Repost: Saturday Night Fever (Special Fathom Events screening May 7th and 10th)

[SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER screens Sunday May 7th and Wednesday May 10th at 2:00pm and 7:00pm in select area theaters.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

*Note* - this review is of the original theatrical cut and its alternative PG version. The version of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER being shown at this special screening is a brand-new director's cut.

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER was a runaway hit that became such an icon of its 1970s disco-music milieu that the white costume John Travolta wore in the dance-contest finale is now on permanent exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution (after being famously owned by film critic Gene Siskel). But viewers with childhood memories of the blockbuster might have forgotten (especially with the alternate version; more on that later) that this movie is no fluffy song-and-dance or a plot-lite MTV collection of pop fantasy like FLASHDANCE. Rather, it's a tough and serious-minded drama about restless, sometimes violent young men on the sordid side of New York City. You remove all the dancing  from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and you'd still be left with a sturdy, well-acted production (but it sure wouldn't be the same).

Repost: Saturday Night Fever (August 6th at the Connor Palace Theatre)

[SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER screens Saturday August 6th at 7:30 pm at the Connor Palace Theatre on Playhouse Square.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER was a runaway hit that became such an icon of its 1970s disco-music milieu that the white costume John Travolta wore in the dance-contest finale is now on permanent exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution (after being famously owned by film critic Gene Siskel). But viewers with childhood memories of the blockbuster might have forgotten (especially with the alternate version; more on that later) that this movie is no fluffy song-and-dance or a plot-lite MTV collection of pop fantasy like FLASHDANCE. Rather, it's a tough and serious-minded drama about restless, sometimes violent young men on the sordid side of New York City. You remove all the dancing  from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and you'd still be left with a sturdy, well-acted production (but it sure wouldn't be the same).

Savages

Review by Bob Ignizio

Although best known for serious dramas, many of them loosely based on factual events and persons, Oliver Stone does occasionally make films that aim for nothing more than entertainment and visceral thrills. Early in his career, he wrote and directed a pair of horror films (SEIZURE and THE HAND), and he returned to genre filmmaking in the nineties with U-TURN and NATURAL BORN KILLERS. He heads back to genre territory once again in his latest film SAVAGES, based on the novel by Don Winslow, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Stone and Shane Salerno.

The film begins with a voice over by O (Blake Lively), who tells us that just because she's telling the story, that doesn't mean she'll be alive at the end. O explains that she is the kept woman of two pot dealers. Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is an Operation Desert Storm vet with a damaged psyche; Ben (Aaron Johnson) an the idealistic hippie type who wants to save the world. Not only are these two unlikely friends, they have no problem sharing the same woman. It is implied, though never really followed up on, that the two must love each other more than O in order to be happy with this arrangement.

Saturday Night Fever (April 21st at the Capitol Theatre)

[SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER screens Saturday April 21st at 11:59 pm at the Capitol Theater.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER was a runaway hit that became such an icon of its 1970s disco-music milieu that the white costume John Travolta wore in the dance-contest finale is now on permanent exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution (after being famously owned by film critic Gene Siskel). But viewers with childhood memories of the blockbuster might have forgotten (especially with the alternate version; more on that later) that this movie is no fluffy song-and-dance or a plot-lite MTV collection of pop fantasy like FLASHDANCE. Rather, it's a tough and serious-minded drama about restless, sometimes violent young men on the sordid side of New York City. You remove all the dancing  from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and you'd still be left with a sturdy, well-acted production (but it sure wouldn't be the same).

Dope Island.: What In The World Is Charles Watchingsandiego? Perfect (1985)

By Charles Cassady Jr.

I'm strangely nostalgic about the 1980s despite it's being a very uncool decade in a lot of ways. A preponderance of terrible synth-pop music. Saturday Night Live so awful it nearly got canceled, until it was realized the replacement shows NBC had on deck were going to be far worse. Questionable Reagan appointees and neoconservative mutants. US-supported death squads in Central America. Soccer riots. Other Cold War nastiness all over the planet, and here in Gordon Gekko-grade America, no girlfriends and nearly no job opportunities for me (some things never change). My brand-new Ivy-League college diploma determined to be intrinsically worthless as far as ever getting a foot up of the career ladder. Oh, and bad sequels cranked out like Hollywood had just discovered them as E-Z crap moneymakers - which was more or less exactly what Hollywood had just discovered.

Pulp Fiction (April 1 at 7 and 10 p.m. at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium)

[PULP FICTION screens Friday April 1 at 7 and 10 p.m. at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

If I'm ever found dead, arrest my wife at once. She did it. We're incompatible by any definition. The real proof is that we violently disagreed on two movies that came out in 1994. She preferred FORREST GUMP, which I still haven't forced myself to sit through all the way. I liked PULP FICTION instead.

Anyone need an introduction to PULP FICTION? Listen kids, when this thing came out the critics were writing whole book-length homages to Quentin Tarantino - even though he had only two movies to his name. It's still kind of a high point in his career, and his career has hardly turned out to be a disappointment. The multi-layered, funny and hyperviolent 1994 magical-realist hitman saga spawned numerous imitations, revived John Travolta's career, and proved a near-impossible act to follow. Hard even to summarize, and I remember the infant internet of the mid-1990s (all text, online at 1200 baud, 2400 baud if you were rich) filled with user discussions and FAQs of PULP FICTION's symbolism. Only the BLADE RUNNER FAQ made better reading.