Happy Father’s Day to all the Dad’s out there. Especially to you, Bob. I know you’ll never read this, but the universe knows I said it here.
Don’t worry. I called him.
Welcome to Day 11, over one-third into the 30 days. If you’ve made it this far, hopefully you’ll stick with it. Hopefully I will, too.
So, I’m stalling because this one is kind of hard. A film I like from my least favorite genre is hard because, of course, my least favorite genre is torture porn, or snuff films, or something like that, but that doesn’t really work, because I’ve never actually seen anything from those genres, so I wouldn’t have anything to write about. I could Google one and call it a day, but that would be cheating. So, I will pick a real movie from a real genre. And I hope this won’t offend anyone, but my least favorite genre?
Musicals.
I know they’re popular, and sometimes fun, and creative, and La-La Land was an Oscar winner, but on the whole, I just can’t get into them. I know I’m not the first person to say this, but the whole people just inexplicably singing just doesn’t work for me. And I’m not saying this out of turn, because years ago I dated a self-proclaimed “Rent-Rat,” which was a cutesy name for fans of the musical Rent, a movie/show that I may have a chance to work in before this challenge is over, because I have some feelings on that one, by God.
Anyway, throughout that relationship, I took some for the team and saw more musicals than I can remember, and I would usually justify it to my friends by telling them that I made her see Attack of the Clones, even though it was a seriously one-sided argument. The horrible ending of that relationship is not why I dislike musicals, though. I just don’t like them. But, I must like at least one movie from that genre, right?
Well, it kind of depends on what you consider a musical. Weird, I know, but when I Googled it to make sure I do like at least one musical movie, and looked at lists of the greatest musicals of all-time, I saw things like The Muppet Movie, or Yesterday, or Blinded by the Light, which are movies I really liked, but I’m not sure I would consider them musicals (Am I wrong about this? Is it even up to interpretation?) If any movie with a few songs in it is a musical, maybe this isn’t as hard as I thought. Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about what a musical is:
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film’s characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate “production numbers.”
That’s pretty open-ended, and I could just throw The Blues Brothers, or Little Shop of Horrors out there and call it a day, but instead I’m going to pick a movie that I really love and call it a musical.
I love this movie. I have seen it many, many times. I even once interviewed Mickey Dolenz about it to help celebrate the 50th anniversary a few years ago. I still don’t understand a lot of it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the creativity, the story-telling, and the balls that went into the making of it. Think about it, the Monkees had a TV show about a band who got into zany adventures. They had a successful formula, and the girls loved them. There was the criticism that they weren’t a real band, which they weren’t and never said they were, but they could have ignored all that and made a movie that was basically a longer version of an episode of the show, and cashed the checks.
These guys decided to take the criticisms and make a movie that was basically a satire of all that. It’s still the band-members getting into somewhat zany adventures, but it’s definitely not as accessible as an episode of the show, and the audience expressed their disappointment (and bewilderment, maybe) with their wallet, as the film bombed at the box office. But it’s still an excellent movie, made well, with a great soundtrack, and one that makes you think. And I’m going to quote the great Jim Starlin in a recent interview conducted by my pal Claynferno, “If you’re not trying to get your audience to think, you might as well be writing Tom and Jerry.”
So, if you’re bored one night and want to do a little thinking, check out Head, and prepare to be wowed. Maybe have some weed first. Before you do that, check out my linktree and then come back tomorrow.
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