The Party Monster Affect

According to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, "This year's Frameline is bursting with documentaries about legendary nightlife personalities. Call it the Party Monster effect." This so-called effect, while very flattering to us progenitors, is really something like a fallout. Seems since the WOW films Party Monster: The Shockumentary and Party Monster: The Movie, which traced in fact and fiction the quick rise and murderous fall of club-kid provocateur Michael Alig, filmmakers have become more savvy to the significance of nightclub activity in gay and other lifestyles, and noticed how including the flamboyant club-kid factor was a shortcut to notoriety for their films.

Of the four films included in the Frameline festival that are cloaked in the Party Monster effect – Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother (Matthew Barbato and Nikki Parrott), The Godfather of Disco (Gene Graham), Motherfucker: A Movie (David Casey), and Starrbooty (Mike Ruiz) – we are partial to, of course, Starrbooty, you bet, but also Motherfucker, about which SFBG says:

[DJ and cofounder of the clubs Jackie 60 and Mother] Johnny Dynell also pays tribute to one of NYC's hottest clubs of the past decade in Motherfucker: A Movie, which follows six months in the lives of Motherfucker's four touchingly self-important promoters. Director David Casey works hard to import something other than sublebrity worship into his pic, giving us some beautiful camerawork, lessons about the inner workings of club promotion and operation, and a wealth of cameos by partiers both weathered and nubile, from Sylvain Sylvain and Bob Gruen to Willie Ninja and Moby to the Juan Maclean and Peppermint Gummybear.

Motherfucker: A Movie screens Tuesday, June 19 at the Victoria (watch the trailer here); Starrbooty screens Saturday, June 23, at the Castro (watch trailer here)

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