A Musical romance directed by Robert Greenwald, starring Gene Kelly.
A painter reproduces album covers on a larger scale and meets a woman who was on one of the covers. He also meets an old jazz musician and they open a dance club.
Not good at all. What I want to talk about here is not lack of originality or crappy music. I'm not discussing how this won more bad awards than good ones or how terrible a film it is. I want to point out Don Bluth's animation sequence. That's why I watched it. The male and female lead actors turn into fish and birds. That may seem inconsequential until you see them and their similarity to those in The Sword and the Stone (1963). So similar, in fact, that I expected the characters to become squirrels at any moment. The posture of this bird reminds me of when Wart turned into a sparrow (image). I rate this bad because it was damn near torture to watch. Don't inflict this upon yourself or anyone you know.
A British American animated musical directed by George Dunning.
A man from a musical world is sent to get help saving his home from Blue Meanies. He recruits the British pop/rock group and they travel to the music world.
This is definitely odd enough for me. I can't say that I like the music very much, but the animation makes up for it. The plot is actually interesting, but the characters seemed shallow. It possibly depended upon a knowledge of The Beatles to know what the characters were like. Unfortunately, The Beatles did not play The Beatles in this. There were plenty of fantasy elements in the journey from London to music land under the sea. In fact, the characters pass through many seas, such as the sea of holes and the sea of green. The hippie-esque moral message of the film is very clear and needs no explanation. I used this image because it goes against the moral message of the film. The real Beatles are showing Satanic hand signals in this photo. I like it and rate it good. For 1968, this was amazing animation.
An American musical drama by Jim Henson, starring Frank Oz and Dave Goelz.
A young otter and his mother are poor. The boy does odd repair jobs and the mother works in textiles (sewing, knitting, laundry). In preparation for a talent show, they both steal the other's main tools to complete their acts.
Gift of the Magi with puppets and a happy ending. I watched a version which combined the 2 televised versions into a single video, which I was glad to find out when it was explained at the end. Among "folks who can do no wrong", Jim Henson is high on the list. The puppetry and production may seem quaint and antiquated by today's CG standards, but I like them more. The River Bottom Nightmare Band even played proto-metal at the talent show. I don't want to type any more about this because I rate it awesome and you should watch it.
An American Disney animated musical fantasy directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske, starring Hans Conried.
A flying boy from a story brings a group of children to his island. The island is shared by Peter Pan's group of boys, mermaids, First Nations people and pirates.
I may type lots about subliminal messages, predictive programming and Illuminati symbolism in Disney animations, but that does not mean that I dislike them. In fact, it makes a "harmless children's cartoon" into something interesting. What I see in Peter Pan is repeated throughout the Disney catalog: blatant racism. "What Made the Red Man Red?" is a song whose mere title hints at the racist remarks within. Native Americans/First Nations people spoke a language different from that of colonial Europeans. We took their land and did not learn their language. They saved the colonists from starvation AND learned our language. Who are the stupid savages now? I'm sure that I should mention perpetual boyhood. Peter offers the boys a life free from cares, worries and adulthood, where they can fly. No boy would refuse. However, there is more to life than that, even an ideal one. Just for a modern comparison, mainstream rap is dominated by boy and dog wording, with prefixes like "lil": lil Bow Wow is a prime example. I have yet to fully analyze and decode what this means, but one result is less "men" to be leaders and more "boys" dependent upon others. A quick point I want to bring up is to question whether the absence of white European society and aurthority figures makes a place "other" or foreign, uncivilized? Captain Hook is the closest to Euro-man on the island and even he is a pirate, not part of "normal" society. He is, however, the only authority figure on the island who is obeyed because of employment, fear or responsibility. Pan may lead the boys, but they do not obey him to avoid consequences of not doing so. He is also one of them and tells them to do things that they would have wanted to do anyway. Smee doesn't seem eager to do the things ordered of him. After this academic analysis, I rate Peter Pan adequate. It gave me something to type about, but there are many better Disney films.
An American musical romantic comedy directed by A. Edward Sutherland, starring Robert Cummings and William Frawley.
A man has been dating 2 women and wants to marry 1, but the other won't leave him alone.
Wretched, vile and loathsome. Lots of movies were like this in the early 1940s, but this is not what I ordered. I've been watching Abbott and Costello films and this is their debut, but it's not about them. It's about some other people and they just happen to be around. The plot held my attention like a fork holds water and I hated the characters. Far beyond not caring what happens to them, I wanted bad things to happen to them. I think there was too much musical for it to be a comedy and that it was trying to be too many things. I rate this shit because I had to turn it off. I will be back soon with my complete review of Abbott and Costello's like 25 or something movies.
A Swedish Australian musical drama directed by Lasse Hallström.
A Radio host follows an ABBA tour, trying to get an interview with the band. There are also ABBA performances and music videos.
I had honestly not heard this music before watching the film. From a technical view, the audio and video were great. It was filmed in Panavision, so the colors and contrast all looked right. The audio was recorded very well. The radio DJ has such trouble finding a way to interview the band and his segments were filmed and edited wonderfully as well. I just don't like ABBA. Their music and image seem engineered and manufactured to me. Like someone said "wear these costumes and play major chords. You can't lose.". The white guitar (image) is pretty cool though. I rate this o.k. because it was made so excellently about music I don't like.
A British erotic musical romance directed by Michael Winterbottom.
A climatologist in Antarctica remembers a relationship with a woman and the concerts they saw. In actual fact, the have sex and watch alternative rock bands.
Vapid, boring, repetitive. The movie is just like the music. She sucks him off and then the alt rock band just plain sucks. This happens about 9 times. A few rare snippets of Antarctica are thrown in and the cinematography is amazing. I liked the close-up of this (image) ice being cut more than the rest of the film put together. In fact, I would rather have watched a few seconds of cutting ice than the whole hour and 6 minutes. I have to admit that the sex scenes were expertly filmed and the audio quality of the concerts was good, even though the content was not. I rate this bad for technical perfection on some of the worst content I've seen in a while. Don't watch it.
A French Italian musical mystery directed by François Ozon, starring Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sagnier and Firmine Richard.
A group of women are meeting for Christmas, but find that the man of the house is dead. The grandmother, mother, aunts and daughters are trying to find who killed the husband, but they are all lying for different reasons.
Strange genre combination with lots of reading. The plot was a typical murder mystery, but all of the characters were women from the same family. There was a range of affluenza represented in these characters. All of them were quite famous and featured in many films. They all looked good too. Video was excellent, probably because of post-production color work. I'm referring to high contrast and saturation here. Audio was all in French and the subtitles were on time. The 'subtitles were 'screwy and 'scribbled by 'someone 'stupid who pluralized with apo'strophe's. I have a feeling that in a few year's, the S will grow an apo'strophe in every in'stance. I rate this adequate because the plot held my attention and the video looked amazing. However, it just did not do it for me. I know it's good, but did not suit my personal taste. You should seriously consider watching it.
An American musical drama directed by Lloyd Bacon and Bubsy Berkeley, starring Warner Baxter, George Brent and Ginger Rogers.
A theater director is putting on a stage musical and a new actress joins his group.
Mediocre, but moderately entertaining. The "pre-code" element comes in the form of the lead actress being involved with 2 men: 1 financially backs the play and the other is her vaudeville partner. The plot was not very interesting to me, but reminded me of Me and Orson Welles (2008) and Topsy Turvy (1999). I'm not really into the "getting ready for a theater performance" plot. The characters were acted well and some showed some depth. Check out the girl with the monacle (image). Watching black and white 4:3 video again after so long is different. Way back then, the camerawork was really obvious and basic, but showed everything going on very clearly. Another time difference was the audio. Everyone was almost announcing their dialogue. I could hear all of it, but there was not much variety. There must be something between announcing and whispering which makes sense... Oh yeah! The 1970s and 1980s had reasonable audio. If you liked the other 2 films I mentioned above, this would be good to watch. Otherwise, eh... I rate it o.k. because it wasn't very bad or very good.
An American animated musical comedy by Rob Zombie, starring Paul Giamatti and Rosario Dawson.
A luchador wrestler witnesses a beautiful woman being abducted by a gorilla. While tracking them down, he calls in the aid of his female co-worker and her robot.
This is pretty goofy for Rob Zombie, but I understand how it makes sense. The fictional world of the film is populated by characters from fantasy and horror settings as well as shapely women. The plot was very cartoony and the characters were a little shallow. Actually, the villain was most developed of all of them. There was plenty of nudity and profanity. The animation style reminded me of old Ren & Stimpy cartoons in the way that movements were exaggerated. I could hear all of the dialogue and there were good subtitles. The music sounded like maybe there was some Brad Neely influence, but he did not make it. I think this makes a great contrast to the dark and bloody bulk of my Rob Zombie film collection. I rate it adequate. You might want to check it out.
An American musical romance directed by Vondie Curtis Hall, starring Mariah Carey and Terrence Howard.
A young singer's mother abandons her and she works her way to fame while struggling with relationships.
What a piece of crap. There is no reason for anyone to watch this, besides reviewing the worst movies ever. Even fans of her music would have been better off with the album instead. I'm not complaining about cinematography, audio recording or any mixing or editing. It all looked and sounded professionally handled. What was bad was the writing and acting. Terrible music did not help. 2 of the best insults cited on Wikipedia were "Leaves you wishing the Lumiére brothers had said bollocks to cinema and gone down the pub" and "she wouldn't let anyone around her mention the film in conversation and that it was known as "the G word"" It also says that Carey was left in complete creative control and improvised most of it. Cliche was another frequently used word there. I think that says it all. I rate it shit. NEVER EVER WATCH THIS!!!
An American musical romance directed by Robert Iscove.
Teenagers on spring break are trying to find love, or at least quick sex. A boy is attracted to a gairl, but her friend is intercepting text messages and preventing them from meeting.
What a pile of crap. Critics all seem to agree on this as well as Stinkers Bad Movie Awards and Golden Raspberry. Remember how I said the Russian film, Guardians (2017) seemed less forced and contrived than American superhero flicks? This is the opposite of that. It all seemed forced and contrived. Insincere. What happened was that Kelly Clarkson was contractually bound by American Idol to be in a movie and unfortunately, this is what she was offered. The plot and characters were shallow and vapid. Why is this dork vacationing with the party guys? At least it could have been explained, like he had a car and gave them a ride. Fitting that little scrap of information in would not have been difficult. The songs came out of nowhere and the characters just went back to acting afterward. It wasn't like a normal musical in which the songs are acknowleged by the plot and characters, these were ignored. I also have a problem with white people singing like they are black. I've lightened up on the racist comments since remaining in communications with my Jamaican friend (totally unexpected, hippie guy has a black Jamaican friend). He has informed me a little about racism and made me realize that I was doing some and it may be wrong to label "moulignon movies", but other people do much worse. What iriitates me is when someone acts outside of their ethnicity. White folks singing black, black folks acting Japanese, Asian folks singing black... Seriously, look in a mirror. Alright, so everything was terrible except audio and video. It looked and sounded fine like polishing a turd. I rate this shit because it should never have been made and nobody should ever watch it.
A Japanese animated musical fantasy directed by Taiji Yabushita and Daisaku Shirakawa.
The "Journey to the West" story. Goku commits a transgression in heaven, is punished and journeys with his friends to earn honor.
Proto-Dragon Ball! I know it's a traditional Japanese story, but the similarities to the modern anime series are too many to ignore. That's Goku with the power pole and flying Nimbus (image) and Oolong wants to marry a girl, but Goku saves her and takes Oolong with him. It's listed as one of the 50 worst films of all time by someone, but I've seen that list and their taste in movies sucks. I've also seen "best movies" lists filled with worthless crap though. I thought the animation was a little standard, even for the time it was made. Disney was doing cell animations in the 1930s and that's what this was. Obviously, I liked the plot and characters. It's not a traditional Japanese story just arbitrarily. A story has to be good to last a few hundred years. The music mostly sounded too Americanized to me, but it wasn't bad. I watched the version with subtitles and original Japanese audio. There is an American release version with English speaking voice actors and different music. I say it's a perfectly fine movie because it was entertaining, held my attention and made me think of Dragon Ball. I rate it good.
An American animated musical directed by Abe Levitow, starring Judy Garland, Red Buttons and Paul Frees.
A female cat living at a farm overhears exaggerated praise of city life in Paris and travels there. She is followed by a male with a crush on her and his sidekick. In Paris, she is taken in by a criminal and his sister in hopes of sending her to America for money. The crush male and his sidekick take a side trip to Alaska before returning to rescue the female from the criminals.
What really stood out to me about this was art history references. The late 1800s and early 1900s was a time of many "ism"s and multiple art movements. Most of these were referenced in dialogue as well as visually. The female cat was shown in paintings of the styles as the criminal talked about the artists. Most of the backgrounds had a Van Gogh look to them and there were posters in the style of that time period as well. Next point was Judy Garland's voice. I really like her singing. Other than that, it was a very standard animated musical. The animation was done in Disney style cell animation and the music would be easily mistaken for Disney material. I rate it adequate because it was fun to watch once.
An American musical comedy directed by Robert Altman, starring Robin Williams.
Popeye, the sailor arrives in a town with an over-zealous taxman and a woman who is about to wed a villain. After encountering the woman on the street and finding an abandoned baby with her, the trio of Popey Olive Oyl and Sweet Pea is formed. As they struggle against Bluto, Popeye finds his long lost father, Poopdeck Pappy.
This should not have been a musical. The stunts and special effects were moderately entertaining, but it was otherwise mediocre at best. I really don't think there is any more to write about it. I rate it tolerable.
A Danish German Netherlands Italian American British French Swedish Finnish Icelandic Argentinian Norwegian Taiwanese Belgian Musical drama directed by Lars von Trier, starring Bjork, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse and Peter Stormare.
A Czech woman has moved to America so that her son can have an operation on his eyes. She is going blind and her son soon will if his eyes are not fixed. A neighbor finds her savings for the operation and steals it. She tries to take it back, but he is accidentally shot in the struggle. She kills him and takes the money as he begs her to do so and the case goes to court.
The whole Golden Heart Trilogy is not equal. This seemed restrained, repressed, whitewashed and censored compared to the other 2 films, lots like Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Rainbow Thief (1990). Most of this was in Dogma 95 style, but the musical numbers had non-diegetic music and tripods for the camera. Bjork is extremely attractive, but her vocal delivery and phrasing seem repetitive, like she wrote 1 song in 1993 and has been repeating it ever since with different lyrics. I like to think that the ending was caused by this, but I won't spoil that too much. Bjork says that Lars shared my view of her appearance and attempted to act on it in a #metoo manner. I didn't like the plot of this as much as the other Golden Heart films and the characters were not as good either. I'm rating it o.k. and in this case, that counts as an insult. You may want to skip this if you're watching Lars von Trier films. His other stuff has all been so much better.
An American Disney animated adventure musical directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, starring George Sanders, Sterling Holloway and J. Pat O'Malley.
A human child is found in the jungles of India, raised by wolves and becomes friends with a panther and a bear. His survival is threatened by a tiger.
Inaccurate. I read the book a while ago and the only things that Disney got right were the basic premise and main characters. Everything else in the plot was fabricated and sugar-coated. Derisive comments complete, I actually like this. It was made way back when Disney made movies worth watching. The very traditional animation style was similar to their other works from this time period, but that is good. There was comedy added that was not in the book and (although inaccurate) I liked that. It doesn't hurt review points that I watched this when I was very young on VHS. Mowgli's voice sounded very much like Arthur from The Sword in the Stone (1963), but Arthur was Rickie Sorensen, Richard Reitherman and Robert Reitherman and Mowgli was Bruce Reitherman. When He fell from the branch at the end, I was expecting "woah what woah", young Arthur's oft-repeated line. I rate this awesome for sentimental value and irreplacability.
An American erotic musical comedy directed by Michael Pataki and produced by Charles Band.
An altered re-telling of the Cinderella story.
I found this to be lewdly funny. Some of my favorite alterations were the fairy godmother being a black man and the prince looking for the girl whose pussy fit correctly. The fairy godmother's magic wand is something that must be seen in action to be appreciated. The video style looked very much like Charles Banmd's later work with Subspecies and Puppet Master. The acting and singing seemed second rate, with the main focus being on nudity and prurient jokes. I'm not writing about this because I have much to say, but because of the strange combination of genres. I rate it adequate.
An Irish British American animated musical directed by Don Bluth, starring Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise.
A German Shepherd and his Dachshund friend break out of the pound and return to the life of gambling that they had left behind. A Bulldog is now running the casino and has a human girl hidden in the back room who talks to rats and determines winners in their races. The escaped convicts rescue the girl and proceed to exploit her animal communication skills in exactly the same manner as the Bulldog.
Bad music! Don Bluth directed The Secret of NIMH, which was not a musical and was much better. I think the songs only hurt this film. He also directed Pete's Dragon with good music. Ralph Burns did the music for ADGTH and Irwin Kostal did the music for PD, so that explains the difference. Much of the music problem was in audio mixing, with the vocals too loud and instruments too quiet. On an interesting note, the girl star of this film, Judith Barsi, was abused and eventually murdered by her father before he shot himself. Wikipedia reports that she had begun plucking her eyelashes and her cat's whiskers because of the trauma. I thought the plot of this film reminded me of a combination of Oliver Twist and Paper Moon. The innocent child is thrown into a life of crime and her "guardian" is not qualified to take care of her. I think I saw this in the theater when it was originally released. I rate it o.k., but it would have gotten a much better rating without the songs.
An American musical remake directed by Kenny Ortega, starring Tim Curry.
You remember the 1970s original, right? Brad and Janet meet a mad scientist with Russian hands and Roman fingers. All of his friends dance the time warp.
This was one of the worst things to ever cross my screen. Now... I hate musicals and I hate remakes. Just take that into account. That being said, there are lips made for singing and lips made for sucking dicks. None of the former were in this film. It started out overdone enough in the '70s version. Just over the top enough to be kind of cool and kind of cheesy to attract a cult following. Then Fox TV got hold of it and smashed it into the ground like a cigarette butt. Every fucking scene got screwed up horribly. Most of the camera-work, staging, sets, casting, etc that made the original so unique were thrown out. I got to the point where Frank (who is female now) gets lowered on a crane (instead of in a creepy old elevator) with no boot stomping closeup. That tore it. I rate this shit and am stopping now because no amount of derision will ever be enough. DO NOT WATCH!!!
