Recently I had a post venting about the absurdity of 9 to 5 becoming a musical. We have yet another atrocity to add to the list of bad musicals. The evil musical gods are taking one really good movie and making one of Christian Bale's creepiest and best known characters sing songs on stage in the limelight.
AMERICAN PSYCHO: THE MUSICAL?! Are you KIDDING me!!??? I found this gem piece of news from filmDrunk. The bad theatre that America has been exposed to lately is not only heart breaking to those of us who love good theatre, but it's really sad for everyone else. The people I feel the worst for are high school musical nerds who are just finding their niche in musical theatre, and they have to get exposed to this crap. American Psycho, 9 to 5, Cry Baby, Legally Blonde, and Movin' Up are just bad. When I was in high school and discovering that musicals were cool (because they are. They're super cool. Except West Side Story. No gang members I know pirouette.) I had things like Rent, Wicked, Urinetown, The Producers (you know, when Mel Brooks redid it), Aida, The Last Five Years, and the revival version of You're A Good Man Charlie Brown. When I was in high school, no one knew Sutton Foster's name but a select few, Kristin Chenoweth was still sort of up-and-coming, Idina Menzel was that chick from Rent... and now we have the Rent clone, Spring Awakening that everyone is gaga over.
Very rarely do I listen to new shows and think "I have to sing that song." The last musical I did that with was Avenue Q. Even Spamalot I LOVED but know damn well that no normal person can hit the kind of notes that Sara Ramirez does as the Lady of the Lake. All of my favorite shows were from the 90s, or old Kander & Ebb. Very rarely do I buy soundtracks of musicals anymore...except for Bklyn but it was Eden Espinosa, and she's amazing. I really wish that producers and writers and composers would stop trying to bring the "people" to Broadway by writing all this trendy crap. In twenty years, the revival of Movin' Out isn't winning any Tonys. But the revival of Oklahoma (which I do think is craptastic for the record) probably will. In ten, twenty years... the shows that will be revived are the ones that are always revived. The well-written ones by Rodgers and Hammerstein (gag), Kander & Ebb, Sondheim, Schwartz. These are going to keep coming back, because, uh, they were GOOD. God this upsets me. Just wait until we get Twilight the Musical. It's coming, I'm sure.
3 comments:
omg, i'm WRITING "twilight: the musical." must. have. singing. vampires. (ugh-- must get new dvd drive so i can watch "once more, with feeling!" a million times this fall. love me some singing vampires in the spookiest season of them all!)
9 to 5 is actually REALLY good. Don't judge if yoy haven't seen it yet.
I have no problem with slightly cheesy musical theatre. I think Mamma Mia!, Hairspray, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas are great. I don't even have a problem with Dolly Parton... I think she's incredibly talented and I think she sings I Will Always Love You better than Miss Whitney. I just don't see how that movie can translate into a musical that can hold my attention. I've seen the movie, and it's one of those bad movies I love. Just like Legally Blonde. Just because I love the movie doesn't think that it will hold my attention onstage. I didn't like Legally Blonde at all. I just don't understand why the trend in theatre now is to pull from film. It's not innovative. It's not cutting edge. It's a cop out. Though I'll take 9 to 5 over Hairspray 2...The Movie...
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