54: The Director’s Cut

Young Shane (Ryan Phillipe) used to dream about stars while gazing from his New Jersey suburb across the river at the silhouettes of Manhattan skyscrapers. The legendary Studio 54 is a place where these dreams can come true when its absolute ruler, Steve Rubell (Mike Myers), allows him to enter – if he takes his shirt off. The rise and fall of a club where everything was possible, where Andy Warhol used to sit in the corner and where cultural history was made, intertwines with Shane's journey up to the exclusive New York society of new celebrities. Everything is complicated by his entanglements with influential men and women, particularly one married couple. The star-cast film (also featuring Salma Hayek and Neve Campbell) was heavily edited before its original premiere, and the unique director's cut, enthusiastically received by critics at this year's Berlinale, reconstructs from material yet unseen the original, much darker and wilder moments when the dance floor, shimmering under disco balls, was ruled by beauty, sex and drugs, and it seemed that the party would never end.