Why so much hype?

That was an excellent one.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

I haven't even watched the whole movie yet but had to come on here to pay tribute to the music. The soundtrack is brilliant and totally fitting of the times and scenes that played out in the film. Was pleasantly surprised to see they even included the wonderful Techniques Queen Majesty in the piece.Ok, the story isn't as strong but the characters are engaging enough to keep you interested in watching, in my humble opinion.54 was released the same year and I guess got most of the attention and plaudits but this film is well worth a look

Disco died 40 odd years or so. Wilt Stillman's 'The Last Days of Disco' went public almost 20 years ago. If you remember the heady days of disco, Stillman's film is a pale ghost of those days. The real deals of the short life of disco that gay liberation and the drug culture and the turning of society's back on the long war in Vietnam, the mean days of Nixon and the fear that the best days of America had gone away. In way, Don McLean's 'American Pie' says it all in a way. The script poorly frame the period from putting its raw,rude face to the days of disco. The story narrowly focus on mostly self-centered 'golden youth' fall in and out of bed. Stillman lifts the veil of a group of recent university graduates, who come to New York to find a career, a husband or a wife and find a way to hook up for the night (and perhaps longer) for a roll in the hay. The young men are from Harvard,the women from a sister (Ivy League) school. Parents subsidize the women who cannot make ends meet, working as readers in a publishing house. Now if you know anything about New York in those heady days, rents were affordable,cheap restaurants... The group of friends of 'Last Days of Disco' are children the easy classes;they are accustomed to a life style and privileges that do not mirror the daily life of the working class, the lower middle classes and the like. Obliquely in the world of disco this 'golden youth' cuts obliquely through the prism of money, sex, marriage,greed and guilt and power. In a way, it naively paints a picture of suburban, well-heeled young people's fall from dignity...momentarily at least. Stillman offered a break through role for Chloe Sevigny who emerges scarred but successful. Kate Beckinsale seems born to the role of spoiler, who smashes all friendship if a rival at work or for a bed mate stand in her way. She plays the innocent when deliberately she blurts out Sevigny's character has the clap, even those the girls share a flat in the upper east side. The men are dismal but for one a lawyer who chase rainbows and are superficial,albeit Harvard graduates. Society then called them' yuppies' (upwardly mobile professionals). They foreshadowed the nest generation, in image and the terror of reality that at the end of film finds them at the labor exchange looking for work, but not Sevigny who begins to climb the world of publishing ladder to success. But the film never conveys the hopelessness that the millennials experience, no future, a life inferior to a style mum and dad and grandparents enjoyed. Stillman creates a disco that is a pale shadow of say a Studio 54; it is a toothless tiger of the days of disco: no hit of ubiquitous use of drugs, the wild abandon of sex in the loos. The absence of gays, beautiful people, the blacks and Latins who gave the disco days,the biting taste and lust. The saving grace is the music. A potpourri of the hits of Disco that set the feet tapping and gives you envy to stand up and dance. a And possibly in a reverie, dreaming that discover died or went away. And perhaps it didn't for you who went to a discotheque. Today in fast food burger spots, they pipe in the songs of Disco, as you chew your burger or sip your soft drink. The film offers no frisson, no shudder of delight. And there is no hint of AIDS that inhabited the discotheques, among other venues.

Any film that plays the Andrea True Connection disco classic song "More, More, More" ... twice ... can't be all bad. The film's impressive, mostly disco soundtrack is by far the best element of this film.The story is razor thin. Several attractive, twenty-something, upwardly mobile preppies shuttle back and forth between work experience and nightclub. They are employed variously in advertising, book publishing, and law, and are preoccupied with the usual concerns: friendships, sex, romance, philosophy, and job prospects. The script's dialogue is voluminous, and most of it rather vacuous, which matches the characters.But story, plot, and characters aren't really what this film is about. "The Last Days Of Disco" is dedicated to that era in American history sandwiched between the turbulent 60s and the materialistic 80s. Most of the plot takes place at a Manhattan disco, a cavernous, rather opulent, room where an eclectic mix of people dance disco, surrounded by strobe lights and confetti. Here, the ensemble cast order their favorite drinks and chitchat about this and that, their web of social connections a tad confusing at times.I liked the casting of not-so-well-known actors. But some of their performances were a bit wooden. Costumes and production design mirror the era glitter quite well. This is a big-budget production.A lot of viewers will find the thin plot annoying, and the shallow, self-absorbed characters off-putting. But as nostalgia, "The Last Days Of Disco" works, helped mostly by those terrific songs. If only the soundtrack had included "Fly, Robin, Fly".

I do not believe anyone could make a film more boring than "The Last Days of Disco" if they had a thousand attempts. This pic works better than a sedative to numb the senses.If you manage to stay awake for the first hour and a half, you may then be treated to a few clever lines and original diatribes. Most of the movie is horribly contrived however.What really kills the film is the hopelessly uninteresting characters. The audience will quickly forget who was who, if they ever bother to figure it out. A terrible excuse for a disco flick.Friday, November 27, 1998 - Astor Theatre StKilda