Holy crap does Geoff love this movie.
It’s a place where you can find love, have a good ol’ time, and rollerskate your goddamn balls off, it’s Xanadu, the oft-criticized musical starring the divinely beautiful Olivia Newton-John, the heavenly Gene Kelly, and Michael Beck playing a turd. Listen below and enjoy the magic of XANADU!
Next week, we celebrate America’s 242nd birthday with 1990’s Captain America directed by Albert Pyun!
And for more of Geoff’s take on Xanadu, albeit a more comedic one, check out his post from 2016 on B-Movie Enema!
Film Seizure Podcast 
I was trying to think of a full group of pictures I’d enjoy hearing you guys to cover, and you’ve already done two of the four. They would be hyper-stylized, musical (at least somewhat), popular ‘failures’ which are not dull. It came from running across a poster of Bugsy Malone, which I’ve watched both in color and with the color down (not perfect, because it’s lit for color, but a lot of it really is noir gorgeous that way), which I thought would connect well with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Bee Gees movie) from two years later. They both have a high level of weirdness as projects.
The other two to complete such a group would be Xanadu and Flash Gordon (the most ‘kinda’ musical of the four, as in ‘not’, to be honest), but you’ve done those. I don’t really have a good other two. All This And World War II is actually pretty dull. The Apple may also be. Can’t Stop the Music is only occasionally funny-bad.
Actually, maybe Grease and Grease 2 could fit, I don’t know. An overall why does/doesn’t this musical work conversation could come from that four, for sure.
I’ve seen Flash Gordon many times. Parts I love, the opening mostly (it’s opening credits are a contender for best ever), but it drags for me. I love parts of Xanadu. I really enjoy Bugsy Malone. Sgt. Pepper’s is what introduced me to Beatles’ album tracks, and I really, really liked it! … when I was 9. Later it was mostly embarrassing. Aside from George Burns’ narration, it has no dialogue, which hadn’t even occurred to me until a step-brother asked me about it mid-movie on my second time seeing it. Grease I didn’t see until ABC TV, and boy did that work for me as well as its reputation. Grease 2 was so clearly a misfire in so many ways, but it was always on one summer, anytime I was inside having lunch, and cable was new, still feeling like sneaking into a theater, so I was pretty liberal with what I’d leave on. With repeats, I started to like the characters. I started to not dislike the songs. A month passed, and dammit… I liked Grease 2. It really never is boring, but it’s still a misfire in ways big and little.
Anyway, so yeah.
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Your timing is pretty good because we just recorded an episode for Gillian Armstrong’s Starstruck last night! That one fits your criteria pretty darn well. I know Geoff has been begging to do Sgt. Pepper, so that’s likely happening sometime this year as well. I’ve been a big fan of Bugsy Malone since I was a kid and would love to cover it. I recently watched it again after a long time and still found it as fun and charming as ever. Geoff has covered The Apple appropriately over at B-Movie Enema. That’s probably all it really deserves 😂
– Jason
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And spoiler alert – we’re covering Altman’s Popeye in April.
– Jason
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Weird that I didn’t mention it here, but the “Whenever You’re Away From Me” scene was basically directed by Gene Kelly. As the only 10-year-old in any movie theater anywhere in 1980 who blurted out, “It’s Gene Kelly!” when he showed up in this, that makes me happy. It’s the only un-clumsily filmed musical number, and you can kinda tell it’s his directing. You can kinda tell he’s 68, and that Olivia is no dancer (according to Olivia), so the number itself is calibrated to let them look good doing what they’re doing, but watch what that camera does. It’s like a dialed down Moses Supposes the way the camera flows along with them.Apparently, when he was finally badgered into doing the movie, his stipulation was, “But I won’t dance.” They had screenings, and a number of the cards said, “We kept waiting for Gene Kelly’s dance number…” so they begged him, and his new conditions were that the only people allowed on the set would be he and Olivia, and the camera operator and maybe the lighting person.So that’s his scene. And it’s the reason that I, too, own this movie.
The soundtrack is a different thing, one of those albums I would pull back out every year or so and play for a week or two non-stop, all of it. The movie is a mixed bag: as visually messy, in a genuinely negative way, as it is visually adventurous, with dialogue as dopey as it can be engaging, a contradictory, but also wild, story, and very little in the way of making sense on its own terms, but with that great soundtrack playing all through it.But I’ll watch that scene any day of the week. Well worth the 7 bucks I spent on the blu-ray.
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Wild you’re commenting on this when just last night we recorded a revisited for next week… Unless you listened to our new episode and it reminded you of this.
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Oh, I listened to your new episode. Your last night new episode. I have AI. It does everything, even impossible stuff. Like computers did in the ’80s. Good show; you weren’t inconsistent with episode 23; you developed.This IS Jason right? (checks AI) AI says it is. AI can make mistakes. Review for accuracy.
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Oh, I listened to your new episode. Your last night new episode. I have AI. It does everything, even impossible stuff. Like computers did in the ’80s. Good show; you weren’t inconsistent with episode 21; you developed.This IS Jason right? (checks AI) AI says it is. AI can make mistakes. Review for accuracy.
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Man, this platform is super weird. “Not posted – oh wait, it’s there twice!” “Here are your formatting options – BANG – Not fomatted!!! HEE hee hee.”
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