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What’s the point of them? The film starts, has a story, moves along then next thing people are jumping about, singing, dancing, doing all sorts. Then stop and back to the story, which is normally cobblers.
Gave up on La bloody La Land after they all started dancing on top of their cars at the start.
It’s either one or the other. Music or film. Paint Your Wagon wasted Clint and Lee Marvin. They could have made a Point Blank/Dirty Harry type thing and ended up talking to trees under wandrin stars. Flip a duck.
I got dragged along to a song along The Sound of Music once with the Mrs and my mate and his Mrs. We were the only blokes there.
No musical has ever been any good. And that’s a fact.
I got to 40 being able to completely ignore them, but if you've got daughters, they are impossible to avoid. I've seen too many to count, at home on the box and doing my duty at school halls, you eventually pick out a few favourites from the rest. Awful - Les Miserables, Glee, Annie, Rocky Horror, Matilda. Good fun - High School Musical, Chicago, Sister Act (no, really!).
I got to 40 being able to completely ignore them, but if you've got daughters, they are impossible to avoid. I've seen too many to count, at home on the box and doing my duty at school halls, you eventually pick out a few favourites from the rest. Awful - Les Miserables, Glee, Annie, Rocky Horror, Matilda. Good fun - High School Musical, Chicago, Sister Act (no, really!).
Chicago has good songs and dance if you like that stuff and the advantage of a plot that stood up as a straight comedy (Roxie Hart - Ginger Rogers excellent, brilliant cameo by Phil Silvers).
Can't agree on Rocky Horror, another of the exceptions IMO. Bursting into song doesn't strain credibility when you already have a Transylvanian transvestite living in a castle in middle America and Meatloaf bursting through the wall on a motorbike. Return to Forbidden Planet is a laugh too.
My parents were mad about musicals - we saw every one that came out in the 50s and early 60s, and although I generally didn't care for them, I found that I learned so many songs subliminally by heart. Doctor, please help me! However, the only film worth a shout in those days was South Pacific. Mitzi Gaynor adorable and a great performer. On stage, and later on in life, I was really knocked out watching Hair in 1968. Later on J C Superstar was a memorable album. In more mature years I enjoyed Evita then in 1980s and two fantastic NT performances of Carousel and Oklahoma in 1990s.
Saturday Night Fever a truly great film.
Les mis? Phantom? Naah. Indeed almost anything else I agree with OP
I'm not having this. Yes, like anything, there are some crap ones but, a decent musical is brilliant. You can't beat being able to watch a good film and have a proper sing a long at the same time.
Felt exactly the same about La La Land, turned it off before the end of the first scene.
There are exceptions. "Cabaret" maybe cheats by being a musical about people who sing and dance in a night club but is brilliant IMO.
This scene is perfectly realistic, has a great song and is really scary (in context)
One thing about that song is that it seems to have a certain theory of fascism behind it. You know how it is...you pop down to the Bierkeller...and before you know it your right arm begins to twitch and you're singing the Horst Wessel Song.
Inside Llewellyn Davis is one of my favourite films from the last 10 years. Not sure if you would class it as a musical. More a film about musicians and the music industry.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Agree about the start of La La Land. I thought what the hell am I watching and nearly switched off but didn’t mind it after that. Saw a Star is Born last year and seem to remember liking it.
Edit- Also the more recent version of Les Miserable was quite watchable.
I'm not having this. Yes, like anything, there are some crap ones but, a decent musical is brilliant. You can't beat being able to watch a good film and have a proper sing a long at the same time.
Inside Llewellyn Davis is one of my favourite films from the last 10 years. Not sure if you would class it as a musical. More a film about musicians and the music industry.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Agree about the start of La La Land. I thought what the hell am I watching and nearly switched off but didn’t mind it after that. Saw a Star is Born last year and seem to remember liking it.
Edit- Also the more recent version of Les Miserable was quite watchable.
[Post edited 29 May 2020 13:05]
Fine film.
The distinction I make, rightly or wrongly, is that in a musical people start singing when they could be talking the dialogue. And I hate those kind of musicals. Films/shows with good music, ok. But not ones where they're singing the chat.
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
Felt exactly the same about La La Land, turned it off before the end of the first scene.
There are exceptions. "Cabaret" maybe cheats by being a musical about people who sing and dance in a night club but is brilliant IMO.
This scene is perfectly realistic, has a great song and is really scary (in context)
I agree with the general thrust but there are rare exceptions. Cabaret is certainly one of them and this song is chilling, when you know what is coming afterwards. Chicago is not bad.
But Mrs dragged me to see Blood Brothers. One song repeated time after time, with different words. She also persuaded me to see Phantom of the Opera in New York. Dreadful storyline made worse by screechy singing. And, finally, got persuaded to the film version of Les Miserables. Who let Russell Crowe sing? Good story line ruined by continual drift into musical pap. Why not read the book? You can even get English translations.
As you can tell, the Mrs quite likes musicals and I am a real hero for putting up with her to keep the peace.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky
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