Currently browsing the "Musical" category.

Fame

I went into this movie with an open mind – determined to view it through the eyes of a teenager, rather than the cynical (albeit musical-loving) adult that I am. After all, I was a (young) teenager when the original Fame debuted in 1980. So I was kinda psyched to see the new one, for old times’ sake. Whatever. This “updated” Fame is simply lame.

Fall Flicks

So, what is coming up this fall? More for the chicks, one can only hope. Usually, post-summer we get back to having adult fare and start the march to the Oscar race. The list below is wide releases. If you are in New York or Los Angeles, you will have a much wider choice. For the rest of us, there are a few gems and a bit of dreck. But that’s just my opinion. What do you think?

Every Little Step: The Journey of A Chorus Line

If you like Broadway musicals, you’ll definitely like Every Little Step. This pleasant documentary chronicles the creative genesis of the 1976 Tony-Award winning musical A Chorus Line and takes you inside the casting and audition process for the show’s revival some 30 years later.

Perhaps Love 如果·愛

If you’re looking for a good musical romance in Chinese, “Perhaps Love” is your movie. It stars Asian heart throb Takeshi Kaneshiro and Superstar singer Jacky Cheung in a love triangle with Zhou Xun. The movie opens with Lin Jiandong (Takeshi Kaneshiro) arriving in Shanghai to co-star in a musical film with his old flame Sun Na (Zhou Xun) who is in a relationship with the famous director Nie Wen (Jacky Cheung). The musical they are all making together is about a young woman who loses her memory and is taken under the wing of a circus owner who falls in love with her, but her old love comes back for her and she is torn between the two men. Meanwhile in the real world outside the film, the actor flashes back to his romance 10 years earlier with his co-star and yearns to rekindle their flame. She is initially reluctant to the point of indifference to him, but his persistence pays off and their romances both on and off screen mirror one another.

Nine

I think musicals by their very nature are chick flicks, and “9″ is a great one. I saw it on Broadway when it came out in 1982 with Raul Julia in the lead. The play was an adaptation of Fellini’s autobiographical film 8 1/2 starring my favorite Italian Marcello Mastroianni as the director going through a creative crisis surrounded by all his women — mistress, muse, mother, agent, etc. Now we’re coming full circle back to film with “Nine.” Daniel Day Lewis as Fellini looks great (though steamy Javier Bardem was supposed to play the role but backed out) and the women in his life are a fabulous group of actresses. I think director Rob Marshall did a fantastic job with “Chicago,” so I have my fingers crossed. The cast includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren, and Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson. But of course we have to wait until the Oscar race is on. Release Date: November 25, 2009