Club Life

When this film played on 'Showtime' after hours cinema, it was called 'King of the City'. Since then, it has been one of my favorite teen memories. 'Club Life' is a dazzling visual experience, filmed mostly in a decadent, and very 80's Hollywood nightclub, filled with druggies, pimps, lesbos, and lost souls desperate for a piece of the "Hollywood dream". The story is absolutely classic; Cal, a handsome professional dirt bike racer, decides to go to Hollywood, to "make it", on his good looks and charm. What he finds there is not quite what he expects. He lands a job as bouncer at a flashy nightclub called 'The City', after the owner, (Tony Curtis) sees him beating up a rowdy, dope smoking punk outside the club. After a short while, his girlfriend Sissy turns up in Tinseltown, looking for her man. Before she can find him, she has the misfortune of meeting a very sleazy pimp/pusher, who hooks her on pills, and has her working in a sleazy strip club. Classic! What makes this so great is it's romanticized portrait of Hollywood, glamour and sleaze walking hand in hand. filled with lovable and interesting characters, mostly broken people, who came to Hollywood for stardom, and ended up on the skids, or working on the very fringe of the entertainment business. There is Tillie, (Dee Wallace), the tipsy bleach blond, who dreamed of being a great singer, who ends up singing boozy torch songs at 'The City Club'. She is glamorous, she lies about her age, she drives a Cadillac convertible, and is the girlfriend of much older Hector, (Tony Curtis.) Hector is a good guy, loved by the people of the club, and becomes a father figure for cal. There is 'Tank', an over-the hill pretty boy who talks about his days of hanging out in front of Schwabs drug store in the 50's, hoping to get discovered. Tank likes his bourbon, and the occasional line of coke, but he is a kind and lovable type as well. Pat Ast turns in an unforgettable performance as the butch dyke owner of a sleazy 80's lesbian bar. The story here, after we get to know these interesting characters, is to see who will make it out of Hollywood, and who will meet a tragic fate. The film is beautiful in it's innocence, and portrays a world that only exists in the memory.It's an 80's version of "Valley of the Dolls", the boulevard of broken dreams' for real, and is the most stylish, neon-saturated fantasy since 1982's "Liquid Sky". Filled with dazzling imagery, such as a very hot nude lovemaking session on a glowing blue waterbed filled with live goldfish swimming across perfect, natural bodies. The pulsating 80's soundtrack stays in your head long after you see it, I can still remember the songs, word for word! The film is that memorable. For fans of 80's culture this is unmissable! Of course a DVD for this does not exist, but the old VHS tapes are there if you search them out. It is worth the effort it will take to see this forgotten gem of the 80's. A breathtaking look at a time gone by.

A movie like Club Life leaves little to be desired. With a story of a small town boy coming to a big city to find work and only finding trouble, it's hard to stay cheerful. The depressing manner of death of new friends, drug addiction of your high school sweetheart, and bad jobs make this story's end morose and sad. After watching this, there is not much to be proud of in life. On the positive side, the movie provides an excellent depiction of how to snort cocaine, beat up people, and how to get beat up yourself by those who are stronger than you. The movie's moral: don't go to Hollywood. My moral: don't watch these kinds of movies.

The two actors in this musical mish-mash are Tony Curtis and Michael Parks. The rest of the cast could best be described as actor wannabees. Curtis definitely has the best lines, including this gem. "You screw with me and I'll play stick ball with your nuts." Michael Parks giving bouncer lessons is also memorable. The lesbian nightclub and a waterbed filled with goldfish are not something you see everyday. Basically "Club Life" isn't much more than music videos interspersed with drug use and violence. The story, what little there is, mostly leads to dead ends. Definitely watchable for Curtis and Parks fans, others might want to look elsewhere. - MERK

My friends and I raid cheap video stores around LA and pick up TONS of titles like this. There's nothing like straight to video 80s B movies, they fu*kin rule.

This one absolutely did not disappoint. The best aspect of one of these films is that they always manage to bring in one washed up star for the "heavy" role, or some juicy part. Amazingly, they managed to get Tony Curtis for this picture.

I had the feeling that the entire thing was an excuse for the director to call his friends and go "Holy shi*, I got Tony Curtis to be in my movie!" The whole thing seems like Tony just walked on set, threw away his pages and ignored all direction and just said "Im not doing it like that, ya motherfu*ker. Im doing it THIS way." And bless his heart for it, because he RULES in this. Of course this was a schlocky movie for him to do, and its no doubt Tony's a great actor. But to watch him in something like this, surrounded by a bunch of other horrendous actors makes him shine twice as bright. It's kind of like being a mediocre looking chick in a group of fatties. Any other night, nobody would look twice at you. But tonight, you're a STAR. He's such a bad ass in it, I loved it. It made me wish he'd go for meatier roles like this in real movies in his older age.

Micheal Parks is his usual, bad ass "Nick Nolte before Nick Nolte" self. He spews tons of great B movie dialog, and says "got-damn" better than most actors in the history of Hollywood. He actually pushes a line of coke in front of the main character and goes "Be somebody." YES! He also has one of the most ridiculous death scenes I've seen in a while, and one of the best funeral sequences ever captured on celluloid.

And thank god, thank GOD they didn't let the neon nun-chucks go. You see in bad movies, often there will be some kind of awesome aspect alluded to or featured on the box cover that never really lives up to it's potential; a new kind of gun, some kind of crazy car, etc. (Think of the Balabushka pool cue from Color of Money; some kind of weapon or item that makes the character special) They'll tease you with it for hours, but due to budget constraints it will either fall by the wayside or wind up being totally lame.

In this one, they keep showing these awesome glow in the dark nun-chucks. And in the 3rd act, he does indeed use them to their full potential. I was so happy. This movie rocks man, if you're into 80s cheese this one does not disappoint. It's kind of like Roadhouse before the Roadhouse.