Saturday, July 9, 2011

Musical Movies and Me

About four years ago I saw High School Musical, and that movie marked me for the rest of my life. It showed me a great example of the subjects on which NOT to base a musical on.

Definitely not on what 90% the viewers are going through...

Apparently Disney doesn't compute with this idea. Besides, there are more fangirls (no fanboys... YES THOSE WORDS EXIST, LOOK THEM UP) than normal people in the world, so Disney went ahead and "prepared" a trilogy based around a very unlikely couple of high school students that end up sending nude pics to the wrong email accounts.

And the Disneybags (YEP THIS ONE ALSO EXISTS) weren't finished.

Pictured: Disneybag


Camp Rock was, of course, a different approach, focusing on the eponymous music genre. But they were still love songs 'cuz, you know, they basically had Camp Rock revolve around the exact same plot as High School Musical. Seriously, this is worse than scraping the sides of the jar! I stopped viewing musical movies as soon as the DVD (only) release of Camp Rock II came out (yeah, Disney went THAT far)

High School Musical and Camp Rock: roughly six hours of my life I will never get back again...

Now then, two years after watching the lousiest rock musical ever, I found another musical movie in the internet: Sweeney Todd. I thought, well, it's a Tim Burton movie, it has Johnny and Helena yet again working as partners, it has SNAPE and WORMTAIL straight from Harry Potter as the partnered-up villains... and it stars Italian Borat as well. How could a musical screw up this mix??

She does have a thing for puffy hairstyles...

SPOILERS: It didn't. In fact, my mouth hit the floor for the most astounding music I've ever heard. Even my mom was delighted to see that her "beloved" Johnny sang gracefully. Seriously, this Gothic-looking movie kicks butt in several levels! Adolfo Pirelli, though very funny, is not as gay as Twilight, which is a relief. "God, that's Good" brings back childhood memories of Jersey Girl, you know, that Ben Affleck movie where he sang this song.

The one where J-Lo barely makes a cameo...

However, I just can't see the reason for that seeping spaghetti sauce they call "blood" when victims from equally gruesome movies like Saw squirt dark, iron-rich pints of TRUE red.

Otherwise, I can help but imagine Alan Rickman humming "Pretty Women" along the corridors at Hogwarts and Harry laughing his scar off in the corner.

5 comments:

  1. What happened to: August Rush?

    Ok, since you're now into musicals, here is my list of some that you can checkout sometime (in no particular order):
    Grease
    Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
    Phantom of the Paradise (I watched this one about 10 times)
    Tommy
    The Muppet Movie
    The Blues Brothers
    Pink Floyd The Wall
    Moulin Rouge!
    Chicago
    Mamma Mia!

    Some of them are in that list because it remains me of my teen years, some other by your mom influence.

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  2. Good LAWD

    Well, The Muppet Movie automatically goes out since musicals on the show are implied, and August Rush has no lyrics, so it doesn't count. Mamma Mia is as lively as anything I have ever heard (thanx for reminding me)

    I just remembered about Hairspray as well. I not only like the upbeat music and the theme of the musical, but also the fact that some people are brave enough to honor a deceased transgender actor/actress [see: John Travolta]

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  3. Hairspray was supposed to be a 'response' to Grease (1 and 2) and the Saturday Night Fever franchise. John Travolta is involved in all of them, the first movies he made when people said he was there only because he could dance! (Urban Cowboy as well), and then after decades of burying into oblivion --and some huge fails like Battlefield Earth based on his pal and religious spiritual leader L. Ron Hubbard's novel (founder of the Scientology thing)-- Travolta redeems himself with more mature productions (and some great ones starting with Pulp Fiction), but I think this is off topic here.

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