General Discussion What's your favorite musical?

Wes B said:
Hmmm... is this some sort of challenge??? 🚴‍♀️🎯🚴‍♂️🧗‍♂️🤺

Perhaps I'll have to find some way to surprise...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I suddenly regret my statement.

Wes B said:
While the movie versions are not always up to snuff, the movie for this one is highly recommended. If ever you've found yourself having a hard time coping in a crazy, changing world, this one will give you some perspective. Dealing with the instabilities of overwhelming change is the whole theme of the story. it starts out viewing change good naturedly, but gradually becomes dead-serious.

The MC is a father in a Jewish village, in Tsarist Russia, just a little bit before the Communists would stage their revolt. (We know it's coming; he does not see it in the story timeline...) In spite of all that happens, he's the picture of warm, kindheartedness, accepting his lot with good humor, rather than dismay, or bitterness.

It reminds us that whatever insanity we may have had to endure, others throughout history would likely have been glad to trade places with us in a heartbeat, and it would be the happiest day of their lives. (Even the story title is a metaphor for persisting in a very unstable, uncertain place...) In spite of the darker direction it takes, it leaves you feeling optimistic, and humming a huge load of wonderful tunes...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Wow. That does sound like a lovely movie! So many things to want to read and watch now LOL!
 
Ky_GirlatHeart said:
YESSSSS, the Sound of Music!! I've never seen any of the other ones though, believe it or not LOL!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
My daughters got in the habit of taking lines from musicals to interject them in everyday conversation for effect. One time, I confused my youngest daughter with a not so well thought out request. To which she smiled and giggled, “Max, sometimes I think I don’t know you.” Now let the “Sound of Music” fans decipher that😀. And of course, their being half-Latin ensures their frankness.
 
Last edited:
"I should love musicals. It takes two of my favourite things, music and film, and puts them together. But I'm not a glutton - I don't want ice cream lobbed on my medium rare steak. Some things are best left as far from each other as possible." -Gavin Burke (Entertainment.ie), 2014
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I couldn't have put it better.

Sorry, I don't like musicals - in case you didn't get the hint. 😏
 
Ragamuffin_John said:
My daughters got in the habit of taking lines from musicals to interject them in everyday conversation for effect. One time, I confused my youngest daughter with a not so well thought out request. To which she smiled and giggled, “Max, sometimes I think I don’t know you.” Now let the “Sound of Music” fans decipher that😀. And of course, their being half-Latin ensures their frankness.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Now that is witty! I haven't done that with musicals, but perhaps I should...
 
I have a slightly off-topic recommendation, but thought I'd wait 'till this thread "went dormant." Looks like it's about there, so maybe it's time...

For those who watch stage plays in addition to seeing movies, there's a set of (non-musical) plays that really surprised me. It's a comedy trilogy of plays, about the same six people, all set in the same vacation cottage, and all happening on the same summer weekend. Each play occurs in a different room of the cottage.

It doesn't matter which order you see them in because they happen simultaneously. That is, when a character leaves the room in one play, they're usually entering the room in a different play. Each play is its own separate story, so you can easily see only one, or any two, or all three. Each play has its own gags, of course, but there are additional gags that you will only spot if you see more than one play, because some gags extend from one play into another.

Now, the stories themselves are amusing enough (nothing earthshaking...) but from a writer's perspective, there's something really clever about writing three sufficiently separate stories that can nonetheless intertwine, forming one larger story if you want it, but being perfectly fine on their own. The three plays are:

Table Manners (In the dining room)
Living Together (In the living room)
Round and Round the Garden (Outside, in the garden)

The "main character," of sorts, is a womanizing fellow named Norman, and the offbeat title of the trilogy is Norman Conquests. A version can be found on YouTube (very poor sound quality) and there also appears to have been a British TV series made (also partly on YouTube) that might be loosely related to the plays. Or not. Just thought you'd like to know...
 
Last edited:
Wes B said:
I have a slightly off-topic recommendation, but thought I'd wait 'till this thread "went dormant." Looks like it's about there, so maybe it's time...

For those who watch stage plays in addition to seeing movies, there's a set of (non-musical) plays that really surprised me. It's a comedy trilogy of plays, about the same six people, all set in the same vacation cottage, and all happening on the same summer weekend. Each play occurs in a different room of the cottage.

It doesn't matter which order you see them in because they happen simultaneously. That is, when a character leaves the room in one play, they're usually entering the room in a different play. Each play is its own separate story, so you can easily see only one, or any two, or all three. Each play has its own gags, of course, but there are additional gags that you will only spot if you see more than one play, because some gags extend from one play into another.

Now, the stories themselves are amusing enough (nothing earthshaking...) but from a writer's perspective, there's something really clever about writing three sufficiently separate stories that can nonetheless intertwine, forming one larger story if you want it, but being perfectly fine on their own. The three plays are:

Table Manners (In the dining room)
Living Together (In the living room)
Round and Round the Garden (Outside, in the garden)

The "main character," of sorts, is a womanizing fellow named Norman, and the offbeat title of the trilogy is Norman Conquests. A version can be found on YouTube (very poor sound quality) and there also appears to have been a British TV series made (also partly on YouTube) that might be loosely related to the plays. Or not. Just thought you'd like to know...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Now that sounds really cool! That's a very clever idea, and sounds similar (in either story or structure) to some movies I've really enjoyed. What was the name of the British TV series?
 
Grey_Skies said:
Now that sounds really cool! That's a very clever idea, and sounds similar (in either story or structure) to some movies I've really enjoyed. What was the name of the British TV series?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It appears to have the same name: The Norman Conquests. If you type the title into YouTube's search bar, and then ignore the numerous results that refer to the Battle of Hastings and its aftermath, you'll find results referring either to the plays, or a TV series that looks suspiciously similar (though it has more than the original six characters).

And yes, the plays are a wonderfully clever idea, on so many levels. Not only does it show meticulous story planning, but there are many "reminders" in each play that help someone who's viewed another of the plays that something just happened that began in that other play.

F'rinstance, if a character enters the room carrying some unlikely object, we might shrug it off as a quirky eccentricity of the story. If we saw the play they were in where they left the room with the same unlikely object though, there's a clear and obvious (and humorous) reason why they did so. So each play is filled with "inside jokes" that refer to other plays, and it helps us to spot them. If you haven't seen the other one, it's no problem; the reference just goes over your head, without notice. No harm, no foul.

A less-obvious bit of cleverness is that by setting each play in a single, fairly generic "room," small playhouses and amateur play companies could easily create the scenery. Even more, they could easily "recycle" scenery from a previous play season, since most any basic interior room scenery could become the dining room, with the addition of a large table. The same interior room could become the living room, with the addition of a sofa and a couple of chairs. Any house exterior scenery could become the garden, with the addition of a few shrubs & chairs.

Making it that simple, a small play company might be enticed into producing the entire trilogy, in a year where their budget was limited, and they could save a huge chunka change on creating new scenery. It just seems to be thinking about theatre and its problems on so very many levels...
 
Well I really don't care for The Sound of Music, but I do like for my top 10:

Flower Drum Song
Singing In The Rain
The Music Man
South Pacific
Fiddler On the Roof
Brigadoon
Oklahoma
Mary Poppins
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder was a great Willy Wonka)
Damn Yankees

Non Musical movies I really liked: Oscar, and Silent Running.
 
Here's one you can watch for free, on YouTube, right now...

It's weird, surreal, and has maybe the happiest finale I've seen, anywhere. If you stop and think about it, the ending makes absolutely no sense, but it goes into it with such joyful abandon, that it absolutely does not matter. It just leaves you feeling really good. My only problem is that with this version, they cut the music when they went into the credits, whereas, in the theatrical version, it just went on and on and on, and you could just sit there, savoring the weird delight of the finish. Still, it's wonderful that you can watch this for free...

The movie's called Bugsy Malone. It's (wait for it...) a gangster-comedy-musical, filmed entirely with kids, in scaled-down movie sets, acting in roles as if they're adults. (You will see a teenaged Jodie Foster and Scott Baio, back before anyone had heard of them...) There is no reason anyone would consider making such a strange hybrid, and there will surely never be another like it, but the world is all the richer because it was done, just this once...

 
Ummm...one point. Although it appears this was Scott's first film, Jodie was well-known at that time. She started acting when she was 7 years old and had been in dozens of films and TV.
 
lynnmosher said:
Ummm...one point. Although it appears this was Scott's first film, Jodie was well-known at that time. She started acting when she was 7 years old and had been in dozens of films and TV.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Absolutely correct. My point though was that back then, she was just one more "child actor," with no particular indication she would become "a name." 'Course, the start of her recognition came almost simultaneous with this movie, from her rather disturbing role in Taxi Driver. I would not recommend that one, though...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Recent Discussions

Back
Top