Awesomely Horrible Netflix Instant Films: Staying Alive

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There are certain films that define an era. For whatever reason they are so plugged into the zeitgeist that you can't talk about that time in history without mentioning it. In the mid-seventies that movie was Saturday Night Fever. No film captured the disco scene, the decadence of the times, and pointless despair of being a mamaluke in Brooklyn like Saturday Night Fever. The soundtrack album, featuring the Bee Gees, became a must own for anyone who dug the disco beat. The film also made an overnight superstar of its star John Travolta. Then, a few years later, one man decided that there needed to be a sequel. What was Tony Manero up to these days? That person was Sylvester Stallone and the film he created is the dismal failure known as Staying Alive.

Staying Alive takes place five years after the events of Saturday Night Fever. Guido superstar Tony Manero has moved to Manhattan and is trying to make it as a Broadway dancer. He lives in a flop house and is so poor that he has to wash his underwear in the shower. Tony is dating a chick named Jackie that he continually cheats on because he's Italian or something. He has a one night stand with a stuck up English dancer as a way to try and get into her show. She hits it and quits it and Tony feels used. He then utters the film's most famous line, "Everybody uses everybody." Tony ventures back to the old neighborhood and sees that his old disco club has become a gay hot spot. He makes up with his ma for being, like, a pain when he was, like, younger. Tony eventually lands the lead in a weird friggin' show. It's like he's a caveman in the future and there are tiger people or something. It's all very confusing. He makes up with Jackie and goes to leave the theater. When she asks him where he's going, he says, "I'm gonna strut", and walks out of the theater to the familiar strains of the Bee Gees' Staying Alive.

Man, is this movie a mess. Gone is the silly fun of the original. Staying Alive is a movie that takes itself way too seriously. Instead of a portrait of what it's like to live in the times he is in, it's mostly about the boring love triangle. I don't give a crap about that. I just want to see John Travolta dance to cheesy music. When you do see him dance it's some modern interpretive stuff that looks like something your performance artist cousin does. Why Sylvester Stallone wanted to make this movie is beyond me. What it shows is that though he is fun to watch on screen and is a decent screenwriter sometimes he should never, ever direct a movie. Ever.

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