Party Monster

this film is an amazing work of art and must be viewed as such. if you're looking to understand the storyline, you MUST read the book disco bloodbath (rereleased as party monster) by james st. james. it's also helpful to watch the director's commentary on the dvd with fenton bailey and randy barbato. so much is explained between these two sources that is taken for granted in the film (ie michael and james' sources of incomes, explanations of michael and peter's relationship, and a more logical timeline). the most important thing to realize and keep in mind throughout watching this film is that michael alig was (is?) incredibly insecure but at the same time incredibly loving. the most telling line in the movie is delivered by seth green, when speaking to macaulay culkin after the latter's feigned attempt at suicide: "There's not enough love in the whole wide world to satisfy you." party monster the film is incredibly intelligent, as is the book. the story and its retelling are hysterical and horrifying at the same time. this film acts as both a warning and a touching memoir - a must see for fans of realism and those who enjoy seeing human emotion and drama rather than special effects and airbrushed muscles.

When I started to watch this movie I wasn't at all aware what it was about. I just saw that MaCaulay Culkin and Seth Green were in it and thought, "Cool! Maybe this'll be good." A lot of people say this movie was bad, that it was horribly acted, but I think they just couldn't get past Culkin's shortcomings. I don't believe he was a bad actor, I simply believe he got stuck on the idea of how he had to humanize his character, and that was his ultimate downfall (in the special features he explained this was something he wanted to bring to the character).

Seth Green, as always, is adorable and can completely immerse himself into a character and really bring him to light. Marilyn Manson played Christina wonderfully, if only for a short time. Wilmer Valderrama was terrific as Keoki and it was a disappointment to see he was only in such a little portion of the film.

All in all, this movie was great. It had a great cast and a great script. The movie was meant to poke fun, not to make you think about any hidden meanings or to wonder why they were acting so strange. Club Kids were all about glamour, mocking celebrities, and, in the end, drugs. They didn't want to grow up, and they certainly didn't want to live a normal life.

Culkin had his moments where he pulled Alig off well, and in others, you could tell he was trying to stretch the character into places he wasn't meant to go. And if he was, Culkin certainly wasn't the actor to do it.

All in all, a "fabulous" film. Highly recommended if you're interested in how some of the 80's really played out.

'I'm the lowest kind of celebrity, a playwright's wife,' Celeste Holm tells Anne Baxter in All About Eve. Fifty-plus years later, she might still make the snapshot page in Vanity Fair (once), but new kinds of celebrity have clambered up to push her further down the pecking order. There are the Elvis impersonators and celebrity look-alikes. There are the trash-talking competitors on the reality shows. And there are the Club Kids, urban counterparts to the beach bums of a generation or two ago who sought nothing more out of life than an Endless Summer. What the Club Kids want is an Endless Party, where they can flame out in a drug-enhanced limelight.

The Limelight was a fixture among New York City's young downtown hedonists in the last decades of the last century. It's the center of a very small universe for James St. James (Seth Green), a budding queen from across the Hudson who, equipped with little else than a trust fund and received notions of imperious glamor, sets out to be the social arbiter of the club scene. His misfortune (and ultimately opportunity) is meeting up with hick Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin), just off the Big Dog from one of the square states, who will prove to be St. James' very own Eve Harrington.

Imagine Bob Hope and Bing Crosby gone gay, their bitchy dynamics holding these buddies together as they prance and stumble down the Rave Road. They live in cold-water walk-ups, spending what money they have on costumes and drugs (when they can't cadge them). As a living, they set themselves up as promoters and taste-makers for struggling entrepreneurs like Dylan McDermott, whose Limelight is barely breaking even. They dream up ever more outrageous parties to lure other kids from the bridges and tunnels and tenements once occupied by immigrants but now serving as digs for druggies and rodents. (Marilyn Manson as stoned drag queen Christina serves as 'driver' for one of the events, trying to maneuver a big rig in platform heels.) Along the way there are Alig's discarded or disengaged boyfriends (Wilmer Valderrama) and girlfriends (Chloe Sevigny), sexual preference always taking a back seat first to Ecstasy and K, then to crackpipes and snorted heroin.

Party Monster derives from St. James' memoir Disco Bloodbath – as a result of his plunge into addiction, Alig ends up incarcerated for the murder of his dealer Angel (Wilson Cruz). And as St. James, Green delivers a pitch-perfect performance, blackly funny yet with intimations of the shallow life he knows he leads. It's Culkin's misfortune to have his co-star so expertly steal the movie, but, with his sullen, pouty mouth, his child-star successes well behind him yet not quite filled out enough for adult roles, he's plausible as a callow social-climber who's nothing but surfaces and attitude anyway. (And as his good-time-gal-pal mom, Diana Scarwid is, as always, memorable). Party Monster maintains a deft balance between its faintly horrifying humor and its somber notes. It's a story about kids old beyond their years who, as they proudly proclaim, are utterly superficial, but still not (quite) the 'monsters' they pretend to be. Party Monster – a much more interesting and accomplished piece of work – is the movie that '54" should have been, and maybe even thought it was.

I often wondered why U.S. American movies involving young people who are into drugs are either pathetic (f.e. Drugstore Cowboy) or even downright ridiculous in their conservative portrayal of the dangers of drug use (f.e. Traffic, The Movie). Party Monster is very different. It's easy to see that the people who made this movie really informed themselves about what they tried to show. By doing this they achieved one of the best movies about adolescence i've seen in a long time. It's has a very sad and tender tone and though some scenes seem a little bit too stagy, the performances of the two leading actors are pure magic. It's pure joy just to watch them and as you got to see a lot of them there is plenty of fun. Nevertheless the movie leaves you with a very intense and ambivalent feeling towards it's characters who were indeed something very special. I even dreamed about this picture after seeing it! Thanks for the strange dream!

The material here (covered in a similarly named documentary) is fascinating. The 90s New York club kid scene was a distinctive period with many crazy sights and scenes. Unfortunately, this film is poorly made on just about every level.

Most of the acting is not just bad, but some of the worst you'll ever see in a mainstream film. This is exacerbated by poor directing. The dramatic scenes don't feel dramatic (I yawned as one character nearly died). The costumes are very good, about on par with the actual club kids. So the film looks good at least.

Another issue: they changed so much for this movie from the actual story! If you research the actual murder and such after watching this you'll just be confused as to why they made all those arbitrary changes. I certainly wasn't to make a great film. Many people like this film, but I suspect deep down they want to live in the 90s club kid scene, and aren't objectively judging the film for its merits.