I saw Grease 3 times at the cinema when I was 7. How cultured is that?
Speaking of Brecht, on the airplane I saw a cool movie I never heard of. It was kind of a musical, called Beyond the Sea. The story of Bobby Darin. Kevin Spacey did a good job, but I don’t know if he really sang or not.
I saw Evita at the cinema when I was 16 and I didn’t leave before the end. How patient is that?
[quote=“rice_t”]Why are musicals so terrible?
For the same reason all synthetic main stream music is terrible, unless you like it of course.[/quote]
If you mean ‘different strokes for different folks’, I agree. If you mean musicals ARE synthetic mainstream music, you couldn’t be further from reality. OK, apart from Andrew Lloyd-Webber, that is. If they actually were that mainstream, more people would listen to them. It’s very simple - Lloyd-Webber or Sondheim? If the answer is “Sondheim who?” you really don’t know all that much about musicals 
Clockwork Orange, pah! How about the aforementioned Sweeney Todd (mad barber kills people, mad baker woman puts them into pies) or one of my other personal favourites, Assassins, dealing with the various people who have tried to kill Presidents throughout history and how it ties in with life, liberty and the American way.
“Everybody’s got the right to be happy
Say enough - life’s not as tough as it seems
Aim for what you want a lot, everybody gets a shot
Everybody’s got the right to their dreams…”
I like Brecht in theory - in practice, however, I once spent the second half of The Threepenny Opera doing the cryptic crossword 
La Boheme is gorgeous - especially the Baz Luhrmann version.
The only good musicals are the ones in Simpsons’ episodes.
“You can always depend on
the kindness of strangers…”
If you call Brecht/Weill’s Dreigroschenoper a musical, then I like musicals, too. I don’t think the word musical even existed at the time though
If you don’t like musicals, the choice of english songs you can sing at KTV is diminished by…what?..30%?
I love 'em, for the most part, and I often have a showtune stuck in my head for hours at a time. I used to be able to sing Phantom from beginning to end. 
[quote=“porcelainprincess”]The only good musicals are the ones in Simpsons’ episodes.
“You can always depend on
the kindness of strangers…”
A Streetcar Named Marge[/quote]
Or the one they did in the Cape Fear Episode where Bart made Sideshow Bob do the entire musical for…
[quote=“porcelainprincess”]The only good musicals are the ones in Simpsons’ episodes.
“You can always depend on
the kindness of strangers…”
A Streetcar Named Marge[/quote]
Yeah, right. You’re a music-lovin’ centrist Canadian intellectual, that has got to be true, no?
Spill, canuck. As a guy who had Elvis Costello’s excellent “best songs” article in his signature for what, months, what’s the 411?
Opera or not, which are the best musicals you or Elvis would find worthy enough to admit listening to? Surely Elvis loves musicals other than Marge’s dirge, eh?
You know not whereof you speak 
I suggest you start with South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut and work your way up from there 
[Note: Not sarcasm - SP:BLU actually contains brillant parodies of musical conventions amidst the usual South Park madness.]
However, must say I love Streetcar (A stranger is a friend you haven’t met!), the whole “monorail” skit (D’oh!), Cherry Bobbins (Always do a half-assed job…), and the ep where Sideshow Bob sings HMS Pinafore in its entirety to a trussed-up Bart - possibly the only way some of us could be induced to listen to it 
It’s usually classed as a musical, although it’s really more of a “play with music”. Showboat is generally regarded as the first “modern musical”, and it was performed in 1927. I like the songs from Threepenny Opera; I just don’t like it as a “musical” because the songs aren’t really integrated with the rest of the play. Which is why I don’t really like all that many musicals written prior to the 1960s or so, although individual songs might be OK.
Chorus Line is on channel 70 right now.
What do you think of this movie, daasgrrl?
[quote=“flike”][quote=“porcelainprincess”]The only good musicals are the ones in Simpsons’ episodes.
“You can always depend on
the kindness of strangers…”
A Streetcar Named Marge[/quote]
Yeah, right. You’re a music-lovin’ centrist Canadian intellectual, that has got to be true, no?
Spill, canuck. As a guy who had Elvis Costello’s excellent “best songs” article in his signature for what, months, what’s the 411?
Opera or not, which are the best musicals you or Elvis would find worthy enough to admit listening to? Surely Elvis loves musicals other than Marge’s dirge, eh?[/quote]
No facetiousness here…I honestly don’t get the point of your first two paragraphs.
Can’t speak for EC, but I cringe at even the idea of musicals, much less would I ever darken the door of a theatre where one was being performed.
But I lu-u-urve musicals in Simpsons episodes.
I don’t know what I’m doing in this thread.
:bravo:
Yeah, if you keep this up, you might spontaneously break into a song and dance routine.
porcelainprincess=triple threat. 
[quote=“Hobbes”]Chorus Line is on channel 70 right now.
What do you think of this movie, daasgrrl?[/quote]
As a rule, I don’t like filmed versions of stage musicals to begin with (it’s amazing what I don’t like despite being a purported fan of musicals ). A large part of the appeal of watching a musical (as opposed to listening to the CD) is the staging, the immediacy of it. If I can’t see it live, I would far rather watch a filmed production of the stage musical, if that makes any sense.
In any event, A Chorus Line isn’t one of my favourites either, although it’s OK. It’s another prime example of ‘well, I’ll just get up and exposit my background by singing a little song about me’. And later, we’ll have dancing. I’m familiar with all the songs, and I do like “Nothing”, but I’m on the whole indifferent. It is one of those musicals that is regarded as a “classic”, though, by many people, and it won numerous awards.
Well, you wouldn’t know then, would you? Sideshow Bob… the rope please
I understand porcelianprincess’ point. The very idea of musicals is…totally daft. How often do you see people in real life, just walking down the street minding their own business, and then…suddenly break out in a song and dance routine?
I’ve got rhythm,
I’ve got music,
What more do I need?
So… something has to resemble reality to be ‘sensible’? What’s the point of football? It’s a frigging ball that two teams have suddenly decided they need to fight over. Totally daft as far as I’m concerned. Shouldn’t they take it to a court of law or something if they both want it that badly? Ballet is stupid - if they had something to express they could just talk, couldn’t they? How often do you see explosions and flipping cars in your local area? (OK, so it’s Taiwan, but still.) Action movies - completely ridiculous that anyone would watch them. If they aren’t ridiculous enough, how about four-fingered yellow cartoon characters with bad hair? I’ve never seen melting watches anywhere on the street, even in the middle of summer - Dali was obviously a really bad artist. Science fiction and fantasy are, by definition, not worth reading 
Think of the term ‘suspension of disbelief’ and how it applies to every form of artistic expression. Is someone bursting into song really less believable than a million-dollar celebrity playing the role of an impoverished farmer? And incidentally, although I realise this will have no persuasive effect whatsoever - some musicals are “sung-through” - there is very little or no speech. Does that make a difference? I thought not.
Musicals are not for everyone - everyone has their own particular likes and dislikes and I have no problem with that. However, making dismissive judgements about an entire field that you don’t appreciate or really understand in the first place is, IMO, merely displaying ignorance.
[quote=“flike”][quote=“porcelainprincess”]The only good musicals are the ones in Simpsons’ episodes.
“You can always depend on
the kindness of strangers…”
A Streetcar Named Marge[/quote]
Yeah, right. You’re a music-lovin’ centrist Canadian intellectual, that has got to be true, no?
Spill, canuck. As a guy who had Elvis Costello’s excellent “best songs” article in his signature for what, months, what’s the 411?
Opera or not, which are the best musicals you or Elvis would find worthy enough to admit listening to? Surely Elvis loves musicals other than Marge’s dirge, eh?[/quote]
Paragraph one: you’re obviously a smart guy.
Paragraph two: you linked to EC’s list of “Best 500 songs of all time”. EC found a way to justify ranking one song after another 500 times, and he was pretty convincing about it, too. The list included classical, country, rock, punk, and more than a couple show tunes (I think). Any claim to such order seems to assume a well-defined set of aesthetics.
So how can a smart Canadian like such a musical ranking so much as to link to it in his forumosa signature yet seemingly argue that only Simpsons’ musical numbers are remarkable?
My point is simply that your stance on musicals here seems strikingly contradictory to your (apparently) expressed preferences for musical aesthetics on this website.
What dg said (well). You wanna claim facetiousness now?
Carry on!
[quote]Any claim to such order seems to assume a well-defined set of aesthetics.
So how can a smart Canadian like such a musical ranking so much as to link to it in his forumosa signature yet seemingly argue that only Simpsons’ musical numbers are remarkable?[/quote]
I was being facetious. Well, mostly. In any case, I wasn’t making a blanket aesthetic judgment. Rather, it was personal opinion. The Simpsons’ musical numbers are utterly brilliant because they’re complete piss-takes, every one of them.
I would argue that having a well-defined set of aesthetics does not preclude loathing musicals. I consider myself fairly astute when it comes to my enjoyment of the arts, meaning that I make efforts to seek out the best and/or that which resonates with me personally. For example, while I’m happy to acknowledge Shakespeare’s genius, I don’t much enjoy reading him. I don’t really like live theatre, either. I find it somewhat embarrassing and awkward–give me the big screen with its remove any day.
Having said that, I’m not completely giving up on the Bard. Not only do I now live in the world’s epicentre of things Shakespearean, but I half-expect to develop an appreciation for him when I hit my sixties.
Whoa…Rubicon Bojador has misinterpreted me. I never claimed that art should necessarily be a faithful representation of “reality,” and I agree with daasgrrl’s ideas. But in spite of that, I still find the idea of musical narrative on the stage totally daft and off-putting. And cringe-worthy. Maybe I can explain it this way: I don’t mind the album Tommy by the Who, but the film is not only boring and creepy, it’s totally…daft.
I personally have yet to see a “serious” movie musical that I would recommend. I actually dislike them as a genre of movies, though I will watch them in order to keep up with popular opinion. They have to have a certain cheesiness/campiness to work well on film - Little Shop of Horrors, Rocky Horror, etc. - and even those in my mind have ceased to become musicals really - they are movies with songs in them. All I can say is that film musicals are generally a bad representation of musicals written for the theatre because that’s not the way they were meant to be seen. It’s attempting to mix visual realism with highly theatrical performance, and it often doesn’t work unless the musical is borderline satire to begin with. Besides which, Tommy in its original form was not even written as a stage show, so it’s not the best example to use.
I admit I have not seen Tommy or even listened to the entire thing - I tried listening to it once and got bored very quickly by its disjointedness and repetitive lyrics, although I do intend to try it again sometime since I am given to understand it is something of a classic.
However, if you don’t like live theatre in the first place, it is wholly understandable that you don’t care for musicals, IMO. I also like straight plays - just not as much
A musical gave us;
Bangkok:
Oriental city where the city don’t know what the city is missing
The creme de la creme of the chess world in a show
With everything but Yul Brynner.