Director's cut of "54" seen at Outfest at sold-out "secret screening..."

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 9:42am

http://insidesocal.com/outinhollywood/2008/07/directors-cut-of-54-seen-at-ou.html

[Glebb]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 9:51am

I look forward to seeing the director's cut.
The one I saw ten years ago didn't give me a sliver of what I felt at my home away from home in the 80s.

Posted: 7/13/08 at 9:54am

I'd go see it. The performances were great and the film made no sense- you always had a feeling that massive chunks of plot were cut.

My favorite line of all time was Breckin Meyers & Selma Hayak's exchange about why he can't get a high-paying bartending gig: Breckin: "I'll never be a bartender! I'm too short and I don't suck dick!" Selma: "Oh honey, you can't help being short!"

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 11:52am

Yea! I hope they release this. They screwed up by not doing so the first time.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 12:30pm

There was a time in the late 90s were I wanted to be Breckin Meyer's bitch.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 1:18pm

Me, too. Him and Ethan Embry. sigh

[MotorTink]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 1:19pm

I have the urge to see Can't Hardly Wait now.....

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 1:31pm

Right!?

Ms. Ambrose putting Seth Green in his place.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 2:13pm

The director's cut should be interesting. I had a friend in it whose part was completely cut. The cut version plays like a bad FAME remix.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 2:50pm

How was Mike Myers?

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 2:55pm

One of his best performances--and it may even be better in the director's cut.

[Patronus]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 2:56pm

"Yo, I've gots to have sex tonight!"

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 3:27pm

This makes me think of the criminally underrated The Last Days of Disco, which came out around the same time. I know people found it talky and pretentious, but I loved it.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 3:35pm

That's because you are talky and pretentious.


(Just keeding!!)

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/13/08 at 4:03pm

Ahahaha! Well played.

[RetroBoy]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 12:08am

it's criminal what miramax/disney/weinstein made mark cristopher do to his film. the gay themes and the gay/bi-sexual characters obviously threatened their conservative middle class american sensibilities so they demanded a whopping 45 minutes be cut from the actual and to add scenes beefing up the neve campbell/ryan phillipe storyline turning what originally was a fling into some sort of pseudo-fantasy romance between the "lowly" bartender and the unattainable soap opera star so that the hetero relationship dominated the proceedings as opposed to what was originally intended by the filmmaker. how homophobic can it get?

christopher sold his soul to the devil by doing this and caving in to their demands, i guess it's like the old cliche goes: "money talks and bullsh!t walks". so off christopher went, scissors in hand and the result was an incomprehensible mess of a film with hints of some very good performances by a very talented cast.

now it's taken 10 years for christopher to finally put the pieces of the puzzle back together again. i'm curious to how this director's cut plays. it sounds fascinating. i hope miramax/disney or some other outlet shows enough interest in this and gets this out on dvd.

i shouldn't be too hard on christopher though. he's certainly not the first filmmaker and won't be the last to sacrifice his vision to studio pressure.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 12:17am

How was Mike Myers in a serious role?

[RetroBoy]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 12:19am

mike myers gave a very solid, credible performance in this film. he got some of the film's best reviews.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 12:23am

So he doesn't overact or ham it up in a drama like he does in movies like THE LOVE GURU?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 5:34am

Mike Myers was brilliant in this movie. I never knew about the studio demands and reshoots. That's a shame. Hopefully it will be released on DVD, but with Disney (???) owning the rights I just don't see it happening.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 8:13am

[Chevstriss]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 2:18pm

I politely request that Glebb start an entire thread where he regales us with stories of his Studio 54 adventures.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 7:22pm

Test audiences suck. Remember that movie THE SUM OF ALL FEARS? It came out shortly after 9/11. There is a scene in which the President and his staff, in the wake of a nuclear attack, are seen being scared and clueless as to what to do. The test audiences didn't like seeing this, knowing that their leaders are human too, and so the studio forced Phil Alden Robinson to cut this scene out.

I haven't seen the movie in a long long time so I can't remember if he did or not, but I think he ended up standing his ground that it worked for the story. As a result, the studio gave an awful ad campaign which gave away the entire plot.

Uncool.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 8:06pm

"christopher sold his soul to the devil by doing this and caving in to their demands, i guess it's like the old cliche goes: "money talks and bullsh!t walks". so off christopher went, scissors in hand and the result was an incomprehensible mess of a film with hints of some very good performances by a very talented cast. "

To a degree, this is true but he's not a giant superstar director and this was only his first film. When rumors flew that Spike Jonze was being forced to cut WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, an uproar began and Spike has enough power to nix the studio-mandated cut. Christopher didn't want to get fired off the project so he ultimately did what any first-time director would have done in the same situation.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 7/14/08 at 10:04pm

I've always suspected that the real reason for the demolition of 54 had less to do with homophobia than with someone's realization that Ryan Philippe can't act.