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

Couldn't agree more with your Greatest Showman review. After being forced to listen to them over and over again the songs did grow on me though.

Nah, Showman is better than that just based on the songs alone. I'm not saying it's great but the songs are actually pretty good.

I'll be very interested to see what you think of it. It's one I'd put onto the see it because it exists list and it'll be an experience. Whether that's one you like or not is yet to be seen.

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Cats Don't Dance
(Mark Dindal, 1997)

I had a feeling just based off of images from this movie and based on the fact that it was a musical that I wouldn’t like it, but I decided to give it a try anyway. It turns out that I actually didn’t really have a problem with the musical aspect. Most of the songs were fine - not memorable but fine. What I had a problem with was the animation. I didn’t care for the character designs, I didn’t care for the slapstick comedy, and especially didn’t care for the chaotic nature of its story. This came across far more like an overlong television cartoon than an animated feature. I also couldn’t quite figure out who this movie thought its target audience was. For the most part, it felt very childish, but then it kept making references to classic movies that no child of the 90s was likely recognize. And then it just decided to throw its 1930s setting out the window with its parodies of far more recent Hollywood movie posters.

I kept thinking that perhaps if I had seen this as a child, I would’ve liked it more, but this came out when I was a teenager so it would’ve had to exist about a decade prior to its release for it to have had any chance with me. Still I didn’t exactly hate it, I just didn’t like anything about it.

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Well you "didn't hate" Cats Don't Dance, even though it's a musical, so I'll consider that a win.

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Pennies From Heaven
(Herbert Ross, 1981)

This movie was an absolute chore to get through. Tonally this was all over the place and I found the gimmick of having the characters lip synch to recordings from the era to be extremely irritating and it prevented me from ever engaging with the story. I also absolutely hated the songs themselves. Making matters worse was how unlikeable all the characters were. And I don't just mean that they were bad people. Steve Martin's "Arthur" in particular was this bizarre combination of awkward, creepy, and off-putting that somehow failed to be even a little bit interesting. Bernadette Peters's "Eileen" was just pathetic as was Arthur's wife "Joan." The pacing was also excruciating, making what was actually less than two hours long feel like four. And just what the hell was that ending?

I'm extremely tempted to rate this mess of a movie only 1/2 a popcorn box, but I suppose I'll be generous because I did sort of like the costumes and because there is at least one musical that I hate even more than this, but damn does this come close.

Forbidden Zone
(Richard Elfman, 1980)

Owing to a combination of sleep deprivation and how utterly bizarre this chaotic trainwreck of a movie is, I'm not sure I actually understood what the hell this was even about. I'm also not sure that matters at all. This movie is aggressively strange and I can only assume that its creators were strung out on certain substances when it was created.

And with all that weirdness I can't say that I was bored for even a moment - and I totally get why this has cult status - but I also didn't particularly like anything about it. I'm not at all sorry for having seen it but I definitely won't be voting for it.

Anna and the Apocalypse
(John McPhail, 2017)

This holiday musical horror comedy tries to do and be a whole lot of things. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like it did any of those things particularly well. I didn't find the songs to be memorable at all, I never laughed, I never felt tense or frightened, and I never really engaged with any of the characters so its attempts at emotionally touching moments never had any effect on me.

I didn't think it did anything exceptionally poorly either so I'll give it credit for that, but I doubt I'll even remember this movie in a few months time.

The Nightmare Before Christmas
(Henry Selick, 1993)

There's not much that needs to be said about this iconic and delightful classic. The animation is great, the songs are great, it's funny, and is a very easy watch. I never had any doubt that I would be voting for this movie and didn't need to rewatch it, but I figured I needed a guaranteed bright spot after sitting through a string of duds.

Did you ever get to watch the 3D version?

I'm not a fan of 3D.

Newsies
(Kenny Ortega, 1992)

A short list of some movie related thing that I dislike: children singing, choreographed song and dance numbers - especially ones that start in the middle of conversations, and Christian Bale. Wanna guess what things this movie has in excess?

The three biggest reasons why I hate musicals are that the song and dance numbers often break any immersion I have in the story, the songs - whether because of the cheesy lyrics or because of the grating voices of the singers - often cause me to physically cringe, and because the songs often serve to do nothing more than pad out the runtime of a film that could be much shorter and more enjoyable without them. Newsies was guilty of all of this.

I don't know if these movies are your type of music, but they're about up and coming singers trying to break into the music business, so they're more realistic than the musicals where people break into song and dance for no apparent reason. You might want to check them out.

Thunder Alley (1985) (Trailer)


And the movie is on YouTube:
(It's not a great copy, but I don't think this movie has ever been released on DVD.)



The Idolmaker (1980) (Trailer)


This movie is also on YouTube:
(It's also available on DVD, and might be streaming somewhere.)

tick, tick... BOOM!
(Lin-Manuel Miranda, 2021)

I went into this movie knowing pretty much nothing about it. It was just a modern musical available on Netflix and since my subscription is only good for a couple more weeks I figured I would give this a shot. Also I'd remembered skimming over some posts praising it (here and elsewhere), so I figured Why not?

Famous last words, right? Look, I get that this is semi-autobiographical and I get that part of what it's trying to say is that you need to appreciate the people in your life, but holy shit did I hate this film's protagonist - and, by extension, the film itself. What a self-absorbed, douchey, irresponsible sack of crap. I think I was meant to find him charming and relatable, but I spent the majority of the movie actively rooting for him to fail. I was yelling expletives at the screen - both at him and at the people in his life who were tolerating his bullshit. I was THRILLED when Susan finally stood up for herself and left his loser ass. Good for her. I laughed when his electricity got shut off (because, you know, throwing a party is WAY more important than paying your bill, right?). When his world came crashing down around him and he finally had to confront reality, I was left without a single shred of pity for him and so the emotional notes the movie strove for never hit for me.

I will give it some credit for some decent to good performances, but I really don't have any praise for it beyond that.

Thanks.

I'll probably check them out, but I do have to say that I could vote today and be totally satisfied with my ballot so it's starting to get pretty hard to find the motivation to watch more musicals.

I really liked tick tick . . . BOOM. I just found it very funny. Yes, the characters were very self-absorbed, but I felt like the film understood that and hung with them anyway. The one song where they are sing-screaming at each other about how they both have to go to therapy in the morning? Perfection.

See, I didn't find the characters to be self-absorbed. Just Jon specifically. Everyone around him was supportive of what he was doing, while he completely disregarded their struggles and neglected their needs (including the needs of his own pet) because "oMg ThE WoRkShOp Is CoMiNg AnD I hAvEn'T wRiTtEN tHe SoNg!"

Screw that guy and this movie.

I guess. I thought that it captured a certain kind of mid-20s narcissism that a lot of people, and especially artists, fall into.

He was days away from 30 - they kept bringing that up throughout the movie. He's too damn old to be acting this way.

I’m with you on the movie knowing who Jonathan is as a character. I can see how this could suffer from the Whiplash thing, where maybe in the directors head the ends justify the means because…good art. I think both these movies are making you ask that question though. I think Tick Tick Boom is aware its protagonist is a jerk much of the time.

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