Musicals - The Worst Genre of Cinema

I typically hate musicals. They are nearly always terrible. I saw the recent film version of Les Miserables and it was perhaps the most boring and annoying time I've ever spent in a cinema, although Rent is definitely the most arduous musical experience I have sat through, in fact it might be the worst thing have ever happened to me and what made it worse was that most of the audience seemed to love it. Les Miserables is especially taxing as there is absolutely no dialogue, everything is sung, from trials to explaining political revolutions (and as someone who has read about and is very interested in French revolutionary history I have no idea what the revolutionaries were complaining about in that film), everything is sung. I find The Rocky Horror Picture Show tedious and thought it tried a bit too hard to be weird and can't imagine the circumstances that would force me to see We Will Rock You. The jukebox musical is a recent and awful addition to musicals, the worst part being few bands have the back-catalogue to justify a musical - ABBA, The Beatles, Bob Dylan are a few that do, and few bands have the lyrical complexity to hang a story on. Even worse now there seems to be constant musicals based on non-musical films, Ghost, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and with Back To The Future apparently in production.

However, not all musicals are terrible. Indeed, some are very good.

Hedwig And The Angry Inch - This is a truly brilliant film (originally a stage musical, which I have seen, but I am more familiar with and prefer the film), and surprisingly for a musical it has both an interesting story and excellent, original songs. It is an exceptionally odd film but I shall sum up the story, Hansel grows up in East Berlin, his greatest joy is listening to rock and pop music he can pick up on his radio via the West Berlin radio stations. In peculiar circumstances he comes across an American soldier and the two fall in love, the soldier wants to take Hansel back to America, and this would only be possible if they were married, and at this time, two men can't get married. Hansel's mother gives him her passport, he has a sex change operation and becomes Hedwig. Unfortunately their relationship doesn't lastand Hedwig is stuck in America with no money.

One of the best things about HATAI is that Hedwig forms a band (Hedwig And The Angry Inch) and that explains why they are singing, something I struggle with in musicals. The absolute best song is The Origin of Love, a heartbreaking six minute long song about where love came from, but the entire soundtrack is amazing, taking in various different styles of music. The film becomes increasingly emotional and touching and seems to speak to all the weirdos, freaks, and people who don't fit in, celebrating their differences.

Gutted: A Revenger's Musical - This is an unconventional musical written by Danielle Ward and Martin White. Danielle Ward is a stand up comedian, actor and writer who previously played in several bands and Martin White, well, plays the accordion and writes and performs songs with The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra. The cast is mainly made up of brilliant stand up comedians, Sara Pascoe, Michael Legge, The Penny Dreadfuls and is a bizarre and hilarious story. Sorrow is the central character, orphaned at early age, she spends her entire life planning revenge - she will marry the man who killed her family, Mr. Bewlay, and then murder his family, so he knows her pain (all the characters in the musical are named after people mentioned in David Bowie songs, Sorrow, the Bewlays, Jean, Mrs. Station, Kook). As Sorrow goes through her rampage she is assisted by "three men of varying height", invisible to everyone else, who offer advice on how to murder, and is also visited her dead parents urging her on for revenge and perhaps to become a lesbian. The songs are all original and are as mad and psychotic as the rest of the musical, and the jokes are brilliant.
I think the best song is the song performed by The Penny Dreadfuls (Thom Tuck, David Reid, Humphrey Kerr), In We You Should Trust, explaining who they are and why Sorrow should listen to them. The whole musical is funny, with songs that fit the dark subject matter and is very enjoyable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bKVrg-uQjw&list=UUXDmHG7nbjtSE5G2Ay-DsFQ

The whole thing is free to download on soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/danielleward


Matt Stone & Trey Parker - Cannibal The Musical - Matt Stone and Trey Parker have made quite a few musicals in their time, and what's more, they don't really make parodies, they aren't laughing at musicals, they make real musicals. Currently in the West End The Book of Mormon is having an extremely successful run and I would love to see it. Obviously in the South Park film there a number of songs, I would say enough to call it a musical, and likewise Team America: World Police had a lot of songs in it, but my favourite is Cannibal The Musical. This is virtually unknown, you can't buy in the UK and was made before they even started South Park.

The musical is set in American frontier days and is about a small group setting out to Colorado to stake their claim to land, Alfred Packer (Trey Parker) having come from Colorado is chosen as the guide. The film is as ludicrous and over the stop as the rest of their work, the stand out moments for me being the Let's Build a Snowman song and the peculiar tribe of Native Americans who seem suspiciously like Japanese people posing as Native Americans.

Looking at these three different musicals the thing they have in common is that they are quite odd musicals, two of them are all about death and murder and the other about quite unconventional people. Although in fairness looking at some of the biggest musicals of all time Grease, Chicago and Les Miserables are all on very different topics including murder and revolution. Maybe the people involved in the musicals I like are simply better, or more on my wavelength, certainly with Matt Stone and Trey Parker I've loved virtually everything they've ever made.

This blog is named after the idea that ninety per cent of everything is awful but I think that percentage is a lot higher for musicals, or maybe it's just more awful.

The Man In Black, Lawrence of Arabia and M. Gustave - Examples Of How I Should Be

The Princess Bride I don't remember when I first watched The Princess Bride but the film had a profound effect on me. Not only was it very, very funny (I didn't appreciate a lot of it's other qualities until I was older) but it showed me how I was supposed to be. Basically, I should be The Man In Black. I say The Man In Black, rather than Westley or the Dread Pirates Roberts (the other names he goes by) because that is how I remember him and until he is revealed as Westley, how he is typically described, The Man In Black. For those of you who don't know The Princess Bride is a film from the 1980s directed by Rob Reiner and written by William Goldman. On a side note this is a list of films Reiner directed around that time, This Is Spinal Tap, 1984, Stand By Me, 1986, The Princess Bride, 1987, When Harry Met Sally, 1989, Misery, 1990, A Few Good Men, 1992, and that is not a bad few years. Amazingly, William Goldman's IMDB page for his screenplays is even more impressive, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969, The Stepford Wives 1975, All the President's Men, 1976, Marathon Man, 1976, A Bridge Too Far, 1977, The Princess Bride 1987, Misery, 1990, Chaplin 1992.  From this excellent mix of director and writer a truly diverse cast was found, including Wallace Shawn, Peter Cook, Billy Crystal and even Andre the Giant, all in quite minor roles. The story is of the love between Buttercup, a young beautiful woman and Westley, a man who works for her family and is absolutely in love with Buttercup, who eventually returns his love. Westley sets out to make his fortune so he can return and marry her but unfortunately is killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts. Buttercup falls into a deep despair on news of this but legend of her beauty has spread far and she becomes engaged to Prince Humperdinck. As their wedding approaches Buttercup is kidnapped by a trio of criminals, the wily Vizzini (played by Wallace Shawn), the expert swordsman Inigo Montoya (a name hammered into my consciousness by his repeated elaborate introduction) and a giant named Fezzik (not surprisingly played by Andre the Giant). As the criminals make their escape they are pursued by a man dressed in black, The Man In Black.

The Man In Black is a true champion, defeating Inigo in a duel, beating Fezzik in a fight, and outwitting Vizzini. He climbs the Cliffs of Insanity, he dares to enter the Fire Swamps and battles the Rodents of Unusual Size. The Man In Black is revealed to be Westley, who the Dread Pirate Roberts decided not to kill and bequeathed his name and reputation to upon his retirement. The Man In Black was not only brave but honourable, sparing the lives of Inigo and Fezzik, each of whom had displayed similar fairness to him and aren't really villains. He is seemingly unstoppable in his pursuit of true love, not even letting little things like dying get in the way. For many years I think I really did hold up The Man In Black to be the best cinematic example of a man.

Lawrence of Arabia - Sadly, this film is not as good as The Princess Bride, or at least I prefer The Princess Bride. It is certainly in that category of They Don't Make Them Like This Anymore. An epic film detailing the true story of T.E. Lawrence to unite the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire. The film is set during World War I, Lawrence is an officer in the British army in Egypt, it is felt by most of the British in Egypt that the real war is being fought on the western front and the war around Egypt, the British fighting the Ottoman Empire, is a very minor part of the war. Lawrence concocts a plan to unite the various Arab tribes, nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, to rise up and fight the Ottomans. Lawrence is indeed successful in this plan but it is not an easy task and it takes a great deal out of him, and challenges his ideas. He saves an Arab soldier's life, only later to execute him for a crime he committed to ensure the uneasy union between the Arabs remains. He is mocked by some of the British for taking on Arab dress and questions are asked over his true loyalties.

I should point out that T. E. Lawrence was a real person but my discussion of Lawrence is only for the character portrayed in the film, not the real man. In the film Lawrence is essentially a nice man, in love with the desert with a grand plan, he is determined and resolute. In one early scene of the film Lawrence puts out a lit match with his fingers, his friend tries to do this and gets hurt, Lawrence explains the trick is to not mind that it hurts, again, that is a scene that has stuck with me for years, more so than the famous scene of Omar Sherif's character approaching Lawrence. When Prometheus was released a little while back it received quite bad reviews on the whole, but it suckered me in with David watching Lawrence of Arabia and being impressed as I was, changing his hair style and taking on some of Lawrence's affectations. How could I dislike a film which contained a character who was only doing what I wanted to do? Peter O'Toole's Lawrence overtook The Man In Black. Lawrence wasn't only brave and intelligent, he was philosophical, he wanted to achieve the impossible, he was an example of English manners and reserve, a way of presenting yourself.

The Grand Budapest Hotel -If this blog continues I am sure my deep and and abiding love of all things Wes Anderson will become apparent. People say that Anderson is a bit pretentious, but I like that, as I am a bit pretentious. When a lot of people accuse something of being pretentious what I usually hear is that is has attempted, and perhaps failed, to be something more than just funny, or entertaining, it has tried to mean something. Wes Anderons's films, Six Feet Under, The Smiths, The Singing Detective, Brian in Spaced have all been called pretentious and all of them are brilliant. Still, this isn't about Wes Anderson, it about M. Gustave, the conceriege at The Grand Budapest Hotel. TGBH takes place in a fictional east European country on the verge of war, the hotel itself is an expensive, decadent affair famed for it's concierge, Gustave.

 I shall try not to go into too much of the plot of TGBH as unlike the other two films it is very recent, only being released a matter of weeks ago. Gustave is a charming and eloquent man, whose dedication to providing excellent service, in fact, to something beyond service, is absolute. Gustave is incredibly eccentric, his dalliances with much, much older women, his way of talking and expressing himself are elaborate and bizarre and his utterances to corpses are rather touching. Watching the film he seems the type of man who would thrive virtually anywhere, he is implacable when faced with brutish behaviour even when that behaviour is backed up with guns and he has nothing but his wit. Gustave's defence of his lobby boy Zero, from whose perspective the film is told, is wonderful. Zero is a refugee/immigrant whose legal status in the country is murky at best but, dammit, Gustave will not have uniformed thugs not show appropriate manners when dealing with Zero.  Loyalty seems to matter a great deal to Gustave, Zero is loyal to him and he returns that loyalty. I think I am perhaps too old to be as effected by Gustave as I was by The Man In Black or Lawrence but something has definitely stayed with me about Gustave, perhaps when I am older I can be as an eccentric and charming, perhaps with less seducing old women though.

Looking back at these three characters they have certain things in common. First of all, they all have great hair. If there was ever proof that there is no God it must surely come from the fact that Ralph Fiennes has lost his hair, the poster of Quiz Show clearly demonstrates how amazing his hair was and it is a crime that it has been so cruelly snatched away. But also, they are charming, witty people, people who are perhaps a bit too eccentric and obsessed with things. The Man In Black faces countless dangers for the love of a woman who starts by being cruel to him and seemingly abandons him for another, Lawrence takes on a task that he is assured is impossible due is convince that only he can do it, and Gustave puts supreme faith in his manners and civilization, and that these things are worth standing up for, even if any sort of fight you would be destroyed. They are men who have decided on how they want to face the world and will not let anything get in the way. I also think they represent different ages for me, The Man In Black is a hero, Lawrence a man with a great purpose, Gustave is a sophisticated and well-mannered gentleman, and this maybe reflects what I wanted to be at particular times.


Footnote - William Goldman wrote screenplays, novels and plays and I recommend everyone reads the novel of The Princess Bride. The book is fantastic but as interesting is the bizarre fiction Goldman created around it, claiming he was merely writing an abridged version of a classic novel written by S. Morgenstern. The book is full of references to Mogernstern, to the supposed history of Florin and Guilder and he even invents a son for himself for whom he buys the Morgenstern "original". Goldman even writes how he cannot write certain parts of the book as the Morgenstern Estate will not allow it.