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June 18, 2003
Out too late... out too early...
The Hulk kept me at Universal past midnight and Starsky & Hutch have me going downtown by 9:30am... and there is just no way to do The Hulk review justice and be awake in the morning, especially with another long night ahead.
So, Thursday is now looking like The Hulk review & a new 15 Weeks of Summer at MCN.
In the meanwhile, a few ROTDs...
JERRY, NOT BRUCKHEIMER writes: “I'm sure Sweeney Todd and any number of Sondheim musicals could become fine films, with or without Spielberg. But the guy I'd most like to see helm a musical these days is Spike Jonze. Anyone who's seen the Fatboy Slim "Weapon of Choice" video that Jonze did with Christopher Walken will surely agree. That video works so beautifully! It feels like a number from a longer work that I wish I could see. It would also be nice if someone would try to get an original musical off the ground. I know the studios prefer the comparative safety of a pre-sold product like Phantom of the Opera, but there are a number of people out there who could knock an original out of the park - Marc Shaiman (witness the South Park movie), Joss Whedon (the Buffy musical episode), Elvis Costello (another collaboration with Bacharach, perhaps), maybe Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields. I'd also like to see something with the offhand charm of the modestly scaled Astaire/Rogers pictures, but I fear we're more likely to get a lot of busy, bloated, over-produced stinkers that will cause Hollywood to declare once again that the musical is dead.”
THE COOL BOMB writes: “My wild hypothesis about musicals goes like this: every single musical up until Moulin Rouge has inherent lameness that led to genre's elimination from the American movie (The French have made some interesting musicals in this time however) landscape until Moulin Rouge was greenlit. I am not talking about the movies themselves, these musicals are intertwined with. West Side Story is a great movie, with great musical numbers, but need I mention choreographed and dancing gang members?
If the Beard is serious about making a musical, maybe he should try to do what Moulin Rouge and Chicago did, make musicals accessible to the part of the audience who usually find them utterly horrible and unbearably lame. Sure most of that audience still has not seen or does not care for Chicago or Moulin Rouge, but those movies are the blueprint of how to make the musical cool, for a good period of time.
I am not saying it is of utmost important to make future musicals revolve around the principle that they must be cool. However, if musicals are going to survive in this modern area, they better not have the look of lame and outdated to the main part of the audience the studios want to sell these future projects to.
If musicals revert to their old lame way, they will die again. If there is a way to make Sweeny Todd seem cooler, someone better get to work. If not, do not spend the money on that picture, and make a picture that does not seem like such a risk financially as Sweeney Todd.”
And THE WHITE ONE writes: “While I certainly believe that stage shows can be transformed into rock-'em-sock-'em live-action movies with the right talent, geez louise, why not something original? Certainly, it would be hard to find someone as good as Sondheim who doesn't have already-created works to peddle and who would be willing to dive into the H'wood machine (and it would be an undertaking that would require a lot of on-the-set time, I'd think), but even acknowledging the genius of a Sondheim or Webber or Kander & Ebb, those are works made for a theatrical sensibility.
Stage musicals are made with stage-musical mavens in mind. The movie sensibility is different, and while that gap can be bridged, I think it's an act of bad faith for someone like Spielberg not to try to grow a from-scratch movie musical. Look at all the near-musicals of the past few years -- Punch-Drunk Love, Catch Me If You Can, Down With Love, Bring It On, Drumline, even Crouching Tiger. All they lack is a songwriter who can tell stories with original songs and maybe the cojones to take the additional financial gamble. Whereas I think turning the works of Webber et al. into movies would just transfer the ossifying experience of Broadway to movie theaters and kill the nascent musical revival before it begins. I like musicals. I want them to become an annual moviegoing staple. But if the first five years of the new boom are going to be choked with Broadway reduxes, I don't think we'll see any musicals at the movie in 10 years.
Of course, those are strong words to spout on the eve of From Justin to Kelly, but still.”
