Thank God It's Friday

An unusual collision of the innocent and the decadent, Thank God It's Friday captures the disco era in all of its naive glory. Multiple storylines twine through an enormous nightclub: Two underage girls (one of them Terri Nunn, future lead singer of new wave rock group Berlin) desperately want in so they can enter a dance contest; the club's owner (Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park, The Fly) makes a bet with his dj that he can woo a beautiful married woman--whose uptight husband ends up taking drugs and loosening up more than he ever expected; a klutzy girl (Debra Winger, Terms of Endearment, in one of her first film roles) gets ditched by her best friend and flounders around the club looking for love; and an aspiring singer (Donna Summer, whose "Last Dance" won the Academy Award for Best Song) pleads with the dj to let her sing. Though not as richly written as American Graffiti or Dazed and Confused, Thank God It's Friday aspires to a similar meandering mix of melancholy and hope. It ends up being a pretty honest snapshot of the disco era: Sweet, shallow, and not as campy as you'd expect. For all the sex and drugs, in the end it's all about getting your groove on. As one character puts it, "Dancing--Everything else is bulls**t!" --Bret Fetzer Amazon.com

Lovely Donna

It had to be the counterpart for SNF, but didnt have the impact. Great are the performances of the Commodores and off course the one and only Diva Donna Summer. Great cult film, with a lot of alltime dance classics!! June 22, 2008

Thank God its on dvd!

It's Friday and everyone is going to the hot new disco. The Commodore's are scheduled to play if Floyd shows up with the instruments and Nicole dreams of becoming a disco star. Other characters are there to win the dance contest, or to put a little excitement into a fifth anniversary. Written by Tony Fontana [..]

June 11, 2008

Disco movies

This is good disco, dance, and comedy movie. While I lke dance movies, but I don't really lke comedy, but this one isn't silly. The people have real problems and they find real solutions to them. May 3, 2008

Face it,.. Disco will Never die.

Besides of the great disco music, I love this movie for the performance of the Queen of disco, Donna Summer, she's the best,is 1978 and she plays this singer wanna be, begging the DJ to listen to her demo, when she sings 'Last Dance' is the climax of the movie. December 21, 2007

A hot Summer night at the disco!!

"Thank God it' Friday" is a snapshot of the late seventies Disco scene. It does take one back to a time when afros and platforms ruled and everyone on the dance floor was a star! Finally available on DVD, but with no extra features except sub titles and choice of language.

The "story" takes place in one night at a disco called the Zoo, run by a young Jeff Goldblum, with all sorts of different characters there for different reasons: a wife who drags her stuffy, uptight husband there against his will, two underage girls eager to get in and try for the dance competition, two nerds (one of whom is Paul Jabara) desperate to pull the birds, a disastrous couple on a blind date, a desperate Ray Vitte as the DJ trying to get his big break by featuring the Commodores live (now, if only their instruments can get there in time!), and the queen of disco herself Donna Summer as Nicole Simms, trying to convince the DJ that she really can sing.

The soundtrack is wonderful; Donna Summer's Academy winning, show stopping "Last dance", "After dark" by Thelma Houston' Diana Ross' electro/disco "Livin', lovin' and giving" (movie version differs from soundtrack album version), "Find my way" by Cameo, "Too hot ta trot" by The Commodores, "Sevilla nights" by Santa Esmeralda, and the sultry "Do you want the real thing" by D.C. La Rue to mention a few.

Intended to rival "Saturday night fever", it didn't quite achieve that, but remains a camp classic, and a perfect barometer of the state of society at the time.
September 20, 2007

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