The Resident Bitch Prepares for... the Most Recent MoFo Countdown

Totes right

Coco
(Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina, 2017)

I have no idea how many times I've watched this movie, but every time my experience is the same: I respect the hell out of it and even really like some aspects, but I don't love it.

I think the story is really interesting and pretty unique and imaginative. The animation is absolutely gorgeous with rich detail and vibrant colors, and the story does hit some crucial emotional chords - even leaving me in tears in one particularly poignant scene. But I don't love it.

Still, this is undeniably a solid movie, is one of Pixar's better recent offerings, and is the closest they've come to making a musical. So with all those things in its favor there's no way this doesn't end up somewhere on my ballot.

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Lady and the Tramp
(Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske, 1955)

This was my favorite Disney animated movie when I was a kid, but I've found myself not loving it near as much as an adult. I don't know if that's because I'm much less fond of dogs than I used to be or if it's just changing tastes, but this is definitely not a favorite anymore. I do still like it, though. I think the animation looks good, the story is interesting enough, the voice work is good, and there really isn't anything that I dislike about the movie, it just doesn't give me the same feelings that it used to.

As to its qualities as a musical? Eh, it barely qualifies. It only has like three songs and they're all sung by pretty minor characters (the Siamese cat song, Tony singing "Bella Notte" during the famous spaghetti scene, and the dog singing "He's a Tramp" when Lady ends up in the pound).

I was going back and forth about what to rate it and ultimately I decided to be a little generous because I think it's a very well made film and it certainly has some iconic scenes. However, I probably won't vote for it because the main characters don't sing.

I have a couple of animated musicals on my watchlist that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere. I haven't seen them in years, but I remember enjoying both of them.

The first one is Cats Don't Dance (1997)



The second one might be too old, but the voices are done by Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, and Red Buttons, so it might be worth giving it a try:
Gay Purr-ee (1962)

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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

My sister and I watched this over and over as kids. The song "Money Cat" is really catchy. Mewsette is a very annoying "dumb blonde" stereotype protagonist, though, so be warned.

Neither of these really look like my kind of thing but because they’re animated, I may still give them a shot.

Sing Street
(John Carney, 2016)

I went into this movie pretty much blind, having done absolutely no research on it before adding it to my watchlist, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

On the surface, it's about a dorky teenaged boy named Conor who, after having to change schools, pieces together a band of fellow dorks and starts writing songs in order to impress the girl he likes. Meanwhile, his college dropout stoner older brother tries to give him an education in good music, offering words of advice like “No woman can truly love a man who listens to Phil Collins” (Screw you, movie. I like Phil Collins!). But it's actually about more than that. It's about about Conor's struggles to find his identity while his life is falling apart - he's had to change schools because his parents are too broke to afford the one he was at, his parents are fighting all the time and about to separate, and his home has been put up for sale.

I do have to say it took me a bit to settle in to this one. In the beginning of the movie, when things were more happy-happy than happy-sad, it all felt a bit silly and even a little superficial. Its 1980s setting, fashion, and music felt at first like it was trying a little too hard to cash in some nostalgia points. But as it went on I became a lot more invested in the struggles and triumphs of Conor and his friends, things began to feel more natural and less of that 80s flash and artifice, and I really began to enjoy myself. Perhaps most importantly for this exercise, I also quite liked the music the kids were playing. I also appreciated the way the movie ends - hopeful, but uncertain.

I didn't love this movie on this first watch, but I did like it a lot and I do think there's room for it to grow on me if I ever revisit it. But even if I never come back to it or if I do and my experience stays the same, I definitely like it enough to give it a vote - which makes it the first definite of my first-time watches so far.

Sing Street is amazing. I saw it for the first time a few weeks ago and can see it becoming an all-time favorite. I don't think the '80s nostalgia is quite as fan service-y as it is in other shows and movies from the '10s that have it (like Stranger Things, for instance). There's the impression it comes from John Carney's personal experiences, which give it a more authentic vibe.

I'll go ahead and post my thoughts in the good ol' RYM thread, or better yet, the prelim thread to drum up even more interest.

Sing Street likely makes my ballot

The American Astronaut
(Cory McAbee, 2001)

What the hell did I just watch?

This black and white musical space western about a dude who trades a cat for a "real live girl," then trades the "real live girl," for a teenaged boy, and sets out on a quest to trade the boy to a planet full of women in exchange for the body of a dead man - while being pursued by a weird-ass professor hell-bent on killing him without reason - is unlike anything I've ever seen before. It is really, really f***ing bizarre and although I was certainly never bored by its unrelenting weirdness, I also can't decide if I actually liked it.

But the bar for consideration for my musicals ballot is low, so "can't decide if I actually liked it" might just be enough to earn it a spot.

Edit: 8/4/2024

I just rewatched this. It's definitely confirmed that I do like the movie, but it's also definitely too bizarre to be something I think I could ever love. I'm going to keep my rating at .

It's one of a handful of movies currently vying for the #23 and #24 slots so its chances of making it on my ballot aren't looking too good.

That sounds horrendous

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Letterboxd

It has a low-budget passion project energy and look that I found very appealing. I was in college when I first watched it, and I just hadn't seen anything like it before.

I wish I was this kind of film fan, but I just can’t get there.

Ha, fair!

It's very odd but it's also entertaining. Waking up this morning I find myself curious to see if the writer/director/star made any other musicals and it seems that he did. I'm probably going to watch Stingray Sam today. It and The American Astronaut are both on YouTube.

Stingray Sam
(Cory McAbee, 2009)

Like McAbee's The American Astronaut, Stingray Sam is a bizarre black and white musical space western. Where this film varies from the other though is that it is divided into 6 different "episodes" (each with its own title and set of intro and end credits), each featuring one song. It follows Stingray Sam, a convict turned lounge singer who is arrested by his old friend and fellow convict The Quasar Kid. In order to repay their debts to society, the two must join forces on a mission to rescue a little girl and reunite her with her father.

But whereas I spent much of The American Astronaut being a little bewildered by its strangeness, I settled into this one rather quickly. I do think having just watched The American Astronaut helped immensely in terms of setting expectations, but also Stingray Sam seemed a lot less convoluted and more polished than its predecessor. It also has some genuinely great songs ("Fredward" being my favorite) and I had an undeniably good time with this one. There's also no doubt that I'll vote for it, though I am docking it some points for the amount of its already very brief runtime (it's only about an hour long) that is spent on the credits.



Oh and in retrospect I have decided that I do actually like The American Astronaut, but I definitely prefer this one.

Edit: 7/20/2024

I just rewatched this and I think I love it. This time I wasn't at all bothered by its episodic structure or by the amount of time spent on the credits. It's just delightfully weird and delightfully charming, with equally weird and charming songs. I'm going to upgrade its rating from my initial 3.5 to a 4, but I could see it going even higher if I give it another watch in the future.

Edit: 8/9/2024

I rewatched it again last night. It's just such an easy and fun watch and I really love the music. I'm gonna upgrade its rating again but I think its rating will top out here.

An American Tail
(Don Bluth, 1986)

I saw this movie a few times as a kid, but it was never a big favorite (a fact that wasn't helped by having a music teacher that made us sing "Somewhere Out There"). It's been in my DVD collection for many years now (along with its sequel) but I can't remember when I last watched it. In any case, it's been long enough that I didn't really remember it.

And having seen it again, I think it's fine. Given its age, the animation looks good. The story is interesting enough, I was never bored with it, and the songs didn't annoy me or anything, but there also wasn't anything that I loved about it. I did like it more than some of the other musicals I've rated a 3, but not enough to bump its rating any higher.

I do still plan to rewatch Fievel Goes West, but I expect to have a similar experience with it.

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
(Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells, 1991)

I didn't exactly have high hopes going into this rewatch, but damn I'd remembered this movie being better than this. Part half-assed rehash of the original (The Mousekewitz family decides to relocate and seek a better life elsewhere. Along the way, Fievel does something stupid and gets separated from them and somewhere in there is a villain cat pretending to be a rodent in order to exploit mice for profit while ultimately planning their doom) part unfunny western comedy ridiculousness (with zero parts emotional impact), this movie was eye-rollingly dull and lacked any memorable characters or songs.

Dancer In The Dark
(Lars Von Trier, 2000)

"...in a musical, nothing dreadful ever happens."

I've avoided this movie - and most discussion of it - for many years because I hate musicals. When I decided to actually commit to preparing for this countdown, I put this on my watchlist but wasn't sure if I was actually going to watch it because I'd heard it was depressing. But ultimately I decided to give it a shot because of its reputation among critics and film fans.

I have to say I was not at all prepared for just how bleak this movie is. It just keeps piling the shit onto main character Selma's already shitty life. Even when I thought I knew what kind of horrible thing was about to happen to her next, the movie goes much further than I'd imagined and at 2 hours and 20 minutes, it's a pretty emotionally brutal watch, especially that agonizing final scene. I had to pause the movie multiple times just to take a breather.

But it's all incredibly well acted by Björk and the remaining cast. The film looks great and its colors and camerawork help to make something that could otherwise feel gimmicky feel natural. If I have a complaint it's that the movie probably could've done with one or two fewer songs and therefore a shorter overall runtime. Those songs did break my engagement with the movie more than once. But this is a minor complaint.

Overall I think this movie is very deserving of its reputation and I have no doubt that it will appear on my ballot somewhere. However, one of the biggest factors I apply when rating or ranking a movie is rewatchability - and this film is severely lacking in that aspect. I will never watch it again.

Hairspray
(Adam Shankman, 2007)

This is a pretty by-the-numbers adaptation of the 1988 John Waters flick. It has a strong cast (including the always adorable James Marsden) and, like its predecessor, I appreciated the messaging, but it doesn't do anything new. Besides adding some songs (which serve to do little more than make it longer) and some minor tweaks to the story, it's really just the same movie I watched last week but with better cinematography and more recognizable stars.

I did get a chuckle out John Waters's cameo as a flasher, though.