Musicalfest 2007: Newsies and Grease 2

I think that I'd better limit these posts to bullet points or something - I know the blog header says "stream of consciousness," but overly verbose ramblings about musicals just make me seem crazy and overinvested. So here goes - these two films have some interesting similarities that struck me as I thought about what I might say about them.

-Neither is directly derived from a stage show, which certainly puts them in a minority among musical films, at least since the 1950s or so.
-Both are directed by choreographers, something that seems to result in a greater number very large dance numbers featuring dozens of people than one sees in those films directed by straight-up directors. Maybe it's a conscious effort to show off their dance-creation prowess. Maybe it's just because it looks cool.
-Both feature early roles by actors who would become much more famous in the future. Grease 2 is often referred to as Michelle Pfieffer's "first starring role," and she mostly pulls it off, considering that the movie is almost entirely ridiculous. The central newsie of Newsies is played by Christian Bale, who is somewhat less successful. Bale is not quite as accomplished at the song & dance element of the musical as fellow singer-dancer-superhero Hugh Jackman (particularly at the dancing - he's rarely at the front of those aforementioned large dance numbers.) Neither is really a film to look at for glimpses of stardom.
-Both have insanely catchy songs, like still-stuck-in-your-head-after-two-weeks catchy. Interestingly, Newsies features songs written by Alan Menken, who served as half of the songwriting teams that brought Disney back into prominence in the late 1980s-early 1990s with the animated musicals (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc.) Menken was probably the most familiar composer to children of my generation in their early formative years, though his name doesn't seem to be brought up very frequently. The songs in Grease 2...defy adjectives. Even if I spelled out the entire synopsis of the movie and its songs here, I could not adequately describe the sheer ridiculosity of the songs in Grease 2. The point is, watch it.
-Both are unintentionally hilarious. My sister used to watch Grease 2 with appalling regularity, as in multiple times a week, when she was early-elementary-school-aged (why? We're still not sure), but it wasn't until we dug the movie back out as teens that we realized how over-the-top, so-bad-it's-good the movie is. The movie abounds with double-entendres completely lacking in subtlety - one example is a song set at the bowling alley entitled "Score Tonight." (I wish that I had made that up. It's truly a movie that has to be seen to be believed.) Newsies scrapes by with a bit more credibility than Grease 2, just because some of the characters it depicts were actually real people, even though watching "tough" newsboys of turn-of-the-century New York burst into exuberant song is ridiculous, even within the surreal parameters of musical film.

So much for writing less. I'm not sure whether I should be concerned that I can write this much about musical films. We'll see how the next few posts turn out.

Musicalfest 2007: Chicago and Moulin Rouge

Some time ago, my sister and I decided that this summer would be the summer for watching as many musicals as we can. We're off to a somewhat slow start, as she's still got schoolwork, but I wanted to write my thoughts on each one - it's in keeping with my idea of what this blog's general theme is, and it fits with the plan that I always have for writing more frequently. The first two musicals are from earlier this decade: Chicago and Moulin Rouge.

I find myself constantly baffled by the claims that film critics always seem to make about the box office potential of musicals. It would seem that today's filmgoers are simply too practical for musicals, that although they know that the films are not real, the requisite suspension of disbelief involved in watching people burst into song and dance is too much for them. While only a generation or two ago, musicals like West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and Grease were hits, apparently a director today has to make the musical structure seem feasible in real life. Maybe I'm missing something. However, it makes these two films an interesting jumping-off point, as both were separately heralded for ushering in a new era for musicals. In Chicago, the strategy is turning the musical numbers into fantasy sequences. My personal feeling is that if the songs are going to be there anyway, why do they need to be "real?" In Moulin Rouge, the issue is diluted by the use of popular songs, written well before the movie, that swirl into Baz Luhrmann's fantasyland. This both works and doesn't - the spirited mash-up of "Lady Marmalade" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" near the beginning of the film makes the scene so unique that it really sells the film, even if you're not sure where it's taking you. However, I still kind of resent Luhrmann for putting Ewan McGregor's voice in my head every time I hear "Your Song."

It's an interesting question: Does the world need a new kind of musical for the twenty-first century? One of the things that I'd like to do with this summer-long marathon is to go back and start in the thirties and forties, watching the musical evolve into what we have today. What are moviegoers looking to see on the screen when they sit down to watch a musical? What are the stories being told through song? Maybe the general populace says the musical is dead, but I'm looking forward to an exciting summer.