Review of Chelsea on the Rocks (2008) by Robin T — 31 Jul 2012

Chelsea on the Rocks is a film that sounds like it should be an interesting and worthwhile film. Sadly, Abel Ferrara takes a setting and completely makes a mess of it. The film is so unfocused and unclear, that it ends up being story after story, in no particular order. It's unorganized to say the least. We, at times don't know who's talking or what in the fuck they are talking about. Unless, you recognized the person talking, good luck knowing who they are. There's no writing at the bottom telling us who they are. It's just endless "interviews" with people speaking about their personal experiences with the hotel. At one minute we will be hearing about the night of Sid and Nancy. The next minute, we hear about a guy having a stroke. Then we hear about the owner questioning a kid. Then about all the dealers. Then about ghosts. Alright a lot of shit happened in the hotel, I get it. Pick a fucking subject and go from there.

I was extremely excited to watch this movie, but that initial excitement was gone after the first 15 minutes. For awhile, I thought the pointless interviews were just introductory stuff that Ferrara would dive deeper into later. Nope. He had no intention on letting the viewer have any idea on what was going on. He also had no intention on teaching us anything about the hotel. But worst, he had no intention on making a documentary. This is more like a lazy collage of video. Pointless.

I respect Ferrara as a filmmaker. He's made some worthwhile movies in his career, but I have absolutely no idea what he was doing here. He's got an endless amount of people talking about their experiences, from Ethan Hawke to Milos Forman, with no clear idea on where he wants the movie to go or what he wants to say about it. An interesting subject is completely slaughtered here, and is instead made into a boring stream of consciousness.