Review – The Compleat Al

I watched this so many times back in the 80s that I had a pretty good chunk of it memorized. So it was interesting to see which jokes were still funny and which ones didn’t age all that well, either because I matured away from them or circumstances changed their context (especially the Michael Jackson stuff). On the other hand, Weird Al is sufficiently charming that this mockumentary about his career survives a few rough patches. Mildly amusing

Review – Wicked

The Wizard of Oz gets a postmodern reimagining and a very expensive Hollywood makeover. If you’re a fan of Broadway musicals in general or this one in particular, I imagine this will meet your needs. Though I was impressed by the talent and effort that went into this lavish production, the plot still suffers from the same weaknesses as the source novel. Mildly amusing

Review – A Chorus Line

I’ve never seen a live performance of the famous broadway production upon which this is based, so I can’t say how much of the awkwardness is inherent and how much can be blamed on director Richard Attenborough. Visually he’s clearly trying to out-Fosse Fosse, and it fails more often than it works. The characters and their stories are reasonably compelling, other than the mawkishly busted romance between the leads. However, it’s very much a creature of its time and place, a 1985 movie version of a 1975 Broadway musical about auditioning for a Broadway musical. Mildly amusing

Review - The Wiz

An oh-so-1970s Motown reimagining of The Wizard of Oz? What’s not to love? The cast is a who’s who of Black singers and actors from the era. The musical numbers are great fun. The production design creates an excellent blend of fantasy landscape and gritty New York City. And best of all, the adaptation retains the spirit of Baum’s book – in some ways even more faithfully than the original movie – while at the same time incorporating a whole new set of cultural references. This picture should have a place on any list of quintessential movies from its decade. Worth seeing

Review - Cats

 This whole thing has a fascinating downward arc. It started with actual cats, which of course are excellent. Then in 1939 T.S. Eliot wrote Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The poetry collection was entertaining enough, though surprisingly twee coming from one of the godfathers of moody modernism. In 1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber turned Eliot’s poems into a popular musical that – for better or worse – revolutionized the portrayal of felines by people in leotards. And now this. Despite the opportunity presented by nearly 40 years passing between the stage production and this screen adaptation, many of the artistic decisions seem ill-considered. The story leads off with an act of animal abuse. The effects, makeup and costuming create things that look neither like cats nor like people but rather some horrid hybrid designed to appeal only to audience members with a highly specific fetish. Technical problems abound; most noticeable is the characters’ scale variation from nearly human size to cat size to hamster size. With the assembled ensemble of talented singers, dancers and actors, a much better movie should have been made. See if desperate.

Review – Into the Woods

At the risk of being the umpty-thousandth viewer to vent this gripe, this thing really goes to hell at the midway point. The first half of this adapted-from-the-stage musical is an entertaining re-imagining of several familiar fairy tales. But then suddenly a giant squishes everything, throwing the kingdom into chaos and forcing all the characters to re-examine their life choices. Maybe it’s profound, but at the risk of sounding like a witless rube, it isn’t very entertaining. See if desperate

Review – Coco

This Disney Pixar production is as depressing as it is colorful. It has some of the most beautiful computer-generated visuals I’ve ever seen. But the bright colors are sharply at odds with the protagonist’s dreary journey to the land of the dead to uncover the reason his family hates music. Mildly amusing

Review – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

A funny thing happened in the 50 years since this movie was made: a lot of the humor became extremely dated, even downright offensive. Still, it’s hard to resist Zero Mostel’s energetic performance as a ne’er-do-well house slave trying to make everything come out right in this Roman-themed comedy of errors. The rest of the cast abounds in familiar faces, including Buster Keaton in his final screen role. Mildly amusing

Review – The Magic Flute (2006)

Ever since the first time I watched Amadeus I’ve wanted to see a full production of this legendary Mozart opera. Though this production gives the story an odd World War One spin and occasional music-video-y treatment, the quality of the music and the performances shines through. A note of respect to director Kenneth Branagh for insisting on actual opera singers rather than famous actors mouthing songs performed by someone else. At the cost of distribution difficulties, he bought his movie a solid note of authenticity. Worth seeing

Review – Les Miserables

Bad as some of them were, the “singing” actors derided by many critics weren’t exactly the worst part of this production. Indeed, I was genuinely surprised at how terrible the music itself turned out to be. I was braced for pompous grandiosity along Andrew Lloyd Webber lines, but this outing wasn’t even that good. Aside from two or three lavish production numbers, the whole thing was a mess of meandering, barely-rhyming verse and so many recitatives that it might just as well have been a non-musical version of Hugo’s novel. When the villainous Javert is the only interesting, sympathetic character, the adaptation has issues. Tom Hooper’s direction was also especially dreadful. Every time the camera slanted off to an awkward, pointless dutch tilt or zoomed in so tight on a singer that the home viewers could perform a laryngoscopy, he left me wondering if he’d ever actually seen a musical before attempting to create one. See if desperate

Review – Rock of Ages

Oh thank the cinema gods that someone made Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for people who remember the 1980s. Or for people who don’t remember the 80s especially well, because I’m pretty sure arena rock ballads weren’t exactly the decade’s musical highlights. Broadway’s affection for excessively dramatic production numbers and paper-thin plots spreads to the big screen. All of the “who told you that you could sing?” celebrities in the cast got what they deserved from the critics. However, I did feel somewhat sorry for Diego Boneta. He plays the male lead, and yet on the DVD box he doesn’t merit any of the nine portrait spots in the grid, losing out to both Paul Giamatti and a monkey. See if desperate

Review – Grease 2

How did this movie not kill Michelle Pfeiffer’s career before it even got started? She must already have been cast for Scarface before this stinker hit theaters. And frankly “stinker” sells the experience well short. I imagine someone at Paramount saying something like “hey, the first one wasn’t much more than dumb dialogue and musical numbers. Let’s just make another one of those. The formula’s so simple, even the choreographer from number one could direct it.” Not surprisingly, the notes on IMDb are peppered with phrases such as “unfinished script” and “difficulties with the cast.” Still, even a well-orchestrated production would have been unable to squeeze entertainment out of plot lines and songs so thoroughly bereft of humor, charm or any other redeeming quality. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Jesus Christ Superstar

Awhile back I found myself at a dinner theatre production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And oddly I found myself not hating it as much as I’d expected to. With that in mind, I thought I’d give this other Andrew Lloyd Webber Biblical adaptation another chance. Mistake. In the spirit of Christian charity, I’ll note that a couple of the scenes (the spooky leper colony and the campy Herod number) weren’t too terrible. The rest of it made the Gospels into meaningless, meandering hippie hash. See if desperate

Review - Fantasia

This is worth watching for the sheer shock value of watching a Hollywood studio actually attempt to make a movie with artistic integrity. Of course they can’t resist the temptation to plug Mickey Mouse into it, but fortunately that sequence is offset by some of the more innovative work elsewhere in the collection. Personally I’m fond of the abstract, Oskar-Fischinger-inspired animation that accompanies the Bach toccata, though most of the rest of it is quite good as well. If nothing else, it’s astounding that a movie like this could be made back in 1940, when a lot of the rest of the animation world was making silly cartoons. Worth seeing

Review - Fame (1980)

Looking back from the age of American Idol, it's funny how almost sweet and innocent this seems. To be sure, any movie about fame-hungry teenagers is going to feature a hefty dose of self-important desperation. But there' also a measure of likability thanks to characters who have at least some dimension. I'd worry that my mercy to this cliché-ridden musical was prompted by nostalgia, as I was a teen myself back when this came out. But then I never saw it until years later, and I don’t particularly miss the era as a whole. Mildly amusing

Review – Stepping Out

Though this might have been good fodder for a not-especially-talented high school theatre class, it worked neither on Broadway (73 performances) nor as a movie. Liza Minnelli plays an aging never-was teaching an ensemble of talentless tap students. When the class is offered the chance to perform in a charity benefit, the teacher struggles to whip them into shape. A series of contrived plot twists and cliché character developments ensues. The cast features several familiar faces – not to mention Richard Harris writing the screenplay based on his own original theatre piece – but overall the cake gets left out in the rain. Mildly amusing [note: upon further investigation, it turns out that the Richard Harris who wrote this is a different guy from the Richard Harris who sang “MacArthur Park.” Still, the line is good enough to leave it in.]

Review – Annie

I’m genuinely amazed that such a picture could be produced without a drop of irony to be found anywhere. Honestly, I could have dealt with the treacle, the clichés, the racism, the sexism, the songs, the choreography and even the more-than-a-little-creepy relationship between Little Orphan Annie and Daddy Warbucks if they’d given me even a brief yes-we-realize-this-is-corny wink. But oh no. Not back in 1982 when it was “morning in America.” Nowadays of course the only reason you’d ever have to sit through an experience like this is if you get stuck in the Harmony Hut. See if desperate

Review – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

This picture enjoys a prominent seat in the pantheon of movies so terrible they actually turn out to be highly entertaining. I don’t even know where to start. The big idea of having the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton do a witless musical based on the Beatles’ music? The small details, such as the decision to have Donald Pleasance sing (sort of)? This fails on so many levels. And yet in so doing it succeeds as a charmingly embarrassing relic of a less cynical bygone age. Mildly amusing

Review – All That Jazz

This is the most self-indulgent movie I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something. The protagonist Joe Gideon (ably played by Roy Scheider) is obviously more than loosely based on director Bob Fosse, and some of the supporting characters are actually played by the people upon whom they’re based. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. But the whole picture is about how wonderful he is and how terrible it will be when his hard living finally results in his death. Some of the art direction is interesting, but the choreography – Fosse’s raison d’etre – is stiff and unimaginative. It’s a shame, too. I remember loving this when it first came out. Must have been during my brief theatre phase in high school. Mildly amusing

Review – The Pirates of Penzance

This movie’s original release was a landmark in the history of snakebit roll-outs. Another studio took advantage of the source material’s public domain status to get out a knock-off before this “official” Broadway adaptation. Then the studio elected to release this to theaters and a limited number of TV stations at the same time, causing theater owners to boycott the picture and cutting its opening to less than 100 venues nationwide. And of course it was an effort to interest 20th century audiences in 19th century operetta, so it would have faced an uphill battle even under the best of circumstances. Gilbert and Sullivan provide singing actors with a chance to show off their talents, but it also makes shortcomings glaringly obvious (Linda Ronstadt, you’re a great singer but not so much with the acting). All that notwithstanding, this should be a pleasant experience for anyone who can stand this sort of thing. Mildly amusing