I like this.
Director: Trey Parker
Writers: Trey Parker
Matt Stone
Pam Bradley
Runtime: 1hr 21minutes
Plot: The residents of South Park blame a Canadian R-rated film for their children using foul language. The children shouldn't have been admitted to the R-rated film but it's easier to blame Canada than the actual problem.
What can I even say about this? I mean, it's South Park and it's a film. There are good points and bad points and what the hell points and we're gonna talk about them today.
I'm gonna get the bad out of the way because...there's honestly not that much bad stuff in this really. First off, the animation sucks. I've said this to people before that I couldn't get into South Park for so long because the animation just sucked and it was nothing but, for lack of a better word, shit and unfunny jokes. The film does have terrible animation, both the 2D and CGI does look pretty terrible, over time it has improved, I mean this film came out in 1999 (alongside the absolute masterpiece Wild Wild West) so...the animation wasn't gonna be the best but I'm still not a fan.
That's it, no more negativity here, moving on to the what the hell stuff and there's so much "what the hell" in this. First off, there's a scene where Kenny is getting some sort of medical help after lighting himself on fire, the George Clooney Doctor (formerly George Clooney as Stan's gay dog) goes to put Kenny's heart in the microwave and there's already a spud in there which...is funny but why the hell is there a microwave in an operating theatre, why was there an uncooked spud in it? I dunno, just kinda messes with me. Another thing is the amount of fucks this film gives. Don't get me wrong, I love swearing, it's probably my favourite past time, love it, love all swears and apparently so does this film with 146 fucks given. Yeah, 146. I couldn't do that in a day...maybe 130 if I get up early but my lazy ass ain't gonna do that.
Finally, for a "what the hell" thing, you find yourself strangely rooting for Satan...not that plenty of people already do these days. Can you say Tories are still in power? Grim. But yeah, Satan is clearly in a relationship with Sadam Hussein that's definitely one sided and you just want him to get out. You root for Satan to get his ass out of this abusive relationship and it's just such a weird position to be in but...depending on each individual person's perspective of what they see in that, can probably speak volumes about the kind of person they are. If they think Satan should stay with Sadam who is just using him for his own gain because it's Satan and Satan's evil, get that person out ya life. (Don't listen to me, I'm not an authority figure on this subject.)
And now for the good stuff. The whole story and message in it is just great. If your kid manages to sneak into an R rated film that they're too young to see and picks up some language that you don't want them speaking, take it up with the cinema, or the kids or whatever. Do not blame the film makers because...it's not their job to protect your kids and stop them seeing films that weren't intended for them anyway. In an extreme situation like in this film, it could start a war. I like it because...it's so obvious and yet people don't think to blame the place where these kids saw these films, they blame the people who made it which is just so dumb.
This is also a musical which I love, I don't know why they decided to make this a musical and some of the songs are a bit bleh but that doesn't really take anything away from they story or the viewing experience or anything like that so it's all good. In fact, a couple of my favourite songs from this are Blame Canada (Academy Award nominated by the way), It's easy m'kay, and La Resistance. Also, while I was looking up the titles for these songs, I found out RuPaul sang Super which...I never would have guessed y'know?
Alright well...that's it, I wrote it longer before but I didn't save it and I just fucking suck so I'll just leave you with that because I don't remember what I wrote. I'm sorry. I will do better. Thank you for being patient. I'm gonna leave you with that and also a link to my absolute favourite scene in the film. Peace out, stay hydrated guys.
Kick the baby
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
Showing posts with label Musical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Musical. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 November 2017
Tuesday, 14 March 2017
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The cast of Harry Potter reunite.
Director: Tim Burton
Writers: John Logan (screenplay)
Hugh Wheeler (musical)
Christopher Bond (musical adaptation)
I'm not sure how, but my original statement stands. Johnny Depp gets about singing and murdering the cast of Harry Potter. It's quite incredible really how many people from that series is in this. I don't know whether Helena Bonham Carter approached Burton with the idea to put all these people in this film or it was just a freaky coincidence but that's not what I want to talk about with this one. I wanna talk about the good and the bad. The bad being how throughout most of it, all I could focus on was the fact that both Johnny Depp and Jamie Campbell Bower play Gellert Grindelwald in...what I'm going to call the Wizarding Cinematic Universe. Depp playing him in the Fantastic Beasts series and Campbell Bower playing him for around 5 to 10 seconds in Deathly Hallows Part one, blink and you miss him but he's there. Honestly, this was the thing that was taking up most of my focus, I had to watch this twice to make notes that weren't "this is weird". Yes, I focus on weird shit but...oh well.
Next problem, this whole murderous rampage is brought on because Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) wanted to get laid and the one thing standing in his way was the fact the women he wanted to fuck was married so he banishes him. Hilarious on its own but later on you see him sentence a child to death by hanging...why not just do that to Todd/Barker (Johnny Depp) in the first place? Maybe your head was clouded with lust for this man's wife but...there was always the possibility that he could come back with Cruella DeVil or Bride of Frankenstein hair (I couldn't choose which one) and go on a killing spree forcing the majority of his neighbours into cannibalism, all in the name of revenge. Sometimes it's best to just either rub one out or go elsewhere.
Another little thing that's more a nitpicky than anything else, everyone's teeth here are just way too nice. Aside from the Beadle (Timothy Spall). His teeth were appropriately shite for the time period this is set in. Plus my very last nitpick would be that during the number Epiphany, my personal favourite song from this aside from Pretty Women, Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) pretty much just watches Todd have a breakdown and as the film goes on she practically encourages his mental break. She may see it as just him being angry and vengeful but...he clearly isn't.
What I love in this, is all the creative choices. Like the blood, for example, it's taken me a while to realise this but for years I always thought that the blood in Burton films (when you see it anyway) is always a standout bright red and it looks a hell of a lot like the blood that would be shown in old Hammer Horror movies. I was watching The Devil Rides Out the other night and the blood stood out to me, it's so vivid against the darkness of the rest of the film. I mean the film isn't dark dark like some of the older Hammer films but dark enough that the vividness of the red just really jumps off the screen. I feel like when making his films, Burton has taken a lot of influence from these classics and I love that. It's amazing in a way. The way this is written is also great, being English myself I can see a lot of humour in this that could come across to a lot of other people who aren't British as...just horrible really. Such as in the scene where Toby (Edward Sanders) is talking to Mrs Lovett about his time in the workhouse and she just completely dismisses him with a "that's nice" sort of line. It really is beautiful to see the English mannerisms being accurately portrayed in this. Maybe it's because it's a mostly English cast but I just loved it. Last good thing I want to talk about is the music. Personally, I love film musicals...mostly. Mamma Mia was more representative of a stage musical thrown on screen because of high demand. This one doesn't hold you hostage which I'm extremely thankful for. Everyone here has a pretty good voice to listen to, I don't know about the technicalities of it but for a general audience who don't know about singing technicalities, it's pretty good. Shockingly good voice in Sacha Baron Cohen, makes you wonder what his voice is like when he's not doing an Italian accent while singing.
So that's it, this is a really good Tim Burton film to look at when you think about his recent decline in filmmaking, specifically his "reimaginings". I mean Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children was a damn good film and even has the funniest fight scene I've seen in a film in a long time. I'm sure it wasn't supposed to be funny but it was just hilarious. Anyway, this was your second one for today, have a good night guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
Director: Tim Burton
Writers: John Logan (screenplay)
Hugh Wheeler (musical)
Christopher Bond (musical adaptation)
I'm not sure how, but my original statement stands. Johnny Depp gets about singing and murdering the cast of Harry Potter. It's quite incredible really how many people from that series is in this. I don't know whether Helena Bonham Carter approached Burton with the idea to put all these people in this film or it was just a freaky coincidence but that's not what I want to talk about with this one. I wanna talk about the good and the bad. The bad being how throughout most of it, all I could focus on was the fact that both Johnny Depp and Jamie Campbell Bower play Gellert Grindelwald in...what I'm going to call the Wizarding Cinematic Universe. Depp playing him in the Fantastic Beasts series and Campbell Bower playing him for around 5 to 10 seconds in Deathly Hallows Part one, blink and you miss him but he's there. Honestly, this was the thing that was taking up most of my focus, I had to watch this twice to make notes that weren't "this is weird". Yes, I focus on weird shit but...oh well.
Next problem, this whole murderous rampage is brought on because Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) wanted to get laid and the one thing standing in his way was the fact the women he wanted to fuck was married so he banishes him. Hilarious on its own but later on you see him sentence a child to death by hanging...why not just do that to Todd/Barker (Johnny Depp) in the first place? Maybe your head was clouded with lust for this man's wife but...there was always the possibility that he could come back with Cruella DeVil or Bride of Frankenstein hair (I couldn't choose which one) and go on a killing spree forcing the majority of his neighbours into cannibalism, all in the name of revenge. Sometimes it's best to just either rub one out or go elsewhere.
Another little thing that's more a nitpicky than anything else, everyone's teeth here are just way too nice. Aside from the Beadle (Timothy Spall). His teeth were appropriately shite for the time period this is set in. Plus my very last nitpick would be that during the number Epiphany, my personal favourite song from this aside from Pretty Women, Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) pretty much just watches Todd have a breakdown and as the film goes on she practically encourages his mental break. She may see it as just him being angry and vengeful but...he clearly isn't.
What I love in this, is all the creative choices. Like the blood, for example, it's taken me a while to realise this but for years I always thought that the blood in Burton films (when you see it anyway) is always a standout bright red and it looks a hell of a lot like the blood that would be shown in old Hammer Horror movies. I was watching The Devil Rides Out the other night and the blood stood out to me, it's so vivid against the darkness of the rest of the film. I mean the film isn't dark dark like some of the older Hammer films but dark enough that the vividness of the red just really jumps off the screen. I feel like when making his films, Burton has taken a lot of influence from these classics and I love that. It's amazing in a way. The way this is written is also great, being English myself I can see a lot of humour in this that could come across to a lot of other people who aren't British as...just horrible really. Such as in the scene where Toby (Edward Sanders) is talking to Mrs Lovett about his time in the workhouse and she just completely dismisses him with a "that's nice" sort of line. It really is beautiful to see the English mannerisms being accurately portrayed in this. Maybe it's because it's a mostly English cast but I just loved it. Last good thing I want to talk about is the music. Personally, I love film musicals...mostly. Mamma Mia was more representative of a stage musical thrown on screen because of high demand. This one doesn't hold you hostage which I'm extremely thankful for. Everyone here has a pretty good voice to listen to, I don't know about the technicalities of it but for a general audience who don't know about singing technicalities, it's pretty good. Shockingly good voice in Sacha Baron Cohen, makes you wonder what his voice is like when he's not doing an Italian accent while singing.
So that's it, this is a really good Tim Burton film to look at when you think about his recent decline in filmmaking, specifically his "reimaginings". I mean Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children was a damn good film and even has the funniest fight scene I've seen in a film in a long time. I'm sure it wasn't supposed to be funny but it was just hilarious. Anyway, this was your second one for today, have a good night guys.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
Mamma Mia
I didn't write notes, I wrote a hell of a lot of questions though.
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Writer: Catherine Johnson (screenplay & musical book)
Back in 2008, I loved this film, my parents got me the DVD for Christmas and all I did for weeks after that was sing. Looking at it now, I'm not its biggest fan. It raises way too many questions and doesn't really answer them, the songs barely even convey what they're trying to get across, in a lot of places the choreography looks like it was done by a middle-aged housewife who's only dance move includes the I'm listening to Take That while doing the dishes. Fucking painful.
First of all, I want to talk about how convenient the plot is to this thing. So Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) finds an old diary of her mothers from the year she was pregnant with her, fair enough. She then reads to her friends from the diary and reveals she has three potential fathers, again, fair enough. She then somehow manages to track them down, it could happen if she read out the surnames of these men but...she didn't. Maybe her mother had written the names but she didn't read them but why would her mother write their surnames in her diary? Isn't it also a little convenient that one of her ex's is a banker and another is an architect? Both of which are high enough up in their jobs to be tracked via the internet? And that the final ex turns out to be a popular writer, It also turns out that she managed to get their home addresses, fair enough for the writer and maybe the architect but definitely not the banker. I just don't believe it. Did all these guys have MySpace pages where they blasted all their information? How did she find these guys surnames if they weren't written in the diary anyway? She couldn't ask her mum, she'd get suspicious, couldn't ask her mums friends, they'd get a little suspicious and tell her mother and she couldn't ask her grandmother because she told Donna (Meryl Streep) to not come home when she got pregnant so I'm assuming they're not in contact plus the fact we're given indication hat Donna's mother is dead. How did this girl do it?
How is this movie set in Grece yet features an American girl who is marrying an English ma, she has an English and Scottish best friend. Her mother is also American with an American best friend and an English best friend who's ex's are English and American? I dunno, this just bothered me, I'm all for talented actors taking on role's but...how did they all even meet? I'm all for show don't tell but...tell us something, please.
The singing is terrible. I heard Meryl Streep said that all she had to do was just sing and was told she sounded fine but when she heard herself in the film she was shocked and got lessons. My question is...how did Christine Baranski, a trained singer, hear her and think "ya, that's good". Doesn't that say something about who she is as a person? I don't know but if I was trained as a singer and was as good as her, I'd probably offer help. Or maybe she did and Streep rejected it. Either way, Streep and a couple others should have had help, I can't sing and I know nothing about it but even I could tell something was off.
That whole entire number "Lay all your love on me" is almost an example of what an unhealthy relationship is. Quote "And I'm possessive it isn't nice, you've heard me saying that smoking was my only vice" ... "Don't go sharing your devotion, lay all your love on me." I'm not an expert but...possessiveness isn't good, regardless of whether you admit it or not. That vice thing sounds a little aggressive, almost as if he's blaming her for only having smoking left, and "Don't go sharing your devotion"? Why not? Obviously, they won't devote themselves to another person but what about their passions? Their families?
In fact where the hell is Sky's (Dominic Cooper) family? Why don't they ever get mentioned? He barely even gets a backstory, why does Sophie love him? What drew her to him? Aside from his looks what is there about his personality other than he doesn't want a big white wedding and that he wants to travel? Character development is important. Also, side note, I was looking up Dominic Coopers surname on IMDb because I kept thinking it was Dominic Wood but I knew that wasn't right. Anyway, I looked it up under the Mamma Mia cast and crew list and you wanna know where he came up on the list? Below Gregoris, who is Gregoris? The guy who comes below Arina, and who is Arina? The woman who comes below Stavros. Who is Stavros? That guy on the boat toward the start of the movie who asked for Rosie's (Julie Walters) autograph. That's where this guy's character gets listed on IMDb, I mean you'd think he'd be listed with higher importance considering he's marrying the main character but whatever.
Quote: "Alone here on your own." Just a terribly written line. Did nobody look back on that and think...let's think about that for a second, does it sound stupid? That's it, stupid line. Next.
All of the potential fathers, Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) and Harry (Colin Firth) somehow work out they're her father but then none of them seem to think "hey, I'm here because I'm her father...what about these other guys?" Especially Sam, he came back and found out that Donna went off with another man so he should have at least thought "maybe Donna was a slut and these two could possibly be her father too...huh." Stupid.
Speaking of stupid, that scene in the church near the end. The wedding is about to start and Donna is the first to interrupt, then it's Sophie, then it's Sam and then they let the wedding start again. Only this time, Sophie interrupts to then cancel the wedding which it turns out that everybody is happy about. 1) If I were a guest at that wedding, I'd be pretty pissed that I walked up that big fucking hill to watch someone cancel their wedding. 2) If I were that child guest I'd be even more pissed. 3) If I were her mother, I'd be extra pissed that I paid for this whole big white wedding, that's wasted money right there. 4) Why the hell was Sky even that happy the wedding was called off? Not a good sign for your relationship there. Then Sam decides that the woman he loves has been avoiding him for three days and that when he last saw her she told him she wanted nothing to with him, that this would be the absolute perfect time to propose to her with Quote: "why waste a good wedding?" How romantic. And of course she accepts and they get married which I'm calling bullshit on because I doubt any priest from any church would accept this.
And finally, this thing holds you hostage like every other musical ever. It's trying to cram in as much Abba as it can and I'm just not a fan, you don't need to hold us hostage to applaud a movie. In the theatre I kind of get it because...applause is due in there, the actors work hard and it's nice to show your approval of what you've just seen. But in a film? Not necessary.
There is some good in this though, I mean, I love Julie Walters and Christine Baranski. Both are top actors and I love pretty much everything I've seen them in. Colin Firth is also a pretty enjoyable watch. Dominic Wood is pretty nice to look at even though his performance isn't that wonderful. The music and some of the choreography is pretty good. I mean that's pretty rare but when it's good it's good and should be given credit.
I guess that's it, looking back on the film it's not as good as I remember it with all the holes and stuff but I'm probably still gonna watch it as a guilty pleasure. That's it for tonight...bye bye.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
Back in 2008, I loved this film, my parents got me the DVD for Christmas and all I did for weeks after that was sing. Looking at it now, I'm not its biggest fan. It raises way too many questions and doesn't really answer them, the songs barely even convey what they're trying to get across, in a lot of places the choreography looks like it was done by a middle-aged housewife who's only dance move includes the I'm listening to Take That while doing the dishes. Fucking painful.
First of all, I want to talk about how convenient the plot is to this thing. So Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) finds an old diary of her mothers from the year she was pregnant with her, fair enough. She then reads to her friends from the diary and reveals she has three potential fathers, again, fair enough. She then somehow manages to track them down, it could happen if she read out the surnames of these men but...she didn't. Maybe her mother had written the names but she didn't read them but why would her mother write their surnames in her diary? Isn't it also a little convenient that one of her ex's is a banker and another is an architect? Both of which are high enough up in their jobs to be tracked via the internet? And that the final ex turns out to be a popular writer, It also turns out that she managed to get their home addresses, fair enough for the writer and maybe the architect but definitely not the banker. I just don't believe it. Did all these guys have MySpace pages where they blasted all their information? How did she find these guys surnames if they weren't written in the diary anyway? She couldn't ask her mum, she'd get suspicious, couldn't ask her mums friends, they'd get a little suspicious and tell her mother and she couldn't ask her grandmother because she told Donna (Meryl Streep) to not come home when she got pregnant so I'm assuming they're not in contact plus the fact we're given indication hat Donna's mother is dead. How did this girl do it?
How is this movie set in Grece yet features an American girl who is marrying an English ma, she has an English and Scottish best friend. Her mother is also American with an American best friend and an English best friend who's ex's are English and American? I dunno, this just bothered me, I'm all for talented actors taking on role's but...how did they all even meet? I'm all for show don't tell but...tell us something, please.
The singing is terrible. I heard Meryl Streep said that all she had to do was just sing and was told she sounded fine but when she heard herself in the film she was shocked and got lessons. My question is...how did Christine Baranski, a trained singer, hear her and think "ya, that's good". Doesn't that say something about who she is as a person? I don't know but if I was trained as a singer and was as good as her, I'd probably offer help. Or maybe she did and Streep rejected it. Either way, Streep and a couple others should have had help, I can't sing and I know nothing about it but even I could tell something was off.
That whole entire number "Lay all your love on me" is almost an example of what an unhealthy relationship is. Quote "And I'm possessive it isn't nice, you've heard me saying that smoking was my only vice" ... "Don't go sharing your devotion, lay all your love on me." I'm not an expert but...possessiveness isn't good, regardless of whether you admit it or not. That vice thing sounds a little aggressive, almost as if he's blaming her for only having smoking left, and "Don't go sharing your devotion"? Why not? Obviously, they won't devote themselves to another person but what about their passions? Their families?
In fact where the hell is Sky's (Dominic Cooper) family? Why don't they ever get mentioned? He barely even gets a backstory, why does Sophie love him? What drew her to him? Aside from his looks what is there about his personality other than he doesn't want a big white wedding and that he wants to travel? Character development is important. Also, side note, I was looking up Dominic Coopers surname on IMDb because I kept thinking it was Dominic Wood but I knew that wasn't right. Anyway, I looked it up under the Mamma Mia cast and crew list and you wanna know where he came up on the list? Below Gregoris, who is Gregoris? The guy who comes below Arina, and who is Arina? The woman who comes below Stavros. Who is Stavros? That guy on the boat toward the start of the movie who asked for Rosie's (Julie Walters) autograph. That's where this guy's character gets listed on IMDb, I mean you'd think he'd be listed with higher importance considering he's marrying the main character but whatever.
Quote: "Alone here on your own." Just a terribly written line. Did nobody look back on that and think...let's think about that for a second, does it sound stupid? That's it, stupid line. Next.
All of the potential fathers, Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) and Harry (Colin Firth) somehow work out they're her father but then none of them seem to think "hey, I'm here because I'm her father...what about these other guys?" Especially Sam, he came back and found out that Donna went off with another man so he should have at least thought "maybe Donna was a slut and these two could possibly be her father too...huh." Stupid.
Speaking of stupid, that scene in the church near the end. The wedding is about to start and Donna is the first to interrupt, then it's Sophie, then it's Sam and then they let the wedding start again. Only this time, Sophie interrupts to then cancel the wedding which it turns out that everybody is happy about. 1) If I were a guest at that wedding, I'd be pretty pissed that I walked up that big fucking hill to watch someone cancel their wedding. 2) If I were that child guest I'd be even more pissed. 3) If I were her mother, I'd be extra pissed that I paid for this whole big white wedding, that's wasted money right there. 4) Why the hell was Sky even that happy the wedding was called off? Not a good sign for your relationship there. Then Sam decides that the woman he loves has been avoiding him for three days and that when he last saw her she told him she wanted nothing to with him, that this would be the absolute perfect time to propose to her with Quote: "why waste a good wedding?" How romantic. And of course she accepts and they get married which I'm calling bullshit on because I doubt any priest from any church would accept this.
And finally, this thing holds you hostage like every other musical ever. It's trying to cram in as much Abba as it can and I'm just not a fan, you don't need to hold us hostage to applaud a movie. In the theatre I kind of get it because...applause is due in there, the actors work hard and it's nice to show your approval of what you've just seen. But in a film? Not necessary.
There is some good in this though, I mean, I love Julie Walters and Christine Baranski. Both are top actors and I love pretty much everything I've seen them in. Colin Firth is also a pretty enjoyable watch. Dominic Wood is pretty nice to look at even though his performance isn't that wonderful. The music and some of the choreography is pretty good. I mean that's pretty rare but when it's good it's good and should be given credit.
I guess that's it, looking back on the film it's not as good as I remember it with all the holes and stuff but I'm probably still gonna watch it as a guilty pleasure. That's it for tonight...bye bye.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
Saturday, 4 February 2017
My first review - Grease
Kicking off my February reviews with Grease, a film I'd only ever seen parts of but never the whole thing, I was always led to believe it was a sort of love story between two high school kids in the 50's. I think that's what I saw, I mean yeah there was a love story between the two obvious adults acting as teenagers but I didn't feel like there was a set story to this, plot points just kinda came and went and I didn't really get a sense that time was passing at the rate it was. I'm bitching and I've not really gotten into the film itself...
Here we go then.
Director: Randal Kleiser
Writters: Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey (Original musical)
Bronté Woodard (Screenplay)
Allan Carr (Adaptation)
Let's first start off with the negatives because...personally I think there's a fair amount of it in this. First of all, the guys in this are just total pigs, and I mean fucking disgusting pigs. Danny (John Travolta), starts off this film by destroying a sandcastle...lead as you mean to go on I guess. The boys in leather then proceed to bully a geek stereotype named Eugene, drop a dead frog in a girls bag, look up another girls skirt, acting "too cool" in front of friends, finally getting a date and acting as though they don't really wanna be there, looking at another girls booty when dancing with their date, spiking the punch, elbowing their girlfriend then proposing to her only to then try and cop a feel, knocking your pal out with a slight bump from a car door etc. That's a pretty big list but there are about 5 of the leather guys..I think, I didn't count, if it's any different I'll edit it in. I didn't even mention the coach who enjoys the word "primed" too much, that butt head who sings Beauty School Drop Out or Vince Fontaine, who these days would be branded as a predator or pervert considering he quite openly messes around with a young high school girl. The guys in this are just gross, you can blame it on the time period this is set in but damn, if this was made and set in the present day, there would be more controversy than the 2016 Ghost Busters movie.
The problems didn't just lie with the guys, the women were also had their share of shitty behaviour, starting with the headmistress, shouldn't she have had her paperwork ready way before the start of term? I don't care how lax the system would be back then, there is no excuse for not keeping your paperwork up to date. Also, how did she not have Sandy fill in those forms before school when she would have met with her parents to get her enrolled in the school? Wouldn't that be more effective than making a new student who is obviously going to be very lost and confused on her first day late for her first class? I don't know whether that's a real thing that happens within the American education system but it just seems a little weird to me. Not like I know much about moving schools, only ever did it once when I was six but whatever. Aside from that, near enough every woman in this is portrayed as a bitch, or an idiot. The only strong female character in this is Rizzo, and she makes some stupid decisions. Let's start with Sandy, she's an idiot. No other way about it, she's pretty much just some silly girl who fawns over and constantly forgives Danny when all he does is act like a tit towards her. Then there's Frenchy, another idiot, she might be cute but she's portrayed as a ditz who drops out of two schools, the first time because she wants to pursue her passion and the second time because she's struggling. There isn't really a lot of screen time dedicated to her to really get a grasp on any sort of personality she has. Then there's Jan. Jan is a horrible friend who tells her best friends secrets the second their back is turned. Never trust Jan. Finally there's Rizzo, a strong confident woman who has unprotected sex with apparently multiple guys. That's honestly so stupid I don't know what else I can say about that. She also thinks she's pregnant because her period was late and rather than wait it out a few more days she goes and tells her backstabbing friend Jan. These are both crazy stupid moves made by a character who's made out to be strong, smart and assertive.
Going back to my point about Frenchy not getting enough screen time to get a feel for her personality, looking back on my notes it seems as though that statement applies to all the main characters in this, I never felt any sort of connection to these characters because they were just sort of stock characters and nothing they ever did made them seem anything more than just stock characters.
Another issue was the music. Now I'm not saying that the music in this was terrible, far from it. I loved every piece in this film, the problem was that sometimes the numbers felt as if they were well integrated in places such as Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee fitting into the scene well but Greased Lightning and a couple others felt very...stage production-y. Not that I'm against that but it felt as if the people working on adapting this from the stage just couldn't really pick a lane on what they wanted to do with the numbers. Like they really wanted some parts to be worked in nicely but then forgot about others and just kinda threw them as they would have been on stage. Final issue with the music was that the number Hopelessly Devoted To You seemed vague enough to be played on the radio as some sort of promotion for the film, like Can't Stop The Feeling by Justin Timblerlake for the 2016 movie Trolls. It unintentionally feels manipulative and as much as some people love this song, I just couldn't get into it.
To end the negative portion I'm gonna talk about the pacing. The whole thing felt very rushed, I'm not sure why but at near enough every point in this film I kept thinking "wait...how much time's passed?" I mean, the film played out the way you'd think this sort of thing would but there just didn't seem to be any indication of the passage of time from the start to the end.
I'm all about fairness when talking about something and so I'm gonna talk about the positives because despite my bitching there is good in this. The choreography is very good in this and Patricia Birch and Carol Culver did a great job of making the big musical numbers more memorable by the choreography which accompanied them. The standout choreography would be at the school dance, I mean yeah big group choreographed dance scenes in a school dance scene are a little unrealistic but it's a musical so who even cares, there's group choreography everywhere, get over it. I mean unless you watch CinemaSins a lot and find yourself nitpicking like them then...I guess don't get over it because nitpicking is pretty fun. Just do it for fun though and don't apply it to your personal life because that's gonna make look like a dick and that's not good for anyone. I got way off topic there, moving on.
I LOVE the language used in this film, with things like "Dingleberries on parade" "Peachy keen" "Divoon" and many more just..oddly beautiful lines are what makes this film enjoyable. My personal favourites would definitely be "Peachy Keen" and "Dingleberries on parade" like...can we make those a thing? They're just lovely. They seem as though they're plucked from the 50's but it's more like how the 70's would see the 50's. I personally don't know the language of the 50's but that's definitely not it, but maybe it could become the language of 2017. Crazier things have happened I mean...look at the state of 2016, what could be worse?
I also loved the fashion in this film, I don't know about other people but I would definitely wear pretty much everything anyone wore in this, it came across as both stereotypical 50's and the 70's imagines the 50's style and I even saw things that I've recently seen in Primark and H&M in there. Hopefully some of the stuff I see in this will bleed into the modern fashion because it is just lovely. Good job costume department.
Finally, for as much as I bitched about the characters I really did like them. I mean I really identified with Rizzo's take no shit attitude and Frenchy's slight dimness and commitment to following her passion and Sandy's stupid determination to constantly fall back into Danny's arms without him giving her a reason to forgive him for any shit he pulls. To say that the guys were disgusting pigs is for me an honest statement but the way they treat each other is pretty much how my friends and I treat each other, it's probably not healthy or very nice but we're not people who enjoy showing emotion. I say friends like I have more than 2 that I have any sort of regular contact with. Hahahahaha.
If you saw the notes I made on Grease you'd think I absolutely can't stand this film, I don't, I've just tend to find myself finding all the negatives and very few positives in things, call me a pessimist if you like. Actually thinking about it I probably am a pessimist...damn I'm all over the place with this. Despite how my notes might look I did enjoy this film enough to not...dislike it, I mean it's just Ok. It's nothing special but it's not anything terrible either, it's just...Ok.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this particular film please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
The problems didn't just lie with the guys, the women were also had their share of shitty behaviour, starting with the headmistress, shouldn't she have had her paperwork ready way before the start of term? I don't care how lax the system would be back then, there is no excuse for not keeping your paperwork up to date. Also, how did she not have Sandy fill in those forms before school when she would have met with her parents to get her enrolled in the school? Wouldn't that be more effective than making a new student who is obviously going to be very lost and confused on her first day late for her first class? I don't know whether that's a real thing that happens within the American education system but it just seems a little weird to me. Not like I know much about moving schools, only ever did it once when I was six but whatever. Aside from that, near enough every woman in this is portrayed as a bitch, or an idiot. The only strong female character in this is Rizzo, and she makes some stupid decisions. Let's start with Sandy, she's an idiot. No other way about it, she's pretty much just some silly girl who fawns over and constantly forgives Danny when all he does is act like a tit towards her. Then there's Frenchy, another idiot, she might be cute but she's portrayed as a ditz who drops out of two schools, the first time because she wants to pursue her passion and the second time because she's struggling. There isn't really a lot of screen time dedicated to her to really get a grasp on any sort of personality she has. Then there's Jan. Jan is a horrible friend who tells her best friends secrets the second their back is turned. Never trust Jan. Finally there's Rizzo, a strong confident woman who has unprotected sex with apparently multiple guys. That's honestly so stupid I don't know what else I can say about that. She also thinks she's pregnant because her period was late and rather than wait it out a few more days she goes and tells her backstabbing friend Jan. These are both crazy stupid moves made by a character who's made out to be strong, smart and assertive.
Going back to my point about Frenchy not getting enough screen time to get a feel for her personality, looking back on my notes it seems as though that statement applies to all the main characters in this, I never felt any sort of connection to these characters because they were just sort of stock characters and nothing they ever did made them seem anything more than just stock characters.
Another issue was the music. Now I'm not saying that the music in this was terrible, far from it. I loved every piece in this film, the problem was that sometimes the numbers felt as if they were well integrated in places such as Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee fitting into the scene well but Greased Lightning and a couple others felt very...stage production-y. Not that I'm against that but it felt as if the people working on adapting this from the stage just couldn't really pick a lane on what they wanted to do with the numbers. Like they really wanted some parts to be worked in nicely but then forgot about others and just kinda threw them as they would have been on stage. Final issue with the music was that the number Hopelessly Devoted To You seemed vague enough to be played on the radio as some sort of promotion for the film, like Can't Stop The Feeling by Justin Timblerlake for the 2016 movie Trolls. It unintentionally feels manipulative and as much as some people love this song, I just couldn't get into it.
To end the negative portion I'm gonna talk about the pacing. The whole thing felt very rushed, I'm not sure why but at near enough every point in this film I kept thinking "wait...how much time's passed?" I mean, the film played out the way you'd think this sort of thing would but there just didn't seem to be any indication of the passage of time from the start to the end.
I'm all about fairness when talking about something and so I'm gonna talk about the positives because despite my bitching there is good in this. The choreography is very good in this and Patricia Birch and Carol Culver did a great job of making the big musical numbers more memorable by the choreography which accompanied them. The standout choreography would be at the school dance, I mean yeah big group choreographed dance scenes in a school dance scene are a little unrealistic but it's a musical so who even cares, there's group choreography everywhere, get over it. I mean unless you watch CinemaSins a lot and find yourself nitpicking like them then...I guess don't get over it because nitpicking is pretty fun. Just do it for fun though and don't apply it to your personal life because that's gonna make look like a dick and that's not good for anyone. I got way off topic there, moving on.
I LOVE the language used in this film, with things like "Dingleberries on parade" "Peachy keen" "Divoon" and many more just..oddly beautiful lines are what makes this film enjoyable. My personal favourites would definitely be "Peachy Keen" and "Dingleberries on parade" like...can we make those a thing? They're just lovely. They seem as though they're plucked from the 50's but it's more like how the 70's would see the 50's. I personally don't know the language of the 50's but that's definitely not it, but maybe it could become the language of 2017. Crazier things have happened I mean...look at the state of 2016, what could be worse?
I also loved the fashion in this film, I don't know about other people but I would definitely wear pretty much everything anyone wore in this, it came across as both stereotypical 50's and the 70's imagines the 50's style and I even saw things that I've recently seen in Primark and H&M in there. Hopefully some of the stuff I see in this will bleed into the modern fashion because it is just lovely. Good job costume department.
Finally, for as much as I bitched about the characters I really did like them. I mean I really identified with Rizzo's take no shit attitude and Frenchy's slight dimness and commitment to following her passion and Sandy's stupid determination to constantly fall back into Danny's arms without him giving her a reason to forgive him for any shit he pulls. To say that the guys were disgusting pigs is for me an honest statement but the way they treat each other is pretty much how my friends and I treat each other, it's probably not healthy or very nice but we're not people who enjoy showing emotion. I say friends like I have more than 2 that I have any sort of regular contact with. Hahahahaha.
If you saw the notes I made on Grease you'd think I absolutely can't stand this film, I don't, I've just tend to find myself finding all the negatives and very few positives in things, call me a pessimist if you like. Actually thinking about it I probably am a pessimist...damn I'm all over the place with this. Despite how my notes might look I did enjoy this film enough to not...dislike it, I mean it's just Ok. It's nothing special but it's not anything terrible either, it's just...Ok.
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this particular film please go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.
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