From Billy Corben, the director of Cocaine Cowboys, comes another candid look at drugs and crime (albeit on a much more, shall we say, “recreational” level) with this semi-amusing look at the life of Peter Gatien, the man to know if you wanted to get into the hottest clubs in ’80s-era New York City. Gatien owned Palladium, Club USA, Tunnel and, of course, The Limelight, sporting his trademark eyepatch and turning himself into an NYC success story as only a Canadian can until Rudolph Giuliani’s crackdown on the city’s nightlife scene in the mid-’90s deported him back to the Great White North. Like the recently released Blank City, Limelight offers a rare look at a now long-gone New York City, one fueled by an almost self-destructive sense of excess and decadence; ultimately, the documentary reveals that the ’80s club scene really didn’t contribute anything to the city’s long history of culture but certainly helped along its reputation for subversive self-indulgence. Like the aging, tired artists of Blank City looking back on their reckless (and perhaps wasted) youth, the ex-partygoers interviewed in Limelight seem embarrassed or indifferent to it all now as they wallow in suburban Connecticut (or Canadian) obscurity, trading seemingly endless nights of blow for a sense of impending dusty death — though Gatien himself seems like he’s still got some fight, and at least one impromptu bathroom tryst, left in him.
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New On Netflix: Limelight