Night Club

I was privileged to see "Night Club" last evening at a World Premiere event at the Phoenix Film Festival.

Not only was it great to see such seasoned actors in this film like Ernest Borgnine and Mickey Rooney, and others, but I thought Sally Kellerman, who played Dorothy, portrayed the Alzheimer's patient perfectly. I had a Father who had Alzheimer's Disease and I could see in the demeanor of Dorothy who my Father had become before his death. I believe this is a movie that all of us who have aging parents must see! I also think that all those that work in nursing homes, especially the administrators and owners of these care facilities should see this film, it will help to open up their eyes to possibilities of care and caring. There is more to care in a treatment facility than having our elders just sit around till their lives end and we know like in this movie many of them are doing just that. We will all find ourselves growing older in time with the possibility of having to enter a nursing home, if we begin now to improve the quality of care in these facilities we can look forward to being cared for in a manner with dignity and love as these three young students in this movie ended up doing. Before these care facilities were implemented we had families caring for our elderly, there is no reason a nursing home cannot feel like "home", after all they are called nursing "homes".

I believe this movie could make an impact on how we treat our elders, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles when they get near the end of their lives and need assistance with everyday living.

Kudos to the Director: Sam Borowski, Writers: Larry Delrose and Tom Hass, and the Stars: Ernest Borgnine, Mickey Rooney, Sally Kellerman, Madison Liddy, and all the others who were willing to put in their time and effort to produce a well scripted and well portrayed film.

I found Night Club, at first, a little slow in developing.However, once Ernest Borgnine appeared on screen, the movie took on a spellbinding appeal. The three young actors, playing USC students, gave convincing as well as possibly career changing performances. Furthermore, appearances by Sally Kellerman, Paul Sorvino, Mickey Rooney, as well as other older known actors brought not only added nostalgia, with respect to their past acting greatness, but more importantly, cemented the overall theme and genius of this film. In my opinion, I believe, this will be an Academy Award winner. As the movie poster states,"Everyone's Invited."

This film was a great video for me to watch, as to learn on what not to do to develop a film, and use of wrong methods of filming. (I am saying this with sincerity and no sarcasm) While watching this film, I learned many things such as camera placement, relevancy, use of methods, because of the horrible and wrong ways the director and cast had produced and put it together. The movie honestly was horrible! It looked as if a group of high school kids got their hands on a high quality camera and decided to make a video for you tube. In which actually there are many you tube videos that have way more value than this film, and potential. Also the amount of money used to produce this film does not reflect at all on the quality. I thought this movie used at most two thousand. Transitions were horrible, there was one scene when the roommates just met and they were in a daylight room and then all of a sudden, it goes to the outside dark. Many fillers, and just time wasting scenes. The storyline was horrible, I had no idea where the story was going. This is one of those movies that you might put on if you need something on the TV to put you to sleep. The movie needs to be more organized and professional. Great thing it is not rated, it should be rated D for Don't watch.

What can I say about Nigh Club? The film had heart, I'll give it that... but even that had little effect on my opinion, as any emotion that may have been produced by this films good intentions were quickly overpowered by a never ending stream of terrible dialog, God-awful cinematography, and poor acting. The film's title essentially sums up the movie, a night club is created for the elderly at a local rest home, and the protagonist masterminds this whole thing is so dis-likable, that you often find yourself hoping he fails, just so you can breathe a sigh of relief. A weak and unsupported romance also follows our hero throughout the film, and only in the end (after receiving a million dollars) does she finally come back to him... (AHEM!) can anybody say terrible timing? Aside from the apparent money hungry hussy, it was clear the director did not plan out any of the small details that would have made this film believable.

-Jim

"Night Club" is the most awkwardly edited and filmed movie I have ever been forced to sit through. The plot line, about three friends who work in a nursing home to turn it into a terrible night club, is ridiculous and ill-thought out. It seemed overall that there was no point or main message to carry out. The action and events moved so cripplingly slow that the audience could have easily lost interest within the first ten minutes.

Though there were different levels of acting in this movie, it could have improved if the director guided the actors better or paid more attention to the dialogue. The dialogue ruined the movie when the actors kept on overly stressing clichéd humor, and there was almost no music or sounds at all. Only when the story moves outside is there any kind of background noises or melodies at all. Plus the camera direction was amateurish and too shaky, and all mainly composed of close-ups, which made it easy to become bored with the activity going on on screen.

So in summary, this movie didn't work because the thematic elements clashed or yielded adverse, unintentional bad effects to the eyes and ears of the audience. The misguided acting, dialouge, editing, plot line, and lack of sounds were not pleasing. No wonder why the picture didn't make it to the big screen, or even why I didn't sit through it the whole way through.