I went all the way back to 1933 for one of the most beloved and iconic musicals of the early days of cinema. Choreographed by the legendary Busby Berkeley, 42nd Street was a massive success.
According to IMDB, “Renowned Broadway producer/director Julian Marsh is hired to put together a new musical revue. It’s being financed by Abner Dillon to provide a starring vehicle for his girlfriend, songstress Dorothy Brock. Marsh, who is quite ill, is a difficult taskmaster who works long hours and continually pushes the cast to do better. When Brock breaks her ankle one of the chorus girls, Peggy Sawyer, gets her big chance to be the star. She also finds romance along the way.“
The final dance routines of the show were spectacular. I loved the title track, but most of the remainder of the songs were fine, at best.
I have to say that this was fine, but it did feel kind of old. That is not a fair criticism, I know. Still, I can’t get past the fact that it is a musical that does feel like it was made early in the film world.
I am glad that I watched it. It clearly was a classic of its time. And the dance routines at the end were sensational.
Today’s Genre-ary DailyView sends us back into the 1950s to one of the classic musicals of all time, South Pacific.
According to IMDB, “On a South Pacific island during World War II, love blooms between a young nurse and a secretive Frenchman who’s being courted for a dangerous military mission.”
It is really two love stories, one with the young nurse Nellie Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor) and the Frenchman Emile (Rossano Brazzi) and the other with Lt. Joseph Cable (John Kerr) and a native girl Liat (France Nuyen). Both relationship, intriguingly enough, are derailed by racism.
Nellie rejects Emile when she found out the he had had two children with a Polynesian years before, one who was now dead. Cable decided he could not marry Liat because she was a native girl and not white. It may not have been specifically said out loud, but that is absolutely the reason.
That makes me wonder about our main heroes of this romantic musical. I guess this is a product of the 1950s and, sure, both reconsidered their racism eventually (although Cable came around too late), but the idea that their mindsets were appropriate was in the film.
I was surprised when I saw that Ray Walston was in this film, and providing the comedy relief (at least part of the time). He was some of my favorite parts of the film.
Again, there are some very well known classic songs in this musical including “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” and “There is Nothing Like A Dame.”
It was a little long, but I did like the music and it is always great to see Ray Walston. South Pacific is a classic for a reason, but I did not expect the racism to be a major theme of the story.
The final Saturday of the Genre-ary DailyView brought me the film Fame, from 1980, which inspired a TV show of the same name.
Fame is not a typical musical, but there are plenty of examples of movie where there was suddenly a dance number.
According to IMDB, “At the New York City High School for the Performing Arts, students get specialized training that often leads to success as actors, singers, etc. This movie follows eight students from the time when they audition to get into the school, through graduation. Among these are the brazen Coco Hernandez, shy Doris Finsecker, sensitive gay Montgomery MacNeil, and brash, abrasive Ralph Garcey.”
There was a solid cast including Irene Cara, Paul McCrane, Boyd Gaines, Laura Dean, Anne Meara, Barry Miller, Maureen Teefy, Debbie Allen, Richard Belzer, Lee Curreri, Eddie Barth, Albert Hague, Joanna Merlin, Jim Moody, Gene Anthony Ray, and Antonia Franceschi.
Each of the high school students (who looked like 25-30 year olds) had a story and a character arc. Some were better than others.
This was a decent film but it did have a disjointed feel to it at times. Easily the best number of the film was the title track, Fame, performed by Irene Cara. This was full of energy and easily my favorite part of the film.
Today’s Genre-ary DailyView film is 2007’s Once, an Irish musical/drama that is about as charming and sincere of a movie that you are going to find.
According to IMDB, “An unnamed guy (Glen Hansard) is a Dublin guitarist/singer/songwriter who makes a living by fixing vacuum cleaners in his Dad’s Hoover repair shop by day, and singing and playing for money on the Dublin streets by night. An unnamed girl (Markéta Irglová) is a Czech who plays piano when she gets a chance, and does odd jobs by day and takes care of her Mom and her daughter by night. Guy meets girl and they get to know each other as the girl helps the guy put together a demo disc that he can take to London in hope of landing a music contract. During the same several day period, the guy and the girl work through their past loves, and reveal their budding love for one another, through their songs.”
This was a beautiful film. Simple and well-told, Once had an amazing group of songs performed by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are wonderful together. Hansard is a more experienced actor than Irglová, but she was every bit as excellent as he was.
The music was a major star of this film. A more modern musical, part of the movie was the creation and recording of these songs but our characters. I found those moments the most intriguing. The relationship in the film between guy and girl was different and surprising.
Written and directed by John Carney, Once is real, gritty and warm. Thoroughly entertaining, Once is a low-budget success that is exceptional to watch.
The Genre-ary is creeping toward a finish as we reach January 25th, and we pull out the Dick Van Dyke musical, Bye Bye Birdie, based on a stage musical.
According to IMDB, “Conrad Birdie is the biggest rock & roll star of the 60’s ever to be drafted. Aspiring chemist and song writer Albert is convinced he can make his fortune and marry his girlfriend Rosie if he gets Conrad on the Ed Sullivan show to kiss a high school girl goodbye. Albert’s mother will do anything to break him up with Rosie. Kim and Hugo, the high school steadies, live in Sweet Apple, Ohio where most of the action takes place“
Certainly, this is loosely based on Elvis Presley going into the army, as Conrad Birdie is very much like The King. Albert (Dick Van Dyke) is desperate for Birdie to sing a song he was trying to write. Rosie (Janet Leigh) hoped that the song would give Albert the ability to get away from his overbearing mother (Maureen Stapleton) and give Albert the strength to ask Rosie to marry him.
Fun songs throughout the film included “Put on a Happy Face,” “Kids,” and “Bye Bye Birdie.”
This was quite a fun little movie that was sweet and silly. It works as a family film, but its not the most compelling ever. It was fine.
It’s late in the day and I needed a film for the Genre-ary DailyView. The scheduled film for the day was Earth Girls are Easy.
According to IMDB, “Three furry (and funny) aliens travel around the universe in a spaceship and receive a broadcast showing human females. They are fascinated by these shapely creatures and discover that the broadcast came from Southern California on Earth. Meanwhile, Valley girl Valerie Gail feels her cold fiancé Dr. Ted Gallagher is slipping away and decides to seduce him. Instead, she catches him cheating on her with a nurse, throws him out, smashes his things and refuses to see him again. The aliens’ spaceship crash lands in Valerie’s swimming pool – putting a decided damper on her future wedding plans in Las Vegas. She brings them into her home; and the aliens prove to be quick learners and absorb American popular culture and language through television“
The movie had a surprisingly great cast including Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, Michael McKeon, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Charles Rocket, Larry Linville, Rick Overton, and Julie Brown.
Julie Brown was introduced to me from the Dr. Demento Show with her classically inappropriate song, “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun.” Brown co-wrote this movie and performed several of the songs, the title track “Earth Girls are Easy,” “I Like ’em Big and Stupid,” and “Cause I’m A Blonde.”
This film is really simple and pretty stupid. It has some funny moments, but it is so crazy that it has a hard time keeping a consistent tone.
This is harmless, but just really dumb. Jeff Goldblum is always great. Jim Carrey was great here. Otherwise, it is a basic B movie with some funny songs.
Today, for the Genre-ary DailyView, I went to Vudu and rented Shrek: The Musical. It is a recorded version of the stage show that was based on the Dreamworks movie, Shrek.
The story was fairly consistent with the Mike Myers movie. The costumes and designs of the characters and setting was fantastic and really took the stage show into an awesome look. It’s amazing with the creativity of the set designs that were able to bring this animated movie to life.
Brian d’Arcy James played Shrek the ogre and Sutton Foster played Princess Fiona. Both did an excellent job making these iconic characters their own.
The play had a whole new list of songs written for the show, although it did end with the I’m a Believer, just as the original movie did. The music was fun and clever, working very well for the story.
Daniel Breaker had a difficult job, trying to fill the shoes of Eddie Murphy as Donkey. He did a decent job in a role that was always going to be a challenge.
I really do like this type of film, showing a Broadway play as it is on the stage, much like they did with Hamilton and Kinky Boots. I would love to see more of these.
A school delay has given me the chance to do the Genre-ary DailyView this morning and the scheduled film today was the 1953 classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.
There were not as many songs as I thought there might be, but the most famous one is clearly “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” as performed by Monroe.
The pairing of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell really worked well in this movie, as the entire bit depended on the chemistry between the two of them as unlikely friends. Marilyn Monroe’s character, Lorelei, loves diamonds and Russell’s Dorothy has a sarcastic head on her shoulders. The duo are the backbone of the movie.
There are some funny moments in the film, as they played the situations into fancy.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, “Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) is a beautiful showgirl engaged to be married to the wealthy Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan), much to the disapproval of Gus’ rich father, Esmond Sr., who thinks that Lorelei is just after his money. When Lorelei goes on a cruise accompanied only by her best friend, Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell), Esmond Sr. hires Ernie Malone (Elliott Reid), a private detective, to follow her and report any questionable behavior that would disqualify her from the marriage.“
Director Howard Hawks provides a lavish production that can just barely stand up to the power of its two leading women. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are so great together and they are absolutely the reason to see this movie.
Because I felt as if I was cheating with the musical this morning (Ray really was not a musical), I decided to watch some short movies on YouTube to cover the bases. I did three of them.
“Taylor Swift-All Too Well: The Short Film” (2021)
“Incest! The Musical” (2011)
“Zombie Musical” (2011)
The Taylor Swift short was basically a song with a story being told over top of it. It is a music video. However, Sadie Sink did appear in the video as one of the main characters. I did enjoy the song, but, again, it most likely not a musical. The story of this collapsing relationship was sad and engaging. Sadie Sink is an excellent young actor.
Incest! The Musical was really fun, which I know it is an odd thing to say. A brother and a sister sing about their attraction for one another and how they don’t care what the world says about their relationship. This has some really clever lyrics on the songs satirizing a subject that everybody considers queesy.
Then, in 2011, in the middle of the zombie craze, Zombie Musical appeared. Basically the same idea that you have seen all over the place with zombie shows/movies, but with songs. This short was remade into the film “Anna and the Apocalypse,” which was fun and I watched during the first DailyView.
I watched Ray, the biopic of Ray Charles, starring Jamie Foxx, which lead to Foxx winning the Academy Award for Best Actor. However, it absolutely falls into the category that I spoke about at the beginning of the Genre-ary DailyView. It is not a musical.
It did have musical listed on the summary for the movie, but it is one of those movies that has music in it, is even about music, but is not a musical. I did say at the beginning of this month that I might not follow that rule as I was going through it and so I have broken it.
According to IMDB, “The story of Ray Charles (played by Jamie Foxx), music legend. Told in his adult life with flashbacks to his youth we see his humble origins in Florida, his turbulent childhood, which included losing his brother and then his sight, his rise as pianist in a touring band, him writing his own songs and running his own band, and then stardom. Also includes his addiction to drugs and its affect on his working life and family life.“
Jamie Foxx is sensational as the legendary performer. He seemingly brought back to life the larger than life character of Ray Charles Robinson, better known to the world as just Ray Charles.
The biopic sections of this movie are the best parts. Watching Foxx develop Ray through his relationships, his struggle to find the right sound, his drug habit and other problems was the standout of this film.
The music was used well, but I could have used more of it. It seemed to only give a flavor of the songs in the film. Again, another reason why I would not consider this a musical, necessarily.
I thought the weakest part of the movie were the daydreams/delusions that Ray would have flashing back to the traumatic event of his brother’s death. The appearance of water in his suitcase or on the floor were too cartoony for what the movie was trying to go for. This felt way too artsy for the story. The straight up flashbacks were considerably more powerful and more effective than that.
I do appreciate that the film did not shy away from some of the negative aspects of his life. Many of these types of musical biopics leave out major issues in favor of a more positive spin. We see Ray Charles and his drug addiction, which led to his arrest, and his extra-marital affairs, one which even gave him a son.
Along with Jamie Foxx, the strong cast included Regina King, Kerry Washington, Clifton Powell, Sharon Warren, Richard Schiff, Larenz Tate, Terrence Howard, Wendell Pierce, Bokeem Woodbine, and even Moonlighting’s Herbert Viola, Curtis Armstrong, himself. I was able to get past my dislike of that actor because of his Moonlighting role. Being fair, he did a solid job here.
This was a movie with a lot of good and some areas where I would have liked something different. Jamie Foxx is tremendous as are the rest of the cast (shout out to Kerry Washington for her role as Charles’s wife, Bee). Ray is a touch long and, not really a musical, but it is a solid film overall.
In 2023, Jason Statham starred in two of the top three worst movies on my Worst Movie list. He is starting off 2024 better than that.
Adam Clay (Jason Statham) is a beekeeper who has rented some space from Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) for his hives. When Eloise gets scammed out of all her money, including 2 million dollars from a charity that she ran, she kills herself. This set off Clay, who turned out to be a retired member of a special governmental group called the Beekeepers, and he went on a killing spree of everyone involved in the scam.
This was absolutely a poor-man’s John Wick. There is even the scene where the cocky young guy is told by a father-figure that he has messed up and is going to be killed and that there is nothing they can do about it. This felt right out of John Wick’s first film.
The cocky young guy behind the scam scheme is Josh Hutcherson and he does a decent job of being slimy as could be. The ‘father-figure’ was a former CIA director played by Jeremy Irons. Both of these two did a great job as their characters, even if there is not much to them. This is a good example of good actors elevating parts that might not be very deep.
However, Hutcherson’s character’s eventual identity is very cringeworthy and is a big part of the finale of this movie that was so out there that it brought the film down.
The first part of the film was actually pretty decent and had a lot of fun, cheesy action with Jason Statham just killing fools. The film does go over the edge several times in the third act, stretching credibility to a thin. thin string.
There are two FBI agents that the film follows for some reason. Emma Raver-Lampman played Agent Veronica Parker, the daughter of Phylicia Rashad’s character but you could hardly guess that considering how detached she was most of the film. That plot point should have been eliminated or expanded upon instead of what was done.
And as I have hinted at, the finale is just so improbably that, even in this type of a film, it makes you roll your eyes. This was very much like those crazy action movies of the 1990s. If that is what you are looking for, The Beekeeper is enough fun to get by, even if there are better movies that feature revenge killing. There were some decent kills in the first part of the film that were satisfying. There was one that was shown in the trailer that I wish would have been kept for the film because it would have been epic if I did not know it was coming.
Some of the dialogue of this movie was silly, with so many bee-puns that you just have to shake your head.
The Beekeeper is dumb fun and a Jason Statham fan would enjoy this a lot. The dumb stuff never threatened to overwhelm the film and there was enough fun parts to make this watchable.
I.S.S. stands for the International Space Station, and this is a science fiction movie set aboard the Space Station. It was a cooperative venture between the United States and Russia.
Everything seemed to be going well until something happened on the earth. They could see the explosions from the space station. Then the Americans received a message from earth to take control of the I.S.S. using whatever means necessary.
I found most of the first hour fairly dull. I did not think most of these characters were developed and I did not have any connection to any of these people.
Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, John Gallagher Jr, Maria Mashkova, Costa Ronin and Pilou Asbæk are the actors in the film and they are all fine, though not great in any stretch of imagination.
The effects of the film were pretty decent. The scenes of the explosions on earth were the coolest part. The use of the floating/lack of gravity was a cool effect too.
Other than that, I did not like much about this film.
In my class, we are reading The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. There is a section in there where the main character, Hannah, tells some other Jewish girls stories about movies & TV shows she has seen. One of those she mentioned in Yentl, starring Barbra Streisand. I had never seen that and I knew it was a musical so it fit right in the Genre-ary DailyView.
However, I am not sure if the film would be considered a musical. The structure of the film is different than most musicals. Despite Streisand’s character Yentl singing in some scenes, Yentl does not sing every time. In fact, there are some songs where we see her singing and, within the same song, she is not singing any more.
Yentl (Barbra Streisand) wanted to be able to study the Talmud, a main book in Jewish theology and law, but, as a woman, she was forbidden to do so. Still, her beloved father (Nehemiah Persoff) allowed her to study is secret. When he passed away, Yentl cut off her hair and donned a disguise as a man in order to be able to continue the study. Yentl met Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin) along the way and became friends with him. Yentl fell for him despite Avigdor being in love with another.
I did not know that Mandy Patinkin was in this movie. I love him from The Princess Bride so he brings a quality to this film that may not have been there for me without him.
Barbra Streisand did all of the music in the film and her voice is, of course, stunning. The music works very well with the story that is being told. Michael Legrand won an Oscar for his work on the score.
I did have a few problems with the film. First, and most prominently, I had a difficult time accepting Barbra Streisand as a man. He voice, her beautiful face just did not speak man to me. I also wondered about the beard that this “man” never seemed to grow and never shaved.
That just is a matter of suspending disbelief, but I had a hard time believing that Mandy Patinkin, who was close up with Barbra several times, including roughhousing with her, could not tell the difference.
The film did feel cruel at times, especially toward Hadass (Amy Irving). When she married “Anshel” (Yentl’s male name), and the story had her fall for him, that felt particularly cruel and there was no pay off for that. The film really treated Hadass in a bad way.
However, the film is decent, with some powerful songs. Patinkin is great and I feel Streisand did the best she could to make her seem to be a male.
I loved Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with Johnny Depp. So when I saw Cry-Baby on the list of musicals with Depp starring, I though this would be a great addition for the Genre-ary DailyView.
Boy, was I wrong.
I HATED THIS MOVIE!
There was really no story to it. The acting was horrendous. It was so stupid.
Johnny Depp was absolutely was just getting by. You can see flashes of the charisma that he will have later in his career, but this is such a terrible vehicle for him that those few flashes are hidden amongst the garbage.
The movie has 72% on Rotten Tomatoes which absolutely flabbergasts me.
I will say that a few of the songs were catchy. In particular the song when Cry Baby was in jail. However, honestly, none of the other songs stood out to me at all.
I had just a terrible time watching this movie and I would put it on a list of my least favorite movies ever.
Another comedy/musical with a really long title is on the agenda for tonight’s entry in the Genre-ary DailyView. It is a 1967 movie that was based on a play from 1961 and a book from 1952. I have seen the play itself back on a Fathom movie several years ago when Stephen Colbert had a guest role in the musical. That was shot like a stage play though and, to be fair, I did not remember much about that film.
So I came into this 1967 film with the most basic of knowledge, which was, I guess, the title. None of the film that I watched reminded me of the musical version I saw so it works fine for the DailyView.
According to IMDB, “Twenty-seven year old New York window washer, J. Pierrepont Finch (Robert Morse), believes he can be a success in the corporate world after he impulsively picks up the book “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying“. The book promises its reader that he can climb the corporate ladder simply and quickly. The Worldwide Wicket Corporation, the business in the office building whose windows he washes is, according to the book, the perfect type of business. There he meets secretary Rosemary Pilkington (Michele Lee), who sees in Ponty (as she calls him) an unassuming man who she believes the corporate world will eat alive. But Ponty, memorizing what the book tells him, does quickly climb the corporate ladder but not by doing any real work.”
I have to say that I was much more interested in the Fathom Events version of this than the 1967 movie, especially at the start. As the film moved on, I was a little more engaged in the film because it was kind of fun to see how Finch was going to get himself out of the obvious trouble that he was in.
The film certainly portrayed the people involved in business as incompetent boobs. Even the very top of the field were taken in by a little flattery and some machinations.
I did like the fact that the actual book purchased by Finch would narrate the story, as Finch would read each entry. This was a neat feature.
The songs themselves were not as memorable as I would have liked.
If I remember correctly, I enjoyed the Fathom Events one much more than this, although this did improve as it moved along.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 