HotelChatter

Ferrara weaves re-enactments (of Nancy Spungen’s death, for example) with interviews of famous Chelsea residents including (who else) Hawke, and Dennis Hopper, remembering the hotel’s role in all sorts of naughty, bohemian shenanigans. In short, it sounds like a big-screen version of all the stories that appeared when longtime manager Stanley Bard was forced out, and tenants started fretting that they’d be evicted and their home turned into a $400-a-night boutique hotel.

The New York Times calls it “an enraptured fantasia of high times at the hotel” and says the film is “so intoxicated with the Chelsea’s bohemian mystique it virtually consumes itself.” Then there’s the Boston Globe’s take:

Watching "Chelsea on the Rocks" is like being buttonholed at a New York bar on a rainy afternoon by an ex-junkie three stools down who proceeds to lay on you an endless series of tall tales concerning people whose identity is never quite clear and who may no longer be alive.

But the reviewer thinks this is a good thing—“and that maybe you’re getting history the only way it deserves to be told.”

Unfortunately, we missed the film’s short run at the Clearview Chelsea cinema across the street from the hotel, but it is showing in Boston tonight, in Chicago, Nashville, and Minneapolis next week, and in Seattle and St. Louis the following week.

If you want to take part in the ongoing history of the place, there are rooms at the Chelsea available this Sunday night, starting at $139 a night for a room with a shared bathroom. We’ll probably opt for playing around with the movie’s website instead. It lets you walk through the doors, check in, and explore various rooms. You know, virtually. Which means we don’t have to worry about sharing the loo.