the fact is Stillman's stuck in a groove. When not exercising debating skills on the subversive nature of The Lady And The Tramp, they discuss the social implications of 'yuppie scum' and whether it's a bad thing.įirst there was Metropolitan (debs and escorts in Manhattan), then Barcelona (same crowd in Europe) and now The Last Days Of Disco (Hampshire college girls in NY clubland). Or what? They have jobs in publishing and the law and advertising. They have relationships with each other and then not. It's WASPish chattering class comic cuts, with preppy overtones, where a group of friends, who have probably been to school together, talk of books and breasts and being bored.

It's not David Mamet, because nothing much happens and no one swears. It's not Woody Allen, although articulate and dry. The guy who dumps girls by claiming to be gay, for example, eventually explains that he always thought he was straight until, one day, he felt 'something different' while watching Jim Fowler on 'Wild Kingdom.Whit Stillman makes a certain kind of movie. He'll establish something in an early scene and then keep nibbling away until it delivers.

The last days of disco movie#

(Their analysis of the movie is at least as funny as the Quentin Tarantino character's famous deconstruction of ' Top Gun' in the movie ' Sleep With Me.') Stillman has the patience to circle a punch line instead of leaping straight for it. His characters have been supplied by their Ivy League schools with the techniques but not the subjects of intelligent conversation, and so they discuss 'The Lady and the Tramp' with the kind of self-congratulatory earnestness that French students would reserve for Marx and Freud. Stillman listens to how people talk, and knows what it reveals about them. If Scott Fitzgerald were to return to life, he would feel at home in a Whit Stillman movie. A real estate agent explains the concept of a 'railroad flat' to her (you have to walk through both bedrooms and the kitchen to get to the bathroom, but the flat has two hall doors, so the best way to get from the front to the back is to walk down the hall). to dinner at a time when she doesn't even have an apartment, and then rents one. Charlotte's approach is to take no hostages she invites the D.A. Other regulars include Josh (Matthew Keeslar), who casually mentions that he's an assistant district attorney, and Tom ( Robert Sean Leonard), who has a theory that 'the environmental movement was spawned by the re-release of 'Bambi' in the late 1950s.' During the movie these people will date each other with various degrees of intensity. During the opening scenes we meet other regulars, including Des ( Christopher Eigeman), the floor manager, who gets rid of girls by claiming to be gay, and who has his doubts about the club's management ('To me, shipping cash to Switzerland in canvas bags doesn't sound legal'). Alice and Charlotte, working as a team (Charlotte is the coach), forcibly introduce themselves.

The last days of disco how to#

Charlotte is forever giving poor Alice advice about what to say and how to behave she says guys like it when a girl uses the word 'sexy,' and a few nights later, when a guy tells Alice he collects first editions of Scrooge McDuck comic books, she faithfully observes that she has always found Uncle Scrooge sexy.Īs the movie opens, a junior ad executive named Jimmy Steinway (Mackenzie Astin) has just failed to get his boss into the club (he was wearing a brown suit). Both girls are regulars at a fashionable disco. Her best friend Charlotte ( Kate Beckinsale) only has goals: to meet the right guys, to be popular, to do exactly what she imagines someone in her position should be doing. They are capable of keeping a straight face while describing themselves as 'adherents to the disco movement.' Alice ( Chloe Sevigny, from ' Kids') is the smartest member of the crowd, and definitely the nicest. 'Alice, one of the things I've noticed is that people hate being criticized,' says Charlotte, who seems quietly proud of this wisdom.

His characters went to good schools, have good jobs and think they're smarter than they are.

The movie is the latest sociological romance by Whit Stillman (' Metropolitan'' ' Barcelona'), who nails his characters with perfectly heard dialogue and laconic satire.