It’s a New Year’s Eve party with Madonna’s coven & swingers—but is ‘Four Rooms’ worth checking in?
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, we’re ringing in 2025 a little early with 1995’s New Year’s Eve-set dark comedy, Four Rooms.New Year’s Eve is perhaps one of the most versatile holidays we have.
There is no right or wrong way to celebrate it: in the middle of a crowded dance floor, in an intimate gathering with friends and family, alone with your partner watching a movie, stargazing on a camping trip, or calling in an early night by yourself.
We all have our own rituals and traditions that change and evolve throughout the years.This week, we’ll take a look at an anthology comedy from the 1990s set during New Year’s Ever, which focuses on a single location and four different stories where the characters are having their very own particular celebrations to leave behind the old and usher in the new.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.Four Rooms is a 1995 anthology film that takes place entirely in the fictional hotel Mon Signor in Los Angeles during New Year’s Eve.
It’s bellhop Ted’s (Tim Roth) first night on the job as he juggles the demands and quirks of guests in the four titular rooms: a coven of witches that is trying to revive a goddess who died in the room years prior (featuring performances by Lili Taylor, Alicia Witt, and thee Madonna, among others), a couple engaged in elaborate hostage roleplay (played by David Proval and Jennifer Beals), two mischievous and precocious children left unattended by their parents (Antonio Banderas and Tamlyn Tomita), and a group of Hollywood mafiosos (among them Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Willis) that take a bet and a challenge to violent extremes.Each of the four different segments is written and directed by a different filmmaker, each of whom bring their own distinct style and sensibilities to the story: Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino,.
