Party Monster - The Shockumentary

Starring:Michael Alig, Gitsie, James St. James, Keoki, Eric Bernat, Al D. Rodriguez, Michael Musto, Walt Paper, Harrie Jean Aginsky, Amanda Lepore, Lahoma Van Zandt, Brooke Humphries, Richie Rich, Jenny Talia, Elke Alig, Peter Gatien, Kenny Kenny, Ida Slapter
Director: Randy Barbato, Fenton Bailey
Studio: Picture This
Product Type: DVD

Description

The original documentary about NY club impresario Michael Alig that inspired the upcoming motion picture of the same name starring Macauley Culkin and Seth Green.

Customer Reviews:

Weird and wild.......2007-06-09

If you are interested in 1990s New York club life, the "club kids", or sordid tales of drugs and murder, this is the DVD to check out.

Well made documentary of a world of mistakes.......2007-05-21

There is a Monty Python skit where a young felon is being arrested by the police. Someone remarks, "Society is to blame." "Well, we'll be arresting him, too." I kept thinking of that skit while watching this movie. Why, I wondered, was it possible for any of the people in this documentary to become famous? Ultimately Michael Alig had to take responsibility for murdering fellow Club Kid and drug dealer Angel Melendez, but for some unfathomable reason Alig was a celebrity murderer. My bafflement wasn't merely because neither he nor any of the other people in this film deserved in any way to be famous. They had not, after all, achieved anything, done anything of importance, made the world a better or more wondrous place, or shown themselves to be in any real way to be interesting people. Their only apparent talent was for engaging in more and more extreme behavior. But my concern is not just that none of them deserved any kind of fame; my concern is why our society enabled them to become famous in the first place.

Perhaps there are ideas in Debord's THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE that would explain this. Perhaps he and his colleagues could explain why people could become famous and notorious simply for being over the top. It is a baffling form of fame. There are parallels with Dandyism in the 19th century, but I doubt of these people have heard of Huysmans let alone À REBOURS. The documentary was fascinating if only for presenting an endless string of inconceivably unimpressive bores addicted to surpassing limits. The idea that kept passing through my brain was how dull they all must be, how empty they all must have felt, to be possessed with the need to surpass all boundaries just to make themselves feel special. To do these things to make some sort of personal statement seemed tantamount to shouting, "I have no other statement to make than this!" Their activities seemed acts of nihilism.

In short, this is an interesting movie about some dramatically dull and uninteresting people, who were willing to go to almost any extreme to make themselves envied by people who didn't know any better. The filmmakers tell the story well and you get a real sense of what transpired. To their credit they do not make the Party Kids seem interesting or enviable. I can't imagine anyone watching this movie and saying, "Dang, I wish I'd been a part of that!" And nothing makes Michael Alig an especially likable person.

A Waste of Money.......2006-07-02

Since this story has been told a hundred times before, I expected something more from the documentary. Perhaps a more perceptive analysis, or something that would explain the mind of the sociopath that is Michael Alig. It is worthy only for the ability to see a group of shallow individuals devoid of empathy. These are a group of "jumped up nothings" as the British would say, and it appears that the ones who aren't dead haven't learned much. The most frightening parts of the DVD are the current interviews of a delusional Alig who still envisions himself as somewhat of a star. He laughs, while hystrionically recounting horrific events in his life, and gloats over how many drugs he could consume. Yet brushes aside the murder of Angel with the pitiful confession that he has "bad dreams." Listening to his Baby Jane-esque mother who also wallowed in the club kid scene, might help explain why the bad seed, knew no boundaries. I would have liked to have learned what exactly happened besides the drugs to make Alig devoid of humaness. But at the end of the documentary all you wonder is why Alig wasn't given the death penalty. Even clean and sober, there seems to be nothing salvageable about this man. With his degree of narcissism, I have no doubt that he could kill again. Watch the story on Biography and save your money.

michael alig dvds .......2006-01-11

http://brianmills.com/michaelalig.htm

Vey Cool.......2005-11-13

This is a great documentary. After you've seen it the first time, be sure to watch it again with James St. James's super-catty comentary. For example, when Angel's brother Johnny starts to weep for Angel, James comments,"Johnny, what is that HAIR?!". Mee-OOOOOOOW!!!!

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