Would a restored "54" be a gay movie must-see?

Of course it's worth restoring and re-releasing. Mark Christopher (who  studied film with Paul Schrader) made several excellent shorts (including Alkaline Iowa, and The Dead Boys Club -- another look at the disco 70s) and the failure of the Weinsteinized 54 has stymied his career. Weinstein's Miramax got very cold feet when they saw the origanl and demanded a de-gayed version -- which of course flopped. As we've seen in subsequent performances (particularly Igby Goes Down and Flags of Our Fathers) Ryan Phillippe is not only babe-a-liciousness personified, he's a teriffic actor too.

 

Now if someone could only convince Miramax's current management that a "director's cut" would be worth it's while. Think of it as the gay Blade Runner.

When I first saw the movie, I just knew that they had cut out tons because it was all very convaluted and disjointed but saying that, I thought Mike Myers gave a great performance.

A theatrical re-release might be over doing it, but I'd love to rent a copy or something or go to a screening like the one mentioned in this article.

I'm new here.  Yay!

Absolutely it's worth releasing the director's cut.  I'm surprised by all the people who didn't know that 54 was chopped up so much in the first place, because I've always known it.  It was well-publicized at the time that the film was yanked from director Mark Christopher's hands and severely butchered, with virtually all the gay stuff cut.   In my opinion it's one of the rarest and most desired lost pieces of cinema history and I hope one day to get to see it as the director intended.   I won't be holding my breath, though.  Disney owns the rights.  The best we can probably hope for is for someone to slip the censored scenes onto YouTube.

I thought this was one of the worst movies I had ever seen, however, Mark Christopher's short films were so good I might risk it again.  I truly hated the movie when I saw it in the theater--my partner hated it even more even though he had a huge crush on Ryan Phillippe.

...I went to see the movie thinking it might be, at the very least, a decent depiction of that era. I knew it had been cut but I hadn't imagined how much. It was obvious that it had been butchered beyond belief-you could feel entire chapters missing. It was like they edited out all the relevant details, and kept the rest.

So a restored cut would definitely be worth seeing-hell, even if it's only a mediocure film, it'd still be a vast improvement.

But more shirtless Cameron, more heat between Ryan and Breckin? I'll go with "must see", followed by "must have on DVD".

What really pisses me off is that the cuts were made because of the response from the test audience. Who the hell did they test-screen it for? A bunch of horny jock frat boys, and their dates? 

The only way I'd see this movie would be to see the restored director's cut. I remember it being reviewed as scattered and inconsistent. Oh well. Sorry I missed it at Outfest (was it on the program at all?). Here's to hoping it makes its way to DVD, or at least more (underground) screenings.

 

-D

See more about me at: www.randomscreaming.com

Oh I hope they put out a restored director's cut. I've always enjoyed the film, for some reason or another. I'd love to see the full version. I always knew it had been cut, but never really knew what was cut. Now I wanna see it!

 

Having been there, I snoozed through this movie, because (of course) nothing was remotely "gay" about "54".  I'd definetly see the Director's Cut, just for these scenes.

Remember when Cameron was a model for INTERNATIONAL MALE?

Future epitaph: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

There was the original cut, then there was an edited cut that took out even more of the gay-themed stuff, then I think Oliver Stone finally released yet another "director's cut" which was even longer than the first one released.  But it probably depends on the power of the director (and Stone's pretty powerful) compared to the power of the studio--and we know how powerful Disney is.  I've been waiting for them to release the original cut of "Priest" on DVD for years, since the American version trimmed the love scenes between Linus Roche and Robert Carlyle by quite a bit--I think the British cut ran almost 7 minutes longer.