Rob Marshall
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Mastroainni is such a mischievous screen presence, one need only take a brief look at Daniel Day-Lewis (inarguably a better actor who happens to be all wrong for the role) as Guido in the recent woebegotten musical adaptation Nine to see what a vapid pit of angsty self-pity into which this all could have descended.
The director in Federico Fellini’s autobiographical film masterpiece 8½ (1963), the basis for Nine, was more likable.
Nine is a cinematic adaptation of a 1982 Broadway musical, which was itself an adaptation of Federico Fellini’s playful, self-reflexive and semi-autobiographical 1963 film 8½.
“Nine” is a disastrously misguided re-imagining of the Italian director’s legendary film “8½” in which all the thoughtful and interesting parts have been amputated and replaced with Broadway cheese and Hollywood superficiality.
Adapted from the 1982 Tony-winning Broadway play (book by Arthur L. Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston), which, in turn, was inspired by Federico Fellini's 1963 Oscar-winning masterpiece "8½," "Nine" combines a dream cast with a dreamy script and score for a thoughtful and enjoyable musical about art, life and love.
Remaking Federico Fellini's epochal 1963 masterwork 8½ is not at all as heinous as it sounds: indeed, if we were to start listing films clearly influenced by Fellini's massively self-reflective pseudo-autobiographical movie about an Italian film director who can't come up with an idea for his next project, we'd even stumble across some near-masterpieces.
The vampy silhouettes of "The Cell Block Tango" here recall the women of "Hey, Big Spender" in Fosse's "Sweet Charity" — leggy and threatening as they pose in a line, sharply defined by the camera.
Not that you'd notice, for he does as Fosse did with Sweet Charity, his film directing debut, and invests the camera with the agility of a dancer.
( Chicago , with its imagined musical performance numbers, is probably the most famous example.)
The movie musical has been on the comeback trail ever since Chicago won Best Picture back in 2002, but it has evolved into a different beast.
Moreover, Chazelle wisely shows the dancers in full frame — not cutting away as Rob Marshall did in “Chicago” — allowing viewers to bask in the dance and romance.
The sentiment has the audacity to compare writer/director Chazelle's millenial charmer LA LA LAND to actually amazing musicals, presumably in the realm of West Side Story, The King and I, Grease, and even Chicago.
Yes, it’s more vibrant than Chicago , more heartfelt than Les Miserables , and more successfully staged than a chorus of other contenders.
The road to resuscitating the Hollywood musical—which is to say, an original screen musical as opposed to an adapted Broadway show, such as Chicago —is beset with honorable failures from major auteurs: Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977) sank beneath its own romantic psychodrama; Coppola’s One From the Heart (1981) eventually bankrupted the filmmaker and closed Zoetrope Studios; Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You (1996) was liked by critics but achieved only semi-liftoff with audiences.
Marshall quotes from Pennies from Heaven, too (Gere�s striptease in "All I Really Need Is Love" is a nod to Christopher Walken as the tap-dancing pimp), and Gold Diggers of 1933 and Jailhouse Rock (together, in the knockout "Cell Block Tango" sextet, where Roxie�s jailmates sing the stories of the homicides that landed them in the clink).
That leaves The Bride! as more of a visceral sensory experience than anything else—part Chicago, part Joker, part steampunk Baz Luhrmann.
This sequence reminiscent of Chicago (2002)…
From its jaunty score and smoky-nightclub motifs to its robust and vibrant dancing, their Chicago evokes Cabaret while also carving its own Jazz-Age identity.
You can't help wondering what Fosse would have done to add some panache and ferocity toa film version of Chicago, a musical that was created in the mid-seventies, after his movies Cabaret and Lenny, and before the autobiographical All That Jazz.
Socking out her songs and story on stage, cluing us in to all the dirt from the time she shoots her faithless lover to her sensational trial and its strange aftermath, star-struck Roxie turns her sordid saga into a glitzy vaudeville act, while a slithery emcee-bandleader (Taye Diggs) calls the shots, a la "Cabaret."At…
Those of us lucky enough to have seen his production, with songs by Kander and Ebb that stand comparison with their Cabaret score, can still remember Jerry Orbach as Roxie�s grandstanding lawyer, Billy Flynn, transforming himself into Clarence Darrow for his big courtroom number, "Razzle Dazzle."
It seems inconceivable that we’ll have a sustained period of musicals on the big screen that can equate to the era between and including West Side Story and Cabaret.
It's similar to the way Fosse himself transformed Harold Prince's "Cabaret" for the screen, some 30 years ago, by putting its musical numbers into a logical context (in that case, on the stage of the Kit Kat Klub), and it works splendidly.
The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
influenced by Chicago (2002)
Music Themes Visuals
Rob Marshall�s Chicago was a far superior example, blending not only great musical numbers, but songs that complemented the overall cynicism of the script and matched with an exuberance by the actors.
“Chicago” revived the genre and brought in audiences consisting largely of people for whom musicals aren’t usually their “thing.”
Everything was in place for The Phantom of the Opera to be a landmark musical, comparable to Moulin Rouge and Chicago: a great story and wonderful songs, all it needed was believable performances.
Indeed, some may even say it's too much of a throwback to fit into the new, post-"Chicago" musical paradigm.
Schumacher’s is a gloriously sweeping film that eschews the aggressive editing of Moulin Rouge! (or Chicago, for that matter), and that’s exactly what’s called for.
Sound a little more complex than Singin' in the Rain (a fine little musical, in its own right)?
Personally, I don't think it equals "My Fair Lady," "Oklahoma," "Singin' in the Rain," "The Music Man," "The Sound of Music," or "Cabaret," but it's right up there with the best of them.
(The precedents include 1993’s The Joy Luck Club, 2004’s Memoirs of a Geisha, 2006’s Letters from Iwo Jima, and my favorite in this list, Justin Lin’s sizzling 2002 teen-rebel movie, Better Luck Tomorrow.)
There were “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000) and “Memoirs of a Geisha” (2005) but they were period movies.
An international line-up which includes Gemma Chan, Ken Jeong and Michelle Yeoh will entice audiences, and the scarcity of studio films with an all-Asian cast (2001’s Memoirs Of A Geisha, 1993’s The Joy Luck Club) should help raise visibility.
The very existence of this cast really can't be downplayed — you have to go back to 1993's The Joy Luck Club and 2001's Memoirs of a Geisha to find other Hollywood films starring so many actors of Asian descent.
It’s been more than a decade since “Memoirs of a Geisha” and “Letters From Iwo Jima,” the last major studio pictures to feature all-Asian ensembles, and a full quarter-century since “The Joy Luck Club,” the last such production to grapple with the puzzle of contemporary Asian American identity.
Tower of Terror (1997)
Directed by D.J. MacHale
influenced Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
But when it was originally announced, the thought of making a movie based on the popular Disney theme park attraction seemed a dubious idea at best, with previous similar attempts (including 1997's TV movie "Tower of Terror," 2000's "Mission to Mars" and 2002's "The Country Bears") not really inspiring tremendous confidence in future success -- which was proved again in late 2003 with the Eddie Murphy flick "The Haunted Mansion."
Yet pictures like Evita and Moulin Rouge almost seem like appetizers when compared to Chicago, a knockout of a musical that, among other achievements, finds Catherine Zeta-Jones in her best screen work to date, Richard Gere delivering his finest effort since An Officer and a Gentleman, and Renee Zellweger adding to her then-noteworthy string of unassailable performances.
Marshall quotes from Pennies from Heaven, too (Gere�s striptease in "All I Really Need Is Love" is a nod to Christopher Walken as the tap-dancing pimp), and Gold Diggers of 1933 and Jailhouse Rock (together, in the knockout "Cell Block Tango" sextet, where Roxie�s jailmates sing the stories of the homicides that landed them in the clink).
And “Cell Block Tango,” a larger-than-life tune showcasing the various women inmates, pumps and grinds with a spot-on intensity that actually manages to out-do the title dance number in “Jailhouse Rock.”
Visually, Chicago might rank among the more claustrophobic musicals — most of the numbers are performed in dark interiors — but the actors' energy and Marshall's imaginative staging are strong enough that they make the entire picture seem as open-aired as Julie Andrews' hilltop warbling in The Sound of Music.
Personally, I don't think it equals "My Fair Lady," "Oklahoma," "Singin' in the Rain," "The Music Man," "The Sound of Music," or "Cabaret," but it's right up there with the best of them.
More accessible than last year’s admirable, but headache-inducing “Moulin Rouge,” “Chicago” is the New Musical of the 21st Century that we’ve all been waiting for, and it’s well on it’s way to becoming the first musical to win a Best Picture Oscar since 1968’s “Oliver!”
Well, if "Oliver!" could win in 1968, certainly "Chicago" deserves its accolades.
On Oscar night back in 2003, it walked away with six Oscars, including the top prize of Best Picture, becoming the first musical to do so since “Oliver!” over three decades earlier.
The Country Bears (2002)
Directed by Peter Hastings
influenced Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
But when it was originally announced, the thought of making a movie based on the popular Disney theme park attraction seemed a dubious idea at best, with previous similar attempts (including 1997's TV movie "Tower of Terror," 2000's "Mission to Mars" and 2002's "The Country Bears") not really inspiring tremendous confidence in future success -- which was proved again in late 2003 with the Eddie Murphy flick "The Haunted Mansion."
It seems inconceivable that we’ll have a sustained period of musicals on the big screen that can equate to the era between and including West Side Story and Cabaret.
It also gets you reminiscing about how great musicals can be: "Singin' in the Rain," "West Side Story," "An American in Paris," etc.
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
influenced Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
Themes
It does, I have to admit, tend to bog down in the seemingly infinite twists and bits of business leading up to the climax, and movie-overfed-critic types are likely to fondly recall the better movies, including " I Walked With a Zombie " and " The Princess Bride ," that this draws inspiration from.
Based on William Wellman's 1942 crime-comedy movie "Roxie Hart"--in which Ginger Rogers played doll-faced Roxie and Adolphe Menjou was the duplicitous Flynn--the story carries us back to the high-spirited, violent gangland Chicago of "The Front Page" or "Some Like It Hot."
Road to Bali (1952)
Directed by Hal Walker
influenced Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
It’s a lot like one of the later Bing Crosby-Bob Hope “Road” Pictures—say Road to Bali (1952).
From Here to Eternity (1953)
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
influenced Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Themes
Unless you've read the book, it might not be obvious when this story takes place, but once WWII hits Japan, the movie becomes something different, more like a wartime romance in the vein of "From Here to Eternity."