In anticipation of Baz Luhrmann's upcoming biopic about The King, I couldn't resist making one of these an Elvis double feature.
Jailhouse Rock (1957)
Trailers: Viva Las Vegas, King Creole
Most of Elvis’s movies are not great, but this one is charming enough and a good (if formulaic) story about the cost of doing the music business and choosing whether to leave people behind in order to get what you want. The jailhouse number is obviously iconic, and that’s the lasting impression I have of the movie and not much else). Would make an interesting double feature with Penitentiary (1979), which I'll be watching in a few weeks for Junesploitation and which also has a meaningful mentor relationship between fellow prison inmates.
Elvis (TV, 1979)
Trailers: Elvis (2022), Rocketman
Directed by John Carpenter and starring his soon-to-be frequent collaborator Kurt Russell, this is your standard made-for-TV biopic that waters a whole lot of stuff down and was made frankly too soon after Presley’s death to be objective in any way. I kind of liked the framing device of his comeback concert in Vegas, and the thread of his relationship with his mother and the memory of his lost brother is a nice emotional touch. I was frustrated, though, that there is not one mention of his life after that, notably his eventual heavy drug use (though maybe not a lot of that was public knowledge at the time?). Russell makes a compelling Elvis, though, and would play him again years later in 3000 Miles to Graceland.
Diane Lane was 17 when this was made (and Laura Dern 15), and everyone in this, down to the Stains’ copycat fans, feels painfully real. This reminded me a lot of THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN (which I watched for last year’s Summerfest), particularly in the way that the Stains become a movement. I love that this isn’t a portrait of a band’s whole career (though we see a few snapshots of their eventual success in the movie’s final moments). This is about the initial phase, where they’re trying to define themselves. And I LOVE that, even though they have a crisis of authenticity at one of their shows, it’s too late for it to derail their momentum — they’re already on the radio and most people won’t care (or even know about) what happened at one gig.
We Are the Best! (2013)
Trailers: Her Smell, Prey for Rock & Roll
This was not quite what I expected but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Because the characters are so young, there’s a lot of screen time devoted to them just being kids. I feel like a lot of people have experiences like the story of this film. Two friends start a band, maybe add one or two people who actually know what they’re doing, ultimately write one or two songs, play one gig, and then perhaps it’s all over and they move on (the end of this film is ambiguous in terms of whether these characters ever play together again, but I imagine they drift apart and move on not long after the credits roll).
A couple of musicals with motorcycles for today. I would not have thought to put these two films together, so thanks to the Twitter user whose name I can't remember for putting it into my head.
Streets of Fire (1984) (rewatch)
Trailers: The Warriors, Slumber Party Massacre II
The plot here matters less than the style and the music. It’s wild to see Willem Dafoe this young (and this leather-clad). It also features maybe the least wimpy character I’ve ever seen Rick Moranis play. I find myself less and less interested in the doomed romance of Diane Lane and Michael Pare, though, the more I watch this. The mild dystopian elements and the all-night chase remind me a lot of The Warriors (1979), also directed by Walter Hill, which I loved. I live for this movie’s soundtrack, though, especially the two Jim Steinman songs.
Grease 2 (1982) (rewatch)
Trailers: Shock Treatment, Can’t Buy Me Love
Yep, I still prefer this to the original. The original has better songs, to be sure (though I love the songs in 2 as well), but the story here is much better, as are the gender dynamics. I love that the Sandy-equivalent Michael doesn’t change everything about himself at the 11th hour to appeal to Stephanie. He develops a skill (and a cycle) over the course of the whole film, in an effort to cultivate a shared interest between them. And he’s pretty much the same person as Cool Rider as he is as nice guy Michael. I also think this movie just looks better than its predecessor. The colors pop and it’s far less drab, and the director (having been a choreographer on the original) has a knack for filling the frame and making everything dynamic (though she almost always does so by throwing a dance number in the mix). Some of the shots are downright gorgeous (hello, motorcycle heaven!).
For the past couple of summers I have set myself a ridiculous summer movie-watching schedule with a theme for each week and a movie for every day. This is generally a way to get me through the summer tedium until I take my end-of-summer vacation. I also tend to use it to get to a bunch of movies that have been on my to-watch list for ages, as well as rewatch some favorites. I also picked a couple of trailers to go with each movie because I am That Nerd.
Regardless of the calendar and solstices, I typically count Memorial Day weekend as the start of summer. So to kick things off, I'm filling this holiday weekend with some musical (or music-themed) double features. This and the next three days' posts were inspired by a tweet I saw where a theater was doing a double feature of Streets of Fire and Grease 2, which I decided I needed to do for myself (see tomorrow's post). It ended up being an excuse to scratch half a dozen movies off my to-watch list.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Trailers: Vox Lux, Stunt Rock
Great and hilarious mockumentary, in the style of Behind the Music (or whatever the modern equivalent would be). Written, directed and starring The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone), and featuring loads of their songs, created specifically for the film. Full of cameos from real life music industry personalities, lending everything a veneer of authenticity. This is first and foremost, though, a story of the importance of friendship and keeping your relationships intact through the ups and downs of success. I liked this more than I expected to.
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Trailers: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Dreamgirls
This has been on my to-watch list for some time. Another story about a music group that follows the Behind the Music trajectory, but the cast and the writing make it great. I confess I enjoy the villain’s plot a bit more than the boilerplate stuff with the band. But it’s still a lot of fun. Nearly perfect, in fact. I say nearly because I kind of despised the gag with Carson Daly. There’s nothing wrong with him being in the film as himself, as he was at the time a ubiquitous presence on MTV. But teasing a romance between him and Tara Reid’s character (Reid being his RL girlfriend/fiancee at the time) was incredibly cringy and took me right out of the film for a few minutes.
Alrighty, here we go. The Muppets. Bottom line. Absolutely back to the spirit of the classic Muppet movies and the television show. If you have any lingering affection for these creatures at all, you will enjoy it. I have a couple of quibbles, but the joy here is far too large to be undone.
There. If you plan to see it, that's all you need. Read nothing. Watch no clips. Just let the joy wash over you, then come back. You know, if you want. No one's making you, jeez!
And now, if you've seen it already, here's a closer look.
You know the story. Even if you'd never seen a trailer or read anything else about it, you could have guessed without much difficulty. The Muppet Studios in LA are about to be torn down by an evil oil magnate unless the Muppets can raise the $10 million needed to keep it. So they decide to put on a show - a telethon to raise the money. It all starts, however, with a man named Gary and his muppet brother Walter.
Walter is the Muppets' biggest fan. He grew up watching the show and the movies, and Kermit and the gang were his refuge when the world wasn't so kind to him. It's not easy bein' felt, yo. So when Walter gets a chance to go on a trip to Hollywood and visit the old Muppet Studio, it's the greatest day of his life. What he doesn't know until he gets there is that the studio has fallen on hard times. No one is there now except an old guide giving $5 tours, almost all the attractions are closed, and everything is in a serious state of disrepair and disuse. He sneaks into Kermit's old office and overhears a plan to turn the studios into a Muppet Museum, but that's just a cover. The greasy Tex Richman plans to tear everything down and dig for oil.
Walter is deeply upset - he screams for like five minutes - and he's determined to Do Something. He and Gary, along with Gary's lady friend Mary, find Kermit's house (or mansion, rather) and give him the bad news. Kermit is saddened but doesn't really know what can be done. He sings The Most Heartbreaking Song in the History of Time ("Pictures in My Head"), whose title I can't even type without tearing up. If you have ever had people who were once incredibly important to you and who you couldn't imagine drifting away from, only to find that eventually that's exactly what happens, this song was designed to make you cry like a crying crier who cries. I thought the transition into this song was a little weird and abrupt, but forgot all about it when the song started. Definitely the best of the new songs.
Kermit thinks it'll be impossible to get the gang back together, but Walter tells him he should at least try. So they hit the road (and eventually travel by map LOL) and track everyone down. Along the way, the usual Muppet story absurdities crop up - e.g., Gonzo and Scooter are doing pretty dang well, so couldn't they afford to pony up some money and at least put a dent in that $10 million? Who cares - we're going to put on a show, dangit! When they've gotten everyone back but Miss Piggy, Kermit shows a strange reluctance to go and find her.
And here's where the movie hit the biggest snag for me. I have always been a huge Kermit/Piggy fan. You might say they were the first couple I ever "shipped," and their romance has always been one of my favorite parts of the show and the movies. A love so powerful it transcended not only species but animal grouping, it was always fraught with conflict (mainly, I think, because she expended so much more energy on their relationship than he did). But it was just ... meant to be, you know? I'm fine with them having drifted apart, and I appreciate that they were genuinely trying to explore their relationship and make it feel real and textured. But the way the two characters are written here is just weird and doesn't feel like them at all. It's like it was written by someone who doesn't quite get what made them tick - like a Harmonian trying to write Ron/Hermione. Well, not quite that bad, but it just felt off, and that was kind of disappointing. I did mostly love the scene where they're walking the streets of Paris - she in a beret and he in a turtleneck, like they tripped and fell into a Jean-Luc Godard film. But again, the writing is not quite there. Perhaps it would have been a bit better if we'd seen flashbacks to what drove them apart instead of all the telling. I don't know. Minor quibble, I guess, but it felt major because it had to do with my favorite aspect of the movies/show.
BUUUUT, back to the good stuff. Kermit and the gang manage to get two hours of broadcast time for their telethon, even though everyone has told them they're not relevant and no one cares about them anymore. But they need a celebrity host, and no matter how many eighties stars Kermit calls (the only people in his Rolodex) no one is interested. They get desperate and decide to try and plead with Tex Richman, but he does an awesomely bad rap number about how that's not going to happen, and to top it off, he's not only going to take the theater, he's going to take the brand name and all the character names and start his own muppet show, with edgier muppets - to cater to the more cynical world they all now live in.
But hope is not lost, and in typical Muppet fashion, everything comes together at the last minute. I loved that the theater was empty at first, but that it filled up over the course of the two hours as people realized how much the Muppets had meant to them over the years. What I loved more was that people in my audience started singing along with the songs. Notably, the theme song ("It's time to play the music! It's time to light the lights!") and the One, the Only, don't pretend you don't know it's the Ultimate Heart-Tugger "The Rainbow Connection." If I thought I'd cried all my tears at "Pictures in My Head," I was so wrong. There are some wildly funny musical moments, too, such as the barber shop quartet singing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl also has a cameo early in the film) and and Camilla and the chicken chorus doing CeeLo's ... I guess it would be "Cluck You." ;-)
I loved the message in the end, which, like all messages in Muppet movies, is pretty standard stuff but good to hear anyway. And the moment at the end, when Kermit opens the theater door, genuinely took me by surprise. And of course brought back ALL THE CREYS.
There are some excellent cameos, most of which I won't spoil, but - hey, you're not supposed to be reading this until you've seen it anyway! My favorite is Emily Blunt, giving a nod to her Devil Wears Prada character as Miss Piggy's assistant. Oh, and HELLO THERE, MICKEY ROONEY! He was a muppet before there were Muppets, don't you think? Loved all the throwbacks to old Muppet numbers (great use of "Mahna Mahna") and covers of famous songs, and I liked most of the new songs, too. I already mentioned "Pictures in My Head" and the lolarious Tex Richman Rap, but there's also "Me Party," which in addition to being a great disco sendup, is like the story of my life - pretty much every day is a Me Party. :P And there's a great Serious Character-Building Song called "Man or Muppet" (Jim Parsons, FTW!).
It's not perfect, even for a Muppet movie, but it's close enough. It's good to know that the world hasn't gone so far into the cynical that the Muppets can't bring us back to a place where genuine sweetness trumps trash and hipster ironic commentary.
The target of perfection at which posing, period "Oscar bait" pictures shoot in vain.
Amadeus
I was 9 years old when this movie came out in 1984, and my parents went to see it without me (I would discover it on television soon after). I remember that they dressed up as if they were going to the theater and were appalled that people had shown up to the cinema in jeans and shorts. To see a movie about MOZART, forsooth! They talked rapturously about it with my piano teacher, and I listened jealously. This was a point in my life when I was completely unaware of the Oscars and the honors lavished on this film the next spring. But this has been a very important movie to me for most of my life, and it's a case of a great movie that has only gotten better with age (both the movie's age and my own).
My first vivid memory of the film was always the horror of the Salieri's suicide attempt, which for the longest time I could not watch - a fact that seems hilarious to me now. There are many moments in the film, though, that have lived in my memory for a long, long time. At the center of this fantastic movie are two phenomenal performances. F. Murray Abraham (Salieri) and Tom Hulce (Mozart) would each go on to be nominated for Academy Awards, and when Abraham won, he paid tribute to his co-star and on-screen rival by saying that the only thing missing from the experience was having Hulce standing at his side.
The first thing to note about this film, which was written by Peter Shaffer (who also wrote Equus), adapted from his own 1979 play, is that it is not a biography. It is a highly fictionalized story about real people. Mozart's (and Salieri's) music is heavily featured throughout and is an essential piece of the storytelling. Perhaps more than anything else, though, what it is "about" is the nature of genius and the appreciation of it. It may be a cliche to say that a true genius is never appreciated in his/her own time, but I have to say that seeing this film again in the context of an Oscar season puts a fascinating new spin on it. With all the arguments over what the "best" film of the year is and many people feeling (as if this is anything new) that the frontrunner is merely a sentimental favorite rather than a genuinely great work, I can't help thinking of Mozart and Salieri. One was perhaps the greatest composer who has ever lived but, at least as the film portrays him, he was not the most popular composer of his day because he was ahead of his time in so many ways and because he was not a toady of the Emperor's Court. The other man had musical talent - was quite good in fact - and received many honors and accolades while he lived but was all but forgotten by history (until Shaffer's play and the film brought him back to people's attention). Salieri receives medals and commendations by the Emperor who calls one of his works "the greatest opera yet written." Mozart, on the other hand, sees his own opera, La Nozze di Figaro (arguably his greatest work), pilloried and parodied on the vaudeville stage as if it were part of one of those awful pop culture pastiche movies like Not Another Teen Movie. Mozart obviously got the better deal in the long run, but we can only see that conclusion through the long lens of history.
I won't go through a play-by-play of the film, because there is far too much to say. I will just leave you with my two favorite moments from the film, both of which are key musical moments as well. In the first, we're watching the premiere of La Nozze di Figaro. Salieri, despite his resentment, cannot but marvel at the beauty of the piece. Abraham's narration is absolutely perfect here, putting each word in precisely the right place in the music so that he only adds and never takes away from it. This part of the opera, by the way, is probably my favorite piece of music ever, I'm sure in no small part due to the meaning Abraham gives to it in this scene.
Of course, before we can get too carried away, there is that yawn which changes the tone utterly and irrevocably, followed by another scene that spookily mirrors the film criticism world (to me, anyway). Salieri suggests that Mozart's opera was too long, and that he should have given the audience a big bang at the end of songs to let them know when to clap. I've seen loads of film critics say comparable things about films, to say nothing of snap judging a film because it doesn't have "X" or "Y" in it. Or, you know, snap judging at all (Incidentally, I think Twitter has been the worst thing to happen to film criticism in a great many years - how can you possibly judge something adequately before you've had a chance to think about it?).
And then there is this moment. I don't know how much you may know about sound mixing. I'm pretty ignorant about it myself, but it's really hard not to see how massively important it is to this scene (and the one embedded above, for that matter). Mozart, on his sickbed, is dictating part of his Requiem, specifically the "Confutatis," to Salieri. You hear each piece of the whole by itself, as Mozart dictates, and when he finally looks at the whole thing you hear it all together and can see what each little piece brings to the whole. I've heard this piece of music many, many times since first seeing this film, and I never fail to marvel at all those amazing little pieces.
There is a director's cut of this, which adds a great deal of character development, but which doesn't flow quite as well as the theatrical cut, in my opinion. This is a perfect film in every way. If you have not yet seen it, by all means do so. It is definitely not one of those "eat your spinach, it's good for you" period movies. It is bold and hilarious and moving and is a movie I could watch again and again and again. Even if you have resisted because you don't like classical music, this film could very well make you a newborn fan.
I was in the middle of writing a post on Mike Leigh's new film, Another Year, when I suddenly came over all nostalgic for my all-time favorite movie of his.
I can't even tell you how much I adore this movie. It is practically perfect in every way, chock full of details of the Victorian era (love the description of eleven-year-old Winston Churchill as "covered in freckles, and has a total disdain for authority"), overflowing with witty period dialogue ("And now, sir, I am going in search of some Italian hokey-pokey, and I care not who knows it."), and positively teeming with the wonderful music of Arthur Sullivan (often accompanied by the clever words of W.S. Gilbert).
One of the things I love the most about this movie is the level of painstaking research, which a film about people and stories familiar to so many could hardly have done without. Almost all of the characters are (or were, rather) real people and many elements of the story are based on historical events. No doubt some artistic license was taken (for instance, I believe "The Lost Chord" was written several years before it is presented as debuting in the film), but I get the impression that it was not a large amount for this movie. Mostly just filling in a few blanks, I should think.
There are lots of familiar faces here, three of them from Harry Potter films - Jim Broadbent as W.S. Gilbert, Timothy Spall as Richard Temple, and Shirley Henderson as Leonora Braham. Kevin McKidd, of Grey's Anatomy fame (and Rome and the short-lived Journeyman) plays lead performer Durward Lely, who cannot sing without his corset. Martin Savage (perhaps known better to you Brits) is beyond wonderful as the famous George Grossmith. LOTR fans may or may not recognize Andy Serkis as choreographer John D'Auban. Ron Cook plays D'Oyly Carte, owner of the Savoy Theater. Jim Broadbent's Another Year co-star Lesley Manville here plays his wife, "Kitty" Gilbert. And those of you who revere, as I do, the classic BBC production of Pride and Prejudice will recognize Mrs. Bennett (a/k/a Alison Steadman) as Madame Leon, the costumer. Another interesting Potter connection is that Alan Corduner, pictured below as Arthur Sullivan, has provided voice work for almost all of the Harry Potter video games, doing voices for Filch, Snape, and Flitwick.
The plot is your average backstage drama. We meet both Gilbert and Sullivan at the height of their popularity, after the successes of most of their well-known productions - The Pirates of Penzance, The Sorcerer, HMS Pinafore, Patience, Iolanthe ... you know, all those ones about duty (they're all about duty). Due to Sullivan's ill health and subsequent trip abroad, combined with a an impasse with Gilbert over the "topsy-turvydom" that defined most of their past work together (including Gilbert's latest libretto, which employs the use of a magic lozenge, thought by Sullivan to be too similar to the magical device in The Sorcerer), the Savoy Theatre which puts on their operas faces a dilemma. Their latest Gilbert and Sullivan opera, Princess Ida, is not as successful as previous efforts, owing both to the repetitive nature of the story and an especially hot London summer which has kept many patrons away. And for the first time since the theater opened, they will have no new opera to replace Ida when it closes (again, this is all based on the actual events and circumstances). Producer Richard D'Oyly Carte revives The Sorcerer to buy some time, but says in no uncertain terms that his theater is not in the business of revivals and that some compromise must be reached soon.
About this time, the Japanese Village in Knightsbridge opens, taking advantage of English fascination with Japan following the opening of trade between the countries. Gilbert reluctantly accompanies his wife to the exhibit in Humphreys' Hall, and after a katana sword he purchased there falls off its hanging place in his study, he is struck with inspiration. I love this scene in the movie, by the way. Broadbent takes the sword and play-acts the part of a samurai for a bit before setting it on the desk to be rehung later. The camera closes in on his face as he looks at the sword, and we hear the faint opening strains of "Behold the Lord, High Executioner" as the light of inspiration fills his eyes, followed by a peek at a song he is about to write from what will be his most successful collaboration with Arthur Sullivan, The Mikado.
Over the course of the rest of the film, we're introduced to various performers in the D'Oyly Carte company, as well as people working backstage, and see various rehearsals and costume fittings, peppered with musical numbers from the opera itself. And these, combined with the struggles in the first part of the film, serve to really invest the viewer in the success of the performance. That's a difficult thing to pull off, but it works remarkably well here. I love how the musical numbers of woven throughout, instead of just a concert dump in the third act. For example, the scene pictured above is a performance of "Three Little Maids," which we see in rehearsal. Gilbert brings in three Japanese women to watch the original choreography, which is cute but not remotely Japanese. He then has the three women replace the actresses and move down the stage, which they do very timidly and gigglingly, and which inspires the eventual staging of the scene, which we see immediately after that rehearsal.
There are many standout scenes, but two in particular that I'm even more fond of than the rest. First is the scene where the ladies and gentlemen of the chorus persuade Gilbert to reinstate a previously cut solo, the only solo that had been written for the eponymous Mikado (who is played by Temple, a/k/a Timothy Spall). The second, and undoubtedly my favorite scene in the film, is very near the end, where Kitty Gilbert talks with her husband about the Mikado opening night and attempts to reach out and, well, woo her husband. The entire history of their marriage is written in this scene and on Lesley Manville's sad but hopeful face. Theirs is not a loveless marriage, but it is a childless and apparently a sexless one. They sleep in separate rooms, and presumably always have. Victorian propriety and probably personal awkwardness have kept them from any kind of intimacy, and what's strange is that you get the impression that each of them would like to have that kind of relationship, but they seem to have lived in polite frigidity so long that neither of them knows how to go about it. A beautiful scene, and a heartbreaking one.
This is getting a Criterion release this March with lots of tantalizing special features (*bounces*), but you can also see it for free on Hulu, if you don't mind the occasional commercial interruption. If you have ever been involved in any way with the theater or enjoy backstage tales like Shakespeare in Love or A Chorus Line, I would highly, highly recommend it. It is rated R, for "a scene of risque nudity" which isn't terribly essential to the story, but I think is a significant moment of character sketching.
I leave you with one of many brilliantly written and performed scenes from this delightful movie - and another example of how the songs are juxtaposed with the backstage moments. Watch how Kevin McKidd gets even Scottish-er at the peak of his anger. :P
Obviously fanvids and filks are nothing new, but the idea of writing songs for a Goonies musical is kind of awesome. Check out "Tubes" below and get it stuck in your head, too!
After trailers for That's Dancing! (a compilation very similar to That's Entertainment), Nudes on Tiger Reef(LOL), and The Fastest Guitar Alive (with Roy Orbison), we settled in for a little movie musical magic from Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.
First of all, I want to share something that I thought was incredibly cool. One of my vintage picks on the application this year was Good News. It's probably my favorite movie musical, and I use name of the main character, Connie Lane, as my username in a few different fandoms (mostly Harry Potter). There are three minor actors in Girl Crazy who would go on four years later to be major actors in Good News - June Allyson (Connie) does the opening number "Treat Me Rough", Robert E. Strickland (Peter Van Dine III - quel frommage!) plays Judy Garland's would-be suitor, and an uncredited Peter Lawford (football hero and Connie's love interest Tommy Marlow) is a student and has one line, but I recognized his voice immediately. I could not believe seeing so many of my Good News lovelies in this movie.
Anyway, on to Girl Crazy. Rooney plays Danny Churchill, Manhattan party boy and heir to a publishing fortune. He does nothing but fritter away his days going from party to party and girl to girl, so his father decides to give him a wake up call. He's going to withdraw him from his Ivy League education and send him to Cody College - if the movie City Slickers was somehow transformed into a university experience, it would be Cody College. So we're in for a classic fish-out-of-water tale. Danny meets and instantly clashes with the mail delivery girl Ginger, so we know they're going to fall in love (if her being played by Judy Garland didn't clue us in already). He makes many attempts to woo her, but she's having none of it. Danny has a hard time adjusting to the hours, the hard work, and the wild west setting of his new home, but he feels it's worth staying to keep chipping away at Ginger's defenses, especially when she starts warming up to him.
There are complications, of course, and this being a musical they're kind of ridiculous. Cody College is going to be shut down because they don't have enough people applying. Naturally, this being a musical, the only solution is to Put On A Show. There are misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and of course musical numbers, and it all works out in the end, as it should.
This is billed as a Rooney-Garland picture, but it's ultimately Rooney's show. This is mostly a great thing, because Rooney was always such a wonderful entertainer and talented in a lot of areas. There are moments when his adorability comes dangerously close to crashing in on itself, but you cannot help being charmed by him, much like Ginger is by Danny. I confess, it's difficult for me to see Rooney as a romantic lead, and especially a smooth-talking ladies' man, which he is supposed to be in this film - he just so short and cute! But his chemistry with Garland is not to be underestimated.
This movie was largely the inspiration for the Tony award wining musical of 1992, Crazy For You, and many of the incredible Gershwin numbers that appear in that musical were in this film - "Bidin' My Time," "Could You Use Me," "Embraceable You," "But Not For Me," and the Busby Berkley-choreographed "I Got Rhythm" - and made me want to stand up and sing and dance along. Sadly, I felt that even BNAT would not be a place where such a thing would fly. Why can't we live in a movie musical world?
Everyone seemed to enjoy this, and there were many great quotables. When one of the guys makes a lackluster marriage proposal to Ginger and talks about putting all his cards on the table, she issues an epic burn by telling him that he should have taken out the Joker. I cracked up when Danny's father tells him that he's been "living in a world of weekend whimsy." The world "diljo" has entered into the BNAT lexicon forever. (Side note: the words diljo, loogan, and snerp all appear on urban dictionary, and the diljo definition is a QUOTE FROM THIS MOVIE.) But perhaps my favorite line had to be this gem of randomosity: "Oh, the things you see around here when you don't have a gun." That's going in my "huh?" file with the "rabbits roar" line from Machine Gun Kelly.
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During the break before our next film, we saw possibly the strangest sight of the evening on the screen, and that's saying something. There were red boxes, with red-painted faces on the fronts of them, and white bare butts sticking out of the tops of them, and there were girls dressed up as nurses giving shots to the bare buttocks and swabbing them with cotton. I could only describe it, as I did at BNAT, as resembling a "pornographic Target commercial." Weird, man. There was also apparently a trailer for Attack of the 50-Foot Woman and a Candy Candido video, but I seem to have blocked them from my mind, forever warped by the bare-butt weirdness.
