After watching EL CONDE, I was reminded that Pablo Larraín was also the director of TONY MANERO, a movie I’d always wondered about where a guy is obsessed with John Travolta’s character from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. I think I even considered watching it back when I reviewed SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and STAYING ALIVE last summer, but it didn’t pan out until now.
It’s from 2008, and it’s Larraín’s second film, following FUGA (2006). And watching it plays as kind of a distant cousin to EL CONDE in that it’s a distinct mix of the creepy and the absurd, plays off of movie iconography in strange ways, is not a fan of Chile’s tyrannical past, and is not easily classifiable. It’s basically a character study about a guy named Raúl who dreams of being the best Tony Manero impersonator in Santiago, and also sometimes kills people. Mostly the former, though, honestly. I’ve seen plot summaries that describe him as a serial killer, which is technically true, but this doesn’t play like a serial killer movie. Killing is not where he puts most of his energy.
(read the rest of this shit…)
1983: SUMMER OF NUB supplement: SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977)
DISCO 9000 – or FASS BLACK as it’s called on the Xenon Entertainment VHS tape I rented – is a 1977 movie about a super big shot who runs a record label and dance club in the top of a 26 story building on the Sunset Strip. It’s the second of two movies directed by the actor D’Urville Martin (GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER, ROSEMARY’S BABY, 
I’m a little behind schedule but ladies and gentleman, welcome to the final review in the Summer of ’98 series.
Shane (Ryan Phillippe, 
AFTER 2 WEEKS IN LIMITED
It’s still a movie mostly about people talking, but it costs money to have a huge club set, period costuming and a soundtrack of disco hits (just ask the producers of 
PROM NIGHT is one of the early slasher cash-ins. It has a 2008 remake, though, so it’s a classic. It kind of seems like there’s not alot going on, because the body count is pretty low and the killings don’t start until 2/3 of the way in and there’s a surprisingly long uninterrupted disco dancing scene. But at the same time there’s a couple movies’ worth of things going on.
