'Limelight': The Agony and the Ecstasy

Michael and I caught "Limelight," Billy Corben's slick new documentary about nightclub impresario Peter Gatien, over the weekend. The night before -- forgive me if you're a Facebook friend and have already heard this part before -- I took him to see "Weekend," which I saw at a review screening but loved so much I wanted to see it again with him. He loved it too -- he could really relate to Russell's struggles -- but what went down in the theater literally made my jaw drop. After making the mistake of arriving "late" -- we were only 20 MINUTES early(!) -- we weren't able to get our usual last-row, aisle seats (Michael can handle most anything as long as it's happening in FRONT of him) , so settled into the second-to-last row. Within seconds, it became obvious these two guys behind us were going to be "a problem" (that one of them had his legs folded in such a way that his FOOT was completely between our seats was our first clue), so we said fuck it and sat all the way near the front, flush right, where we could have our own row. During the film -- which is small and intimate and has thick British accents that are often muffled by the boys lying in bed -- a woman seated near us took -- TOOK!!! -- three phone calls, chatting with someone at a slightly muffled volume as if none of us could hear her because of her courteousness. It's been a week and I'm still in complete shock. Clearly there was no emergency -- her tone made it obvious, as had the fact that she remained in her seat -- so in addition to the phone ringing and her talking, rightfully furious patrons (who had not already seen the picture, mind you) took turns screaming at her -- "Get off the damn phone!," "Hang up that phone RIGHT NOW!" -- all the while the usual amount of phone ringing and texting (you can see the light -- totally takes you "out" of the film) went on, too. Did I mention that I'm still in shock?

I tell you all this because ... when we decided to see "Limelight" later in the weekend, we made sure we got to the theater super early. Once inside, we were immediately faced with a crisis. The back row was vacant (actually, all but four seats in the joint were vacant), but below the back row was a row to accommodate people with wheelchairs, sort of two seats and then a big gap, and then two more seats, etc. We knew if we sat in the actual back row, someone would come in and sit behind us in the handicapped seats, so we decided to sit in those just to ensure no one was behind us, prepared to move if someone needed them. Moments later, this guy and girl arrived, and sat in the handicapped seats to our right. Fine. As the lights went down -- I'm not joking -- we both thought we heard someone clipping their fingernails. Incensed, we both turned to look, only to discover it was (sort of ) worse. The two of them only have 20 finger nails, but it turned out they'd brought a lifetime supply of pistachios with them, and spent the next two hours making clicking noises as they opened them, one by one by one by one. (I really thought I was going to have a stroke -- remember, I have a MEDICAL CONDITION!) At that point, we had to move far away -- and reconsider ever leaving the house again -- which brings me to the film review at hand.

As is my policy, I hadn't read too much about "Limelight" before going, but I had seen a one-minute review on NY1, which said the first 20-30 minutes about the history of New York nightlife was incredible. At one point, Gatien owned nearly every hot club in NYC, including the Limelight, Palladium, Tunnel and Club USA -- all of which I had been to at one time or another -- and revisiting them was indeed a thrill. The reviewer complained that the film went downhill once it began to focus on Gatien's legal problems, but I didn't agree with this assessment one bit. If you want all nightlife and Club Kids, rent Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's sensational "Party Monster: The Shockumentary." But "Limelight" is about an entirely different kind of monster -- one named Rudy Guiliani, who in his (however well-intentioned) attempt to clean up New York City went too far, continuing to prosecute Gatien for promoting the sale of Ecstasy and other "party drugs," even when it became obvious he was not guilty of the crimes he was charged with.

The film is colorful and exciting and moves quickly, with fun interviews from all walks of life -- Gatien, eye-patch and all, his defense team, Ed Koch, drug informants, Gatien confidants, Moby and even Michael Alig (still hamming it up in the slammer all these years later). More than anything, it reminded me of a couple of other high-profile cases of prosecutorial misconduct (the West Memphis 3 and Amanda Knox) where the prosecutor will stop at nothing to save face, truth -- and a man's life -- be damned.