Musicals!

Certainly a bad musical and a bad movie, although it has its supporters, I hear.

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Cats

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AMEN. It starts out as this other movie for 40 minutes and THEN the musical begins. Cue Scratching Violins.

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@FlyingSquid The horror! The horror! These songs aren’t bad exactly though they are SO what they are following that super serious opening these are shock to the system and pile on once they start.

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HIGHLY RIFFABLE.

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I watched Bugsy Malone awhile back, and I kept thinking - who is this movie for? Its too childish for grown-ups, and I don’t think kids are gonna understand the 1920s gangster movies this a parody of. So who’s it for?

Man, I love me some Paul Williams, but this one was a big misstep.

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A Lost Horizon (1973) Watching Party.

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The British, apparently. From Wikipedia:

In 2003, was voted #19 on a list of the 100 greatest musicals, as chosen by viewers of Channel 4 in the UK.[6] In 2008, Empire ranked it 353rd on their list of 500 greatest movies of all time.[7] The film received eight nominations at the 30th British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film and won three: Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for Foster and Best Screenplay for Parker.

Bugsy Malone was not a commercial success in the U.S., bringing in just over $2.7 million. Paramount gave it a limited release, usually in second-tier theaters in a double-bill with The Bad News Bears , which had been out for six months and was no longer much of a draw. According to Parker, the film was “quite successful” in the United Kingdom. By 1985, it had earned an estimated profit of £1,854,000.[3]

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The film versions of either Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar are both prime bot fodder.

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The Norman Jewison JCS is actually pretty cool, I think, though obviously low-budget. Carl Anderson stole the show as Judas.

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Bacharach and David broke up after Lost Horizon for obvious reasons.

And then were sued by Dionne Warwick because HER contract required that they were a package deal.

It was kind of messy.

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Having seen it on stage a few times including the original Broadway production, the movie seems flat to me. It’s so much better on stage, I think. I’m glad people enjoy the movie, though, and I’m a big fan of Norman Jewison.

For those who might not be aware, they did a fantastic parody of the movie on Mr. Show.

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AND an inexplicable oven in a living room!

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Jesus Christ Superstar is my line in the sand riff-wise - the original 2 albums still get plenty of listens, the movie (I gave it 5 out of 5-stars and won’t apologize for that), and the play (with Neeley) I’ve seen frequently, nah, that’s too special for me.

Now if you want to riff on the crappy JCS TV special, go ahead on. But the original movie, nope, don’t you dare touch it. Especially when there are worthier candidates. Such as…

From Justin to Kelly

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I saw From Justin to Kelly on a cruise ship. Being a fan of MST3K (obviously), I was hoping for something that was so bad, it’s good. Unfortunately, it was not even that. It was just bad.

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I was working at a theater and would catch bits and pieces of it all the time. During my break I even sat at watched part of it, I don’t know why, maybe I was fascinated at seeing how crass Hollywood could be.

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I’ll have to disagree about this one. I saw it when it came out in 76, and I was enthralled. I was just a kid, and seeing all of those kids up on screen, with not an adult in sight, playing these cool characters, driving pedal cars and shooting guns that fired whipped cream, was amazing. It looked like so much fun! And I love the Paul Williams score, one of my favorites…

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Actually, I saw it in '76 when it first came out in theaters; I was 8 or 9 years old and I loved it! An ALL-KID movie?! With guns that fired whipped cream, and pedal cars (!!!) I wanted one so bad! Plus, even though I was a pre-teen, I could tell that there was some beautiful girls on screen, and the depiction of the era didn’t throw me at all - I thought it was stylish and cool. I loved the music too - Paul Williams score has fun songs, beautiful ballads, and checked all the boxes in my music-loving brain. I get why it seems weird to grown-ups, but having seen it as a kid, it’s stuck with me all these years - I still love it.

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Several months ago, my girlfriend mentioned David Hasselhoff performing Jekyll and Hyde. I didn’t believe her until I did a Youtube search and there was a full video…

And then I found the gem.

image

I guess during its run, David Hasselhoff left and was replaced by Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach. This just blew my mind. I don’t know my @$$ from my elbow when it comes to musicals and how to tell if one is bad or good, to me, it is all teeth-grinding.

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I’m kinda surprised it has taken even this long in this thread to mention this movie. Perhaps the passage of time has done the impossible and humanity has indeed forgotten the disaster which was –

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