Randal Kleiser
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Going back from there to the leg-shaking mastery of Fred Astaire in the 1930s and 1940s, there’s not a lot in between – “Grease” (1978), “Hair” (1979) and “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” (1964) – to give a kick about.
While we're not negating the power of West Side Story , the joy of Grease , the banging tunes of Chicago - the film pays homage to all of these - in terms of a modern singalong with wisdom, heart, laughs and something to say, La La Land takes them all on, resulting in a feelgood romantic comedy packed with intelligence, and which could elicit tears from a robot.
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.
Instead think of Grease and Rocky Horror and Moulin Rouge .
El director ha convertido una premisa bastante simple en una tremenda experiencia para todos los sentidos, que constantemente te hace recordar y viajar a los tiempos de musicales clásicos como Singin’ In the Rain, Grease, Les demoiselles of Rochefort, West Side Story y hasta Moulin Rouge!
Although the idea for Blair Hayes's Bubble Boy seems initially like a lame offshoot of the "bubble boy" episode of Seinfeld (which itself probably derived from the comically weepy 1976 TV movie The Boy In The Plastic Bubble starring a pre-Saturday Night Fever John Travolta in melodramatic overdrive), it is actually much different.
While no one has lived their entire life in a bubble since David Vetter - whose story inspired the TV movie "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" with John Travolta - a certain stigma has remained attached to the condition, leading to the now famous/infamous "Bubble Boy" episode of TV's "Seinfeld."
The Guru (2002)
Directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer
influenced by Grease (1978)
Music Visuals Themes
The movie's opening segment cleverly presents Ramu's boyhood captivation with American culture the bored boy sneaks out of a campy Indian movie musical to rapturously watch John Travolta belt out a number in "Grease" in a nearby theater.
They make a charming pair, but under all the frank sex talk and cutesy Grease references, there's no fresh or funny angle to their clichéd, misunderstanding-plagued relationship, and the Bolly-inspired trimmings are too light to inspire much feeling--which not only makes The Guru a tepid Bollywood imitation, but a tepid film, period.
(A typical Bollywood musical production is delightfully segued into a cover of "Grease" number "You're the One That I Want.")
The musical numbers, divided between Bollywood numbers and American knock-offs (Grease) congregate partway through for some high energy and genuinely amusing choreography and anachronistic humor.
While the main character - charmingly played, for the most part, by British actor Jimi Mistry ("The Mystic Masseur," "East is East") - grew up watching and idolizing "Grease," he obviously should have been studying "West Side Story" and its song, "America," about the plight of immigrants in the U.S.
The Adam Project (2022)
Directed by Shawn Levy
influenced by Flight of the Navigator (1986)
Themes Plot
The kind of risk which family-friendly film The Adam Project shares along the same lines as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Last Starfighter (1984), and Flight of the Navigator (1986), pushing the bounds of the PG-13 rating in its action set pieces, character interactions, and narrative themes to feel a touch more like Timecop (1994) from time to time.
With shades of Back to The Future and Flight of the Navigator, The Adam Project truly is a total wonder to behold.
Add a dash of Flight of the Navigator and Race to Witch Mountain and you have a formula for a fantastic movie night.
The Adam Project is very much Back to the Future meets Flight of the Navigator with a talented cast and some heartfelt moments sprinkled in.
Reminiscent of ’80s favorites like Flight of the Navigator , The Last Starfighter , or *batteries not included , this heartwarming adventure is a lot of fun.
Midnight Special (2016)
Directed by Jeff Nichols
influenced by Flight of the Navigator (1986)
Themes Plot
Or that he’s waxing nostalgic more generally — quoting the 1980s sci-fi he grew up on, like Joe Dante’s Explorers , Randal Kleiser’s Flight of the Navigator and Nick Castle’s The Last Starfighter .
The central story of a motley crew rescuing a supernatural outcast from the grasps of government forces recalls movies like “E.T.,” “Firestarter” and “Flight of the Navigator.”
If you, too, were a child during that era of Amblin and Flight of the Navigator and Cocoon, Nichols will simply make you feel like an adult who was happily raised on that stuff.
It had only been 20 years since all of that was real when they were making "Happy Days" and "American Graffiti" and this and everything else that romanticized the era when the filmmakers who suddenly owned pop culture had been kids.
It lacks anything resembling the intelligence of "American Graffiti," the good fun of "FM" or the integrity of "The Buddy Holly Story."
It is tempting to the point that I cannot ignore it to compare the film with American Graffiti , for they serve to bracket a certain important period in the American cinema: the 1973 film was released in the most glorious peak of the New Hollywood, while 1978 finds us in the first year of that movement's symbolic death (about which we'll have a great deal to say later).
Grease is like American Graffiti in its bridging of the generation gap through a Top 40s score and a plot that plays up the naivete of a more innocent era (which was still considered plenty dangerous by its elders, who were scandalized by Elvis the Pelvis).
Old timers will remember Eve Arden as everyone's favorite high school teacher (from radio and the big screen) in "Our Miss Brooks."
Eve Arden, of "Our Miss Brooks," is Principal McGee.
Despite comparisons to Alex Garland’s Annihilation , the better parallel for Gaia might be Randal Kleiser’s The Blue Lagoon .
Travolta is the first interviewee here, recalling his initial encounter with Tarantino and how Tarantino explained to him that Travolta was his favourite actor as a child because of "Welcome Back Kotter" and films like Saturday Night Fever , Grease, and Blow Out .
"Grease" is primarily a nostalgic, romanticized, fanaticized tribute to the 1950s, a gentle spoofing of the era, with a little parody of "West Side Story" along the way.
It's kind of West Side Story with different music and a happy ending.
While his trickiness reminded me of Sandrich — as when he intercuts Travolta and Newton-John duetting on “Summer Dreams,” but to two separate groups of listeners — his exuberant camera moves have all the panache and style of Stanley Donen at his very best (as in The Pajama Game.
…she was fresh off "The Blue Lagoon" and (despite winning the 1st Golden Raspberry Award for worst actress for her work in that film) seemed destined for a long Hollywood run.
Franco Zeffirelli’s operatic original is a pretty bad movie, but it did have a clear agenda: To exploit Shields’ notoriety as a teenage hottie, coming on the heels of “The Blue Lagoon.’’
It's not quite Stockard Channing in Grease , but it's not too far off.
"Grease" isn't a great film, and it certainly is not in the same league as "Singin' in the Rain", "The Sound of Music", or even "Evita".
Right out of the gate, Kleiser humorously appends the 1955 Oscar-winning song "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" to a love montage with a beach setting that evokes 1953's From Here to Eternity.
A smattering of outdoor adventures have featured competent grizzlies-on-a-rampage scenes — the young Ethan Hawke had an especially memorable encounter in 1991's White Fang — but they are few and far between.
Big Hero 6 (2014)
Directed by Chris Williams
influenced by Flight of the Navigator (1986)
Characters
(As voiced by “30 Rock’s” Scott Adsit, the character serves as a walking comedy routine — a throwback to the way Paul Reubens played things in “Flight of the Navigator” a generation earlier.)
Though this notion may have been more eloquently expressed by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in "Grease," it's still not such a bad message.
Then came the musicals, like West Side Story, Rock 'n' Roll High School, and Grease, again with actors who were too old to play high school kids.
"Grease" isn't a great film, and it certainly is not in the same league as "Singin' in the Rain", "The Sound of Music", or even "Evita".
Topping the list are the weak portrayals of the story’s few adults, most notably Rockford High’s Principal Shelly (a misused Marcia Gay Harden), who is so clueless and absurdly dismissive she makes Eve Arden’s Principal McGee from “Grease” look like Gloria Steinem.