Shane O’Shea (Ryan Phillippe) is a rising star among the bartenders at Studio 54 in New York. Greg Randazzo (Breckin Meyer), his wife Anita (Salma Hayek) and soap ingénue Julie Black (Neve Campbell) are showing him how to get ahead. Steve Rubell (Mike Myers) is the club’s lecherous, avaricious owner. Harvey Weinstein, head of Miramax, is the man who turned 54 into a sluggish mish-mash of tangents in search of a story, despite a memorable performance by Myers, excellent period detail, and a great disco soundtrack. Lionsgate’s Blu-ray is 12 minutes longer than the theatrical version but is in no way a true “director’s cut,” and features an utterly horrible transfer.
54 (1998)
Studio: Miramax (distributed by Lionsgate)
Year: 1998
Rated: R
Length: 104 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Resolution: 1080p
Languages: English 5.1 Surround DTS-HD MA
Subtitles: English, Spanish
MSRP: $19.99
Film Release Date: August 28, 1998
Disc Release Date: March 6, 2012
Review Date: March 16, 2012
The Movie:
2.5/5
Disco is perhaps the most polarizing genre in the history of music. What started as an outgrowth of the lush Philadelphia soul sound of the early 1970s turned into a full-fledged cultural phenomenon that burned as brightly as a comet and burned out almost as quickly; a widespread backlash fomented by rock musicians and fans helped hasten its demise. The music originated in discotheques patronized largely by blacks, Latinos and gays, and throughout its heyday it was in these discotheques and nightclubs where it was most popular, even more so than on the pop charts it dominated briefly. One particular New York City nightclub came to represent the best and worst of disco culture: Studio 54. A former opera house converted into a lavish nightclub by restaurant owner Steve Rubell, everyone wanted to get into this Dionysian boogie wonderland, but only the best of the best were allowed inside. Here, people from every race, class, sexual orientation and walk of life mingled with movie stars, artists and royalty, as long as Rubell thought they were worthy to enter. Eventually it gained a reputation as a hotbed of out-of-control recreational drug use and promiscuous sex, and when the party ended, it ended just as ostentatiously as it had begun. Rubell was convicted of tax evasion and served 11 months in jail from February 1980 to January 1981, after which a toned-down Studio 54 was re-opened by a corporation. He died of AIDS in 1989 at the age of 45. Today, the building is the site of a Broadway theater.
Outside of Saturday Night Fever, disco made little noticeable impact on cinema outside of a few poorly-received oddities, such as Thank God It’s Friday, Roller Boogie, Can’t Stop the Music and Xanadu. By the 1990s, however, when 1970s nostalgia was in full swing, Hollywood was ready to put on its boogie shoes and look at the era in hindsight, warts and all. One film that showed promise in recreating both the flashier and the shadier aspects of the era was 54, the feature film debut of its writer and director, Mark Christopher. Unfortunately, the film Christopher made is not the film that has been released.
At the tail end of the decade, young, handsome, blond New Jerseyite Shane O’Shea (Ryan Phillippe) casts off the shackles of his provincial suburban life and gets a job as a waiter at Studio 54 after he catches the eye of its lecherous owner, Steve Rubell (Mike Myers). There, he befriends fellow waiter Greg Randazzo (Breckin Meyer) and his wife Anita (Salma Hayek), an aspiring singer. As Shane learns the ropes, eventually he rises to the coveted position of bartender. Eventually, he gets caught up in the world of drug abuse and promiscuous sex, having an affair with Anita and many other women, and having only one true friend: an elderly woman named Mona (Ellen Albertini Dow) who calls herself “Disco Dottie.” Even Julie Black (Neve Campbell), a fellow Jerseyite who is languishing in a small role on All My Chlidren (coincidentally, Cameron Mathison, who has a small role as one of the waiters that was supposed to have been larger, joined the cast of the now-canceled ABC soap the same year this film was released) and dreams of bigger things, does not stick around long. Meanwhile, Rubell's questionable business ethics threaten the future of the club.
As David O. Selznick once said, “editing can make or break a movie.” Miramax has broken a number of films in this manner from Asian martial arts films (fans of Asian cinema often referred to them as “MiramAXE”) to Richard Williams’ animated labor of love The Thief and the Cobbler. 54 is another example of how Harvey Weinstein earned the derogatory nickname “Harvey Scissorhands.” The film was supposed to center around a bisexual love triangle between Shane, Greg and Anita, who were supposedly much less sympathetic. However, after a disastrous test screening at a Long Island multiplex, Miramax forced Christopher to make huge changes that amounted to roughly 40 minutes of cuts and 25 minutes of reshoots. This 104-minute version is 12 minutes longer than the theatrical version, but any resemblances between it and the original intent are purely coincidental. It is just a longer version of Harvey Weinstein’s futile attempt to homogenize—or heterogenize, if you will, as much of the gay content is toned down—the story into something commercially acceptable. It is a shapeless mess full of stereotyped characters rushing around in hopeless circles through a meandering, episodic and trite storyline with little point to it. Few of the central performances stand out; the cinematography is certainly flattering to Ryan Phillippe and his coworkers, but his performance has little going on beneath the surface. Worse, he provides narration that does nothing to improve the film’s narrative momentum. It’s right up there with the doggerel Harrison Ford was forced to record for the theatrical cut of Blade Runner. Only Mike Myers as Steve Rubell has anything left of his performance that leaves an impression. He captures his arrogance, greed and inhumanity with a skill that shows there is more to his abilities than just Wayne Campbell, Austin Powers and Shrek. The only other memorable performance comes from Ellen Albertini Dow as Disco Dottie, a breath of fresh air amidst all the dreariness that even its first-rate soundtrack and excellent period detail can’t lighten.
Critics did not take kindly to Harvey Weinstein’s vision of the film, and it grossed a disappointing $16,757,163 against a $13,000,000 budget. A glimmer of hope for the film’s redemption came 10 years later when Mark Christopher went back to his digital videotapes of the dailies and assembled his own director’s cut of the film. It played a surprise screening at OutFest in 2008 where it was extremely well-received. Unfortunately, he has not been invited to do a definitive cut, leaving us stuck with this Frankenstein monster of a film indefinitely.
The Video:
1.5/5
Presented at its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, this transfer does not live up to the standards of Lionsgate’s previous Miramax releases, and that’s being extremely magnanimous. This transfer is unbelievably soft with fine detail being virtually nonexistent. There is very little grain, and faces have an unnaturally waxy look to them, suggesting Lionsgate took an off-the-shelf master and slathered it with DNR. Colors feature strong saturation in the bar but look pale and washed out everywhere else. Some shots seem to be afflicted with color halos that look like chromatic aberration. I would expect this sort of thing from Echo Bridge, but Lionsgate can do better.
The Audio:
4/5
While the video is a disaster, the audio fares better. This 5.1 DTS-HD MA track features clear audio that is sometimes a bit soft, but it really comes alive where it counts: with the music. The soundtrack is packed with a mix of disco hits from Diana Ross, Grace Jones, The Miracles, Sylvester, Chic, Thelma Houston (who appears in the film singing a heartfelt “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”), Blondie and others, contributing to a vibrant soundscape with noticeable surround activity; sound effects are a bit subtler, but still noticeable. All in all, this is the one redeeming factor of this disc.
The Extras:
0.5/5
The only extra is a 3:34, 4x3, 480i music video for Stars on 54’s techno-dance cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s biggest hit, “If You Could Read My Mind.”
Final Score:
2/5
54 is yet another casualty in the endless war between filmmakers and the studios that hire them. A rambling, incoherent muddle with a beat you can dance to, Lionsgate has treated it no better in its Blu-ray debut than Miramax treated it during its production. What makes it worse is the fact that no official effort was made to right the wrongs done to this film after Mark Christopher assembled his bootleg cut. With Miramax now effectively a memory, it is uncertain whether or not the public will ever get a chance to see the film that could have been.
54 (1998)
Studio: Miramax (distributed by Lionsgate)
Year: 1998
Rated: R
Length: 104 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Resolution: 1080p
Languages: English 5.1 Surround DTS-HD MA
Subtitles: English, Spanish
MSRP: $19.99
Film Release Date: August 28, 1998
Disc Release Date: March 6, 2012
Review Date: March 16, 2012
The Movie:
2.5/5
Disco is perhaps the most polarizing genre in the history of music. What started as an outgrowth of the lush Philadelphia soul sound of the early 1970s turned into a full-fledged cultural phenomenon that burned as brightly as a comet and burned out almost as quickly; a widespread backlash fomented by rock musicians and fans helped hasten its demise. The music originated in discotheques patronized largely by blacks, Latinos and gays, and throughout its heyday it was in these discotheques and nightclubs where it was most popular, even more so than on the pop charts it dominated briefly. One particular New York City nightclub came to represent the best and worst of disco culture: Studio 54. A former opera house converted into a lavish nightclub by restaurant owner Steve Rubell, everyone wanted to get into this Dionysian boogie wonderland, but only the best of the best were allowed inside. Here, people from every race, class, sexual orientation and walk of life mingled with movie stars, artists and royalty, as long as Rubell thought they were worthy to enter. Eventually it gained a reputation as a hotbed of out-of-control recreational drug use and promiscuous sex, and when the party ended, it ended just as ostentatiously as it had begun. Rubell was convicted of tax evasion and served 11 months in jail from February 1980 to January 1981, after which a toned-down Studio 54 was re-opened by a corporation. He died of AIDS in 1989 at the age of 45. Today, the building is the site of a Broadway theater.
Outside of Saturday Night Fever, disco made little noticeable impact on cinema outside of a few poorly-received oddities, such as Thank God It’s Friday, Roller Boogie, Can’t Stop the Music and Xanadu. By the 1990s, however, when 1970s nostalgia was in full swing, Hollywood was ready to put on its boogie shoes and look at the era in hindsight, warts and all. One film that showed promise in recreating both the flashier and the shadier aspects of the era was 54, the feature film debut of its writer and director, Mark Christopher. Unfortunately, the film Christopher made is not the film that has been released.
At the tail end of the decade, young, handsome, blond New Jerseyite Shane O’Shea (Ryan Phillippe) casts off the shackles of his provincial suburban life and gets a job as a waiter at Studio 54 after he catches the eye of its lecherous owner, Steve Rubell (Mike Myers). There, he befriends fellow waiter Greg Randazzo (Breckin Meyer) and his wife Anita (Salma Hayek), an aspiring singer. As Shane learns the ropes, eventually he rises to the coveted position of bartender. Eventually, he gets caught up in the world of drug abuse and promiscuous sex, having an affair with Anita and many other women, and having only one true friend: an elderly woman named Mona (Ellen Albertini Dow) who calls herself “Disco Dottie.” Even Julie Black (Neve Campbell), a fellow Jerseyite who is languishing in a small role on All My Chlidren (coincidentally, Cameron Mathison, who has a small role as one of the waiters that was supposed to have been larger, joined the cast of the now-canceled ABC soap the same year this film was released) and dreams of bigger things, does not stick around long. Meanwhile, Rubell's questionable business ethics threaten the future of the club.
As David O. Selznick once said, “editing can make or break a movie.” Miramax has broken a number of films in this manner from Asian martial arts films (fans of Asian cinema often referred to them as “MiramAXE”) to Richard Williams’ animated labor of love The Thief and the Cobbler. 54 is another example of how Harvey Weinstein earned the derogatory nickname “Harvey Scissorhands.” The film was supposed to center around a bisexual love triangle between Shane, Greg and Anita, who were supposedly much less sympathetic. However, after a disastrous test screening at a Long Island multiplex, Miramax forced Christopher to make huge changes that amounted to roughly 40 minutes of cuts and 25 minutes of reshoots. This 104-minute version is 12 minutes longer than the theatrical version, but any resemblances between it and the original intent are purely coincidental. It is just a longer version of Harvey Weinstein’s futile attempt to homogenize—or heterogenize, if you will, as much of the gay content is toned down—the story into something commercially acceptable. It is a shapeless mess full of stereotyped characters rushing around in hopeless circles through a meandering, episodic and trite storyline with little point to it. Few of the central performances stand out; the cinematography is certainly flattering to Ryan Phillippe and his coworkers, but his performance has little going on beneath the surface. Worse, he provides narration that does nothing to improve the film’s narrative momentum. It’s right up there with the doggerel Harrison Ford was forced to record for the theatrical cut of Blade Runner. Only Mike Myers as Steve Rubell has anything left of his performance that leaves an impression. He captures his arrogance, greed and inhumanity with a skill that shows there is more to his abilities than just Wayne Campbell, Austin Powers and Shrek. The only other memorable performance comes from Ellen Albertini Dow as Disco Dottie, a breath of fresh air amidst all the dreariness that even its first-rate soundtrack and excellent period detail can’t lighten.
Critics did not take kindly to Harvey Weinstein’s vision of the film, and it grossed a disappointing $16,757,163 against a $13,000,000 budget. A glimmer of hope for the film’s redemption came 10 years later when Mark Christopher went back to his digital videotapes of the dailies and assembled his own director’s cut of the film. It played a surprise screening at OutFest in 2008 where it was extremely well-received. Unfortunately, he has not been invited to do a definitive cut, leaving us stuck with this Frankenstein monster of a film indefinitely.
The Video:
1.5/5
Presented at its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, this transfer does not live up to the standards of Lionsgate’s previous Miramax releases, and that’s being extremely magnanimous. This transfer is unbelievably soft with fine detail being virtually nonexistent. There is very little grain, and faces have an unnaturally waxy look to them, suggesting Lionsgate took an off-the-shelf master and slathered it with DNR. Colors feature strong saturation in the bar but look pale and washed out everywhere else. Some shots seem to be afflicted with color halos that look like chromatic aberration. I would expect this sort of thing from Echo Bridge, but Lionsgate can do better.
The Audio:
4/5
While the video is a disaster, the audio fares better. This 5.1 DTS-HD MA track features clear audio that is sometimes a bit soft, but it really comes alive where it counts: with the music. The soundtrack is packed with a mix of disco hits from Diana Ross, Grace Jones, The Miracles, Sylvester, Chic, Thelma Houston (who appears in the film singing a heartfelt “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”), Blondie and others, contributing to a vibrant soundscape with noticeable surround activity; sound effects are a bit subtler, but still noticeable. All in all, this is the one redeeming factor of this disc.
The Extras:
0.5/5
The only extra is a 3:34, 4x3, 480i music video for Stars on 54’s techno-dance cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s biggest hit, “If You Could Read My Mind.”
Final Score:
2/5
54 is yet another casualty in the endless war between filmmakers and the studios that hire them. A rambling, incoherent muddle with a beat you can dance to, Lionsgate has treated it no better in its Blu-ray debut than Miramax treated it during its production. What makes it worse is the fact that no official effort was made to right the wrongs done to this film after Mark Christopher assembled his bootleg cut. With Miramax now effectively a memory, it is uncertain whether or not the public will ever get a chance to see the film that could have been.