Culkin's
crappy comeback
By
Anna Kauffman
Daily Californian
BERKELEY
(U-Wire)--Watching "Party Monster,"
Macauley Culkin's "comeback" film
based on the book "Disco Bloodbath"
is kind of like hallucinating one of Chuck
Palahniuk's lesser novels after being bludgeoned
over the head by a thick stack of "Best
of the '80s" albums wrapped in spandex
and glitter.
To
review a movie that's all about Seth Green,
as author, James St. James, and Culkin as
Michael Alig, employing fabulous accents,
going to fabulous parties and doing fabulous
drugs and not be decadent ... well, that
just wouldn't be very "club kid"
of me, would it?
In
"Party Monster" the title of "club
kid" is attained through the drugs,
bad techno-music, hair dye, more drugs and
in Alig's case, an accidental dose of murder.
The question one is left with however, is
why anyone would want to be a "club
kid."
Furthermore,
for a movie that's supposed to be all daring,
cutting-edge and truth, it's remarkable
what writer/director team Fenton Bailey
and Randy Barbato chose not to show.
For
all the playful fabulousness of the film's
two stars, when it comes time for Culkin
to actually lock lips with the guy who plays
Fez on "That '70s Show," Bailey
and Barbato simply ... cut away.
Along
with the deaths of two major characters,
what should be the film's climax disappears
into a shot of James sprawling on a plastic
lawn chair.
I
guess you could argue that the glittery
emptiness of "Party Monster" is
a metaphor for the glittery emptiness of
the club kids' lives.
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