I couldn't actually tell you the last movie that I saw in the theater. I know my log book is around here somewhere, but we just moved so I'm not really in the mood to go digging through everything to find out that it actually was DARK CITY. Which, by the way, was the best flick of 1998 -- hands down. Well, now that I'm back in the land of the living -- the Philly area to be exact -- I ventured out and caught a flick and some diner grub with the Gonster.

Frankly, I was a little upset by the diner (The County Line on Haddonfield/Berlin Rd. in Voorhees, NJ to be exact). First off, my Turkey Salad on rye toast didn't come with a little paper cup of cole slaw, let alone an order of fries. Then, just as we were polishing off our second cup of coffee they started flicking the lights, signifying their closing time of 1 am. What diner closes at 1 am?! I did move within the confies of America, didn't I?!

Living in America is the subject of Whit Stillman's latest talky, upper-crust comedy, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO. Granted, it's a small slice of America -- Manhattan, to be exact -- during the "very early 1980s" as one of the title cards informs us. There we follow a group of recent college grads who toil away in publishing houses (Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny), kiss ass for clients of their ad agency (Mackenzie Astin, son of John "Gomez" Astin and Patty Duke "Patty and Cathy" Astin, star of THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE), or work in a trendy, unnamed disco (Chris Eigeman). The group interacts, mostly at the club, having pithy conversations about nothing of any consequence, drinking to dull the boredom of their humdrum lives, and staying up way past their bedtime. Good times, good times...

Eigeman's Des (also in Stillman's METROPOLITAN and superior BARCELONA, and star of an almost-unwatchable ABC sitcom that also starred a post-nose-job Jennifer Grey as, well, a post-nose-job Jennifer Grey!) and Beckinsale's Charlotte (METROPOLITAN) steal the show as the cynical, untrustworthy, conniving sharks that long for more than their current situation affords. By the end of the film they've, not surprisingly, gotten their comeuppance after two full hours of lying, cheating, and manipulating. On the other hand, Sevigny's aptly-named Alice acts as our eyes and ears on the scene, often getting trampled under the egos of these two.

There's sort of a story going on here, involving an Assistant District Attorney friend (Matt Keesler) who is investigating the club, but it all gets lost and ends without any truly unsavory consequences. It'll be interesting to see how this matches up against Mike Meyers' dramatic turn as real-life Studio 54 owner Steven Rubell in 54. One wonders if that flick will address the same era in a more unflattering and unflinching manner, not holding back in its depiction of the extravagant drug use and unprotected sex that led to the downfall of the era -- topics never addressed with any seriousness in THE LAST DAYS.