Studio 54
"I was really blown away by this release and my first purchase from partner label cinematographe. It was great to finally being able to see the directors cut of the film. Packed with extras and overall a great release!"
Details
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This special limited edition J-card MediaBook slipcase (designed by Murugiah) is limited to 4,000 units and is only available on our website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them. (Note: this Limited Edition includes a 40 page booklet)
Note: this release is available to be purchased on its own, or bundled with a Cinématographe Disco T-Shirt, ranging in sizes from SM - 3XL. This Limited Edition Slipcase + Disco Shirt bundle is limited to 100 units.
Taking its name from the Lumière Brothers invention of the same name, Cinématographe is a new sub-label from Vinegar Syndrome that seeks to fill gaps in the canon of American cinema. Offering a mix of auteur driven studio films produced during the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and 70s all the way through the indie boom of the 1980s and 90s, Cinématographe will explore the wide breadth of American moviemaking, spanning numerous genres and scales of production. Curated and produced by Vinegar Syndrome's Justin LaLiberty, each limited edition release will be housed in a specially designed, cloth-bound, media book with embossed foil titles and custom molded disc trays accompanied by a slipcase featuring newly commissioned art and an individually numbered J-card.
New York City, 1979: working class Jersey City teenager Shane (Ryan Phillippe, Cruel Intentions) becomes infatuated with Studio 54, a lavish Manhattan nightclub known for decadence. Shane’s time at 54 introduces him to a cast of characters including real life nightclub owner Steve Rubell (Mike Myers, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery), busboy Greg (Breckin Meyer, Clueless), coat checker Anita (Salma Hayek, Traffic), and actress Julie (Neve Campbell, Scream).
Written and directed by Mark Christopher, 54 was originally heavily re-shot ahead of its theatrical release in 1998 before being re-assembled in a long awaited director’s cut in 2015, with over forty minutes of different footage used. Anchored by an impressive, star-making, performance from Ryan Phillippe along with a bombastic, period appropriate soundtrack, 54 is an essential ode to old New York that’s ripe for re-discovery. Cinématographe is proud to present the definitive release of 54, including a new 4K restoration of the 1998 theatrical version (on both the 4K and blu-ray discs) as well as the 2015 director’s cut (blu-ray disc only), offering an exemplary case study in how drastically different a film can be between two different edits.
directed by: Mark Christopher
starring: Ryan Phillippe, Mike Myers, Salma Hayek, Breckin Meyer, Neve Campbell, Sela Ward
1998 / 93 min/106 min / 1.85:1 / English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Additional info:
- 3-Disc Set: 4K Ultra HD + Region A Blu-ray x 2
- Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative
- 4K UHD presented in Dolby Vision High-Dynamic-Range
- New audio commentaries with writer/director Mark Christopher, moderated by Cinématographe's Justin LaLiberty, on both cuts of the film
- New audio commentary with filmmaker and writer Drew Burnett Gregory on the theatrical cut
- Archival audio commentary with Mark Christopher and director of photography Alexander Gruszynski on the director's cut
- I'm Dead - a new video interview with Mark Christopher
- Nothing Is for Certain - a new video interview with editor Lee Percy
- 54-ness - a new video interview with producer Dolly Hall
- Awesome Party - a new video interview with associate producer Jonathan King
- Let's Do the Work - a new video interview with director's cut editor David Kittredge
- In the Trenches Together - a new video interview with Alexander Gruszynski
- Finding Yourself - a new video essay by film historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- If You Could Read My Mind...The Making of 54: The Director's Cut - an archival featurette from 2016
- Deleted Scenes - including footage not found in the director's cut
- Never before seen B-roll from the production
- BTS photo gallery
- Photo galleries from festival premieres and the director's cut re-release in France
- BTS footage from the director's cut mixing sessions
- New text essays by writer Sean Abley, author of Queer Horror: A Film Guide; film programmer Alex Gootter and Dan Mecca, editor of The Film Stage
- English SDH subtitles
Overall rating: 4.625 / 5 from 8 reviews.
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90s forgotten gem
"Another slam dunk Cinematographe release of this 90s lost classic. Great story around the 70s disco era night club, loaded with extra features. 4/5 stars!"
54
"Mike Meyers is the reason to watch this film- his acting is amazing, great PQ"
Love that both cuts are here
"this release is FASCINATING. There are many other releases of other films that show a 'Director's Cut' vs. a 'Theatrical Cut', but I can't recall one with such an incredible weaving of existing footage, with one shot changing the entire meaning of existing dialogue, or one change of dialogue re-writing the entire narrative. I'm so happy we have both cuts. The Theatrical is the only one that gets a 4K (because the Director's cut mixes in shots from many sources, including VHS), and it looks amazing and colorful, and plays like a dopey feel-good popcorn flick; the Director's cut is much darker, both thematically and visually (unfortunately looking kind of smeary for most of the runtime), but is much better and much more narratively complex. Now, to be clear, it's still no BOOGIE NIGHTS or DAZED AND CONFUSED or whatever, but it's a really good movie with a fascinating production history. I just checked out the interview with director Mark Christopher, and after being initially horrified at the runtime (42 minutes), it flew by with tons of info on the filming, the test screenings, Miramax and Harvey Weinstein, just a terrific interview that adds a lot. There are tons of other extras as well I have to check out. One thing about the movie that bugs me, though, in both cuts: I think they did a bad job with Studio 54 as a CHARACTER; I never really got the tactile sense of spacing, orientation, and layout that really would make you believe you were at a real place. The thrust was more character-driven, which is good, but the scope of the film suffered I think."
On the Impossibility of a Definitive 54
"The disco film is almost always an elegy, and 54 is no exception — but its elegiac quality has, through an accident of commerce, been doubled. We mourn the club, and we mourn the film about the club, and the two losses turn out to rhyme. Mark Christopher's original conception treats Studio 54 not as a setting but as an apparatus: a machine for sorting bodies, operated nightly by a man whose entire authority derives from the arbitrariness of his own judgment. That Miramax responded to this by performing its own act of sorting — excising the queer material, importing a sanctioned romance, admitting the acceptable and turning the rest away at the door — is an irony so total that one hesitates to point at it. The 2015 restoration does not resolve this. It cannot. What it offers instead is a text visibly composed of two incompatible intentions, its recovered footage arriving degraded, lower in resolution, plainly foreign to the surrounding material. The seams are the meaning. To watch it is to watch a film remember something it was forced to forget, imperfectly, the way anyone does. Myers' Rubell presides over both versions like a host who has already been told the party is over and has decided not to mention it. Cinématographe has done the only honest thing available: presented the wound and the healing side by side and declined to tell us which is the film."
54
"Fun movie"
The definitive version we always deserved!
"The 4K upgrade looks absolutely brutal, but the absolute best part is finally having the Director's Cut in pristine quality. It is night and day compared to the mess they released in theaters back in the day."
54
"Haven't seen this in a long time. Very happy for this purchase."