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‘Camp’ and ‘Party Monster’
A formula teen movie aimed a the drama queen set, “Camp” gives away its intentions when the kids on the bus to summer camp sing a fairly obscure Stephen Sondheim song as if it were a campfire standard. Soon we learn that a central character is among those rare species of straight boys interested in theater. His character — and various rivalries and romantic entanglements — are delivered with smile-inducing lightness, twisting Hollywood teen stereotypes just slightly. Two subplots have Sondheim making a surprise appearance and composer Bert Hanley (“The Children’s Crusade”) redeemed from alcoholic anesthesia by a revue of his works.
“Party Monster” didn’t fully satisfy the requirements of its genre. Drugs, sex and house dance music litter this based-on-reality downer about the club kids in 1980s New York. The moviemakers get the glammed-up look right, as well as th the non-stop, ultimately self-destructive revelry, but a crucial casting error crippled the effect. I’m sure the producers salivated at the chance to make “Home Alone” graduate Macaulay Culkin a cross-dressing, drug-sated anti-hero, but either he lacked the acting chops, or he’s just too good playing an irritating character, whichever the case, he drove me nuts. Nimble Seth Green and multiple points of view in the storytelling could not blunt the negative impact from Culkin on this historically informed but flawed film.
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