The Last Days of Disco

“Disco will never be over.  It will always live in our hearts and minds.”

Directed by Whit Stillman (1998) Starring: Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Matt Keeslar

Rounding off Stillman’s Yuppie Trio is a film about the end of an era from the point of view of two assistants at a publishing company.  Charlotte (Beckinsale) and Alice (Sevigny) spend their time at their favorite club, where they dance and judge what relationships they would get out of the men they meet.  Their dialogue is often caustic and witty and they only ever seem to imagine hope when they talk about beloved disco.

Of their prospective suitors, Alice has the highest optimism and the worst luck.  She loses her virginity to Tom (Robert Sean Leonard) and gains two venereal diseases.  After that she bounces between Des (Eigeman) who is something of a cocaine addict and womanizer and Josh (Keeslar) who is very nice, but has a history of mental illness.  Her optimism also gets crushed a little as she lives with Charlotte in a Railroad apartment.

The third act moves from the female perspective to the men’s side, which makes it feel like Alice and Charlotte are left hanging for awhile.  Des’s club is involved in illegal activity of some sort, although he points out that he knows next to nothing about it.  Josh’s office is the ADA who is planning to prosecute, but his interest in Alice makes things complicated.  Paralleling that is the fact that no one really likes disco anymore, except for this small group of people.

The Last Days of Disco is unexpectedly charming and funny as it goes over the social mores from a generation ago, while young people make desperate attempts to climb the social ladder and still enjoy themselves for one night a week.  What I loved was that it championed optimism after all, even after disco was dead.

Much Ado About Nothing

Directed by Kenneth Branagh (1993) Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Richard Briers, Kate Beckinsale, Robert Sean Leonard, Imelda Staunton, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, Michael Keaton

Kenneth Branagh really knows how to make Shakespeare entertaining.  Shakespeare: Always interesting, but you really need the right stuff to make it work as a film.  That said, the right stuff is gathered here for Much Ado About Nothing. Branagh has assembled a great cast for this comedy, even when we take into consideration a certain someone. Keanu Reeves *cough cough cough*

A-hem, excuse me. So where was I? Oh yeah: CAST! Love love love it.  Branagh and his then-wife Emma Thompson star as Benedick and Beatrice, the rivals of wit while Robert Sean Leonard and Kate Beckinsale are the lovers Claudio and Hero.  Denzel Washington is great as Don Pedro, and for his few scenes as the villain, Keanu Reeves makes a rather psychotic turn as Don John.

However, Michael Keaton steals the show as the probably-crazy, incensed Dogberry with his crew of merry men Don Pedro’s guards.  He rushes from scene to scene pretending to ride a horse, picks on his fellows mercilessly and is hilarious to watch.

The lines are read conversationally, rather than with bombastic speeches.  The wordplay, always fun with Shakespeare, is recited like modern jokes and quips.  While the set is simple, with lot’s of outdoor scenes and taking place within an Italian estate, certain sequences are very stylized.  The arrival of Don Pedro and the men, the masque sequence, and the final wedding scene are equal in their complicated stylization with their importance to the plot.

Much Ado About Nothing is funny and smart, a Shakespeare film done well.