A meat purveyor becomes a sex club entrepreneur: It sounds like a bad joke, but it's the real-life story of Larry Levenson, a doughy, committed hound whose '70s-era hot-to-trot spot Plato's Retreat on New York's Upper West Side is the subject of the documentary "American Swing."
Filmmakers Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart crank up the disco music, grainy bump-and-grind footage and eyewitness accounts (courtesy of patrons, employees and famous faces such as Buck Henry and Annie Sprinkle) in their effort to sell Plato's rise as a feel-good, feel-up phenomenon that embodied a revolution. But even a comic spin on grimace-inducing tales of the icky buffet, the "mattress room" (whatever you're imagining, that's it) and Levenson's own buffoonish image as a 10-ladies-a-night player -- "He never read a book," Al Goldstein cracks -- can't keep an unexplored sadness from slithering in amid the orgy of upbeat testimonials.
Eventually the buzz kill of tax evasion, rampant prostitution (how did they get in?!) and the AIDS onslaught shuttered Levenson's public sex Valhalla. And without a "monument to sexual freedom" to glorify, the film treats Levenson's rapid descent as if someone had turned on the lights at a sex party: scurrying away with pity and irritation that the good times had to end.
-- Robert Abele
"American Swing." MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 21 minutes. At Laemmle Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 848-3500.
'C Me' potential goes unfulfilled
Talk about preaching to the choir. The faith-based drama "C Me Dance" is so dialogue-heavy with citations of Christian doctrine and pronouncements of, literally, biblical proportions, it's as if the script by Greg Robbins (who also produced, directed and costars) wasn't so much written as carved in stone with a sledgehammer. It's fine to know your audience and cater to its entertainment needs, but even the most devout viewer subjected to Robbins' ham-fisted film might think, "OK, now tell me something I don't already know."
That's not to say this story of Sheri (Christina DeMarco), a terminally ill teenager on a mission to spread God's word before she dies -- and thereby keep the devil at bay -- is without its potentially inspirational merits. Unfortunately, the movie is so rudimentarily written, acted and directed, and its more earthly concerns painted with such a broad, superficial brush, it's hard to be convinced of such key story elements as Sheri's advanced leukemia, her love of ballet and the fact that she and dad Vince (Robbins) are actually father and daughter.
