Cakebug Tranch

Hey! I didn't say I liked Australia (the movie, not the continent)! Even though that thing made homesick me cry.

Yes they do. I wanted so much to like it, but it's overall a mess. And Cameron, I totally see where you're coming from as a fellow English (or at least Drama) major - the Shakespeare stuff is good - but the song and dance is entirely out of place.

Ha ha, looking forward to subjecting you all to Kenneth Branagh's inexplicable Love's Labour's Lost! That came out when I was writing my undergrad thesis on Branagh, and even to a Branagh-phile like I was back then, this was befuddling. And sing-y. I do like Strictly Ballroom. ​

TOTALLY in. A couple of things: are we selecting musical movies that are good, or HDTGM-worthy? Second, are we selecting movies we are fond of already (and that we all know already), that we want others to talk about, or are we supposed to break new ground? Like, will I be booed off the board if I suggest Moulin Rouge!?

Like Cameron H said: badass motherfuckers.

I'm sitting here, mesmerised by Elektra's T-Birds gif. And all it's doing is cementing one fact in my mind: In Grease 2, the T-Birds are total dorks. The Grease 1 T-Birds are (mostly) rock stars. In this one? They're the headmistress's 'boys'! WHAT HAPPENED? Mesmerised...

Poor Patty. She did so much for the Rydell community, and this is how she's repaid, on national television:

I roll #teamSandy - back home in Australia she was a national hero. The way they used to market that movie on TV there you'd hardly know John Travolta was in it. Completely agreed about the waste of Frenchie, though. Why is she back after two years to take chemistry at her old school yet never interacts with any other students? How utterly dehumanising.

Yeah, I find this hugely problematic too. What's his end game here? We assume that Sharon is Louis's ongoing girlfriend, and they seem to be in a monogamous-yet-chaste relationship. Yet this asshat decides he's going to speed up Sharon's reluctance by trapping her in a steel box and faking the apocalypse, with his friends outside listening. Sharon doesn't seem like she's even considered sex with Louis ('Do IT? Louis, let me out of here!') so we can't even pretend she's been leading him on. This is a simple matter of male sexual entitlement, even though no one in this gang seems to be having any sex (unlike in the first film, where it's very clear that Rizzo and Kenickie, at least, are sexually active). The worst of all of this is the GIANT call he's making, which is that he'd anticipated the Russian invasion and also he is automatically enlisted in the Red Dawn-style army, and so he's going to need to get it on before he goes out and presumably either gets shot by a Russian or dies from nuclear fallout. So, let's say that he succeeds in his task and Sharon sleeps with him. What happens when they open the door and find his friends there and no war? He's basically giving up this fairly positive boyfriend-girlfriend relationship for the sake of five minutes (tops) of sex, after which she'd almost certainly feel violated and never speak to him again. Surely if he just kept being a good boyfriend, sex would come and there would be no need to manipulate and attempt to rape her? Then, when she opens the door (presumably to begin her new career as battlefield nurse - I didn't realise that nurse hats were part of the bomb shelter kit), the other dufuses fall in (who were for some reason going to get off listening to their buddy rape his girlfriend??!?!?!?!), Sharon realises she's been tricked, everyone laughs, Louis falls down from blue balls. The biggest problem I have with this is the next time we see Sharon and Louis, they're sharing a motorbike, as though nothing happened. There are absolutely zero consequences for their actions. It's just like it never happened. I have serious issues with the idea of 'Grease 2' as being a feminist movie in this sense, when it explicitly uses the 'boys will be boys' excuse to let these troglodytes off the hook. If anything, Sharon is depicted as being in the wrong (and certainly worth laughing at) for being uptight and ruining the boys' fun. I don't know if it's trying to take her down a peg from being the strict stage director, but the public entrapment for the entertainment of boys, only to have it dismissed as 'try a different trick next time silly boys', is hugely problematic.

The dumbfoundingly-exhaustive Grease2.net has a lot of good stuff on there, including good trivia and filming locations, but also had an interesting screencap of a cut scene between Michael and actor Tom Poston, who, according to the site, likely plays Mr. Olson, Sandy's father and Michael's uncle. This just doesn't make sense. Obviously, as you've noted, Sandy was Australian in the original film, and her family are supposed to be going back to Australia at the beginning of the film. The Australian thing was added in for the movie because of Olivia Newton-John's own accent: the original musical didn't have an Australian lead. I grew up in Australia, so interestingly, most Australian productions would make Sandy Australian, just to save one person from having to put on a bad American accent. The cultural differences are a big thing to play on in both movies and lead to real fish out of water kinds of scenarios (hence the 'how to make friends and influence people at a bowling alley' book Michael reads), so making Michael foreign probably traded on that. I guess when they cast Maxwell Caulfield, they figured there was no point in asking him to change his charming accent, so he was English, which to most is excusably viable to be cousins with an Aussie. I think the main reason Sandy is mentioned is to set up a pre-existing in with the Pink Ladies: in 'Grease', Sandy and Danny have had their summer romance, which ties them to each other and brings Sandy into the Pink Lady/T-Bird sphere. For 'Grease 2', if Michael didn't have a hook to get him involved with the cool kids, he'd likely miss all the action. So, by starting with Frenchie, Michael is indoctrinated into the Rydell culture immediately, even though both Frenchie and the uncle connection is forgotten by mid-film. The picture of Tom Poston as the uncle is also very curious: obviously he was cut out for a good reason (not even an 'uncredited' credit on IMDb) but if he is Michael's uncle and is very clearly both American and well-established in town (what with a bomb shelter and the like), he surely can't be Sandy's father? But why mention that Sandy's his cousin and that he is living with his uncle without assuming that he's taking about the same family? I think the image of Poston with Michael (clutching the bowling etiquette book there, Cameron H!) shows a scene where the uncle gives some kind of advice about being friends with Americans, but the confusion about the different cultures (American uncle, English nephew, Australian cousin) might have tipped them over the edge in cutting the scene. it feels like a real shame they cut this scene: look at the soldiers on the coffee table there! This uncle is clearly a total nut, what with his bomb shelter and half-assed parenting and playing with toy soldiers: his advice to Michael on the bowling night would have been well worth hearing. Like many things in this movie, it doesn't make sense and the filmmakers were clearly just hoping no one noticed. In this really interesting piece from the AFI website, we get some sense of the cast movements. In case this turns into TL:DR, highlights are: Andy Gibb! 'Greasier'! 'Annette Funicello!' Twin coincidences! 'Son of Grease'! And 'Entertaining Mr Sloane' - anyone familiar with that play will know exactly who Maxwell Caulfield would have been cast as in that.

I liked her a lot for nearly all of the podcast, and found her tired/buzzed/goofy thing endearing. She lost me, right at the very end, when she said 'I'm bored now'. And she mispronounced June's last name. But really, I liked her a lot. I'd love to see her back, but maybe with a little more rest.

I couldn't quite understand the structure of the talent show at all. It seemed like most of the acts were already mostly prepared before the auditions happened, and when the auditions went on the groups were expected to show an excerpt of the final product in order to get in to the show. Later, we find out that there aren't enough acts so everyone got into the show. But every time the Pink Ladies start in on 'Girl for All Seasons' their director gets very bent out of shape about not being able to run the show through from top to tail. Given that all rehearsal seems to happen right on the stage where the show happens (we see no evidence of anyone rehearsing outside of these times), and that it trades on the 'director sitting in the auditorium' trope, which is in no way a useful way of offering or receiving feedback, I would like to know what the point of all of these dry runs are? If it's a talent show, why are there so many tech rehearsals? I very much agree with Stef's point above about Sharon's obsession with the show (and really love Paul's point further above about the unfairness of the winners' decision), but I don't get why she's so into it. I am very fond of Sharon (she was in 'Supergirl', a terrible movie ripe for HDTGM that saw an early stirring in my youthful loins) but is she in this for the Roy Orbison records? And why do they keep teching the show? Surely a talent show should keep the content secret until the night of the performance? Why are there factions on faculty who identify 'these are my boys'/'these are MY boys'? I have worked in the theatre for 20 years and have no idea what they're doing with this piecemeal top-and-tail tech in street clothes, over the course of months.

Also, I found this. WHY WOULD YOU CUT THIS? Hey, watch the fenders! #watchthefenders

I want to talk about Eugene for a second. His character (played by Eddie Deezen) was one of only a few former Rydell figures who returned from the first one, along with the Headmistress, Blanche (xylophone lady), the Coach (the world's worst talent evaluator - he's the guy in the first one who saw Eugene throw a cream pie and immediately recruited him for the baseball team as a pitcher, and in this one somehow has the weenie T-Birds pushing a football sled), the Bad Guy (craterface from the first one who somehow leads a new biker gang in this), Frenchie (already discussed elsewhere). And then there's Eugene. Eugene is a peripheral character in the first movie, the archetypal nerd who is teased by the T-Birds but generally is left alone (his cello doesn't go up a flagpole), and is lumped in with cheerleader Patti Simpcox as an insufferable figure others like to mess with. An interesting bit of trivia - Eddie Deezen was disappointed later in the 80's not to be cast in The Revenge of the Nerds, only to be told by producers that he was too geeky for that franchise. When I first saw this movie I assumed Eugene was like Frenchie - a weird callback character who had hung around school too long after graduating, since given his prominence in the first movie I assumed he was also a senior in Grease, along with the rest of the main figures. Turns out, according to the Grease wiki, Eugene was a freshman in the first movie: Okay, so I stood corrected in assuming that Eugene was a Frenchie like-character who was too old to be there (even though I find it weird that Eugene had such a major role in the first movie as a freshman). But, in the first movie, Eugene is set up to be the archetypal nerd - or, we assume, he's brilliantly smart and not very good at the social aspects of school. There's nothing to say that Eugene isn't good at school. At the end of the first movie, as I say, Sid Caesar's Coach recruits Eugene for the baseball team. He's a freshman with brains who has found his way on to the Varsity coach's radar. Things are looking up. Then. Two years later. Eugene is back at Rydell. Same outfit, same persona, but something's... wrong. He meets Michael Carrington and all those brains are gone. "How.. long.. have... you... been... in... America?" How does this borderline genius not understand that an English person can speak English? Later, we see Eugene hoisted into the rafters at the talent show, entrusted with dumping fake leaves on the Pink Lady performance. All of a sudden, Eugene is played less as benevolent nerd and more as special-ed kid with recent brain injury. So my question is... WHAT HAPPENED TO EUGENE? Did he join the baseball team and get hit in the head by a fastball? Did he attempt to do a Cool Rider and buy a motorcycle to impress a Pink Lady only to fall off onto his head? Was he always more Rain Man than Beautiful Mind? Most importantly, what possible benefit does Eugene bring to being in this movie? 99% of viewers would have assumed Eugene was also a senior in the first movie, so bringing him back (along with the whole 'Frenchie is a mature age student who does elaborate chemistry experiments in the first ten minutes of the term' thing) just confuses the viewer. Is Eugene some kind of teachers' aide now? The befuddling recasting of Eugene and Frenchie to maintain the continuity of the franchise arguably undermines the timeline more than assists it. WHY wouldn't they just set the movie 10 years later, get rid of all of the callbacks and make Rydell the only returning character? Then we can happily reason why they dumped cars to all ride motorbikes (Easy Rider came out) and see why no one remembers Danny Zuko or Kenickie anymore. Maybe it was the trauma of seeing Danny and Sandy fly away in that magical car that sent the entire school into a Steph-at-the-talent-show fugue state after the carnival. Maybe Eugene's fragile mind snapped that day. Maybe they've all put the unpleasantness of that post-carnival moment out of their heads. For safety's sake.

I don't think I covered it all - a proper parallel reading might be necessary. Would love for you to take on filling in the gaps!

Ever since someone in the thread above claimed that the music from G2 was better than in the original, I've been mentally plotting a savage rebuttal since, you know, that's not right. But as we watched, every now and then I would turn to my wife and say (during the 'Prowling Like a T-Bird' or whatever it was), "Oh shit, I think this is the G2 equivalent of 'Greased Lightning'". As we went, it became very clear that in this switcharoo world (wide-eyed antipodean falls for gang leader in both, but genders switched) the same dramatic structure essentially exists. 'Grease is the Word' becomes 'Back to School'. As Cameron rightly points out, 'We'll Be Together' is the awful version of 'We Go Together' - essentially the same title! The Luau is the Carnival. The Talent Show is the American Bandstand screening. The Cool Rider riding his motorbike at other people is the Greased Lightning drag race (okay, that's a stretch). Michael's awful 'Charades' is Sandy's awful 'Hopelessly Devoted to You'. Is 'Who's That Guy' the 'Sandra Dee' equivalent? Is The Luau song the new version of 'You're the One that I Want'? Thematically, no, but structurally, yes! Sadly, Dolores doesn't get a new-generation version of 'There Are Worse Things I Could Do', although maybe that is a deleted scene revolving around that girl in the first act who has missed her period? In any case, each of these songs achieve the same aim, but unlike the original musical, which was, you know, AN ACTUAL MUSICAL written by people who knew how to put a Broadway musical together (Jacobs/Casey/Farrar), this one's an holy mess of songs cobbled together written by no fewer than ten songwriters. The only 'decent' songs in the movie (Cool Rider, Reproduction, arguably), were written by the same guy, written solo. The rest were all collaborations, and the very worst song in the movie ("We'll Be Together", although anything Cool Rider sings is a disaster) is written by two dudes who have no other credits in the film. There's even a songwriter called Christopher Famous. He's so famous he doesn't have a Wikipedia page. I have two more large points to make as C+Os this week, but I'll save them to avoid clumping. I think my parallel song structure point could be made a little more convincing with a bit of tinkering and fiddling.

My Christmas gift to you.

We were making the same joke at the same time! Hoorah!

Spookily enough, I was grading English essays on The Fall of Rome. And all the handwriting was the same. And all the students wrote their gang names on cover pages, not the names they're enrolled as. I'd get suspicious, but I keep getting distracted by another teacher with ridiculous cleavage.

I just laughed embarrassingly loudly when Paul said "if you like jumping..." Edit: I finished my grading, guys. I know you were worried.

I particularly loved Paul's dogged critique of it when you could clearly see that he was forced to tear down something his wife loved: so his tone (same with Zouks) was at times hushed and respectful, fearful of awakening June's wrath. I did enjoy how much June loved it but I had hoped that she might acknowledge its inherent terribleness at the end. Instead, it was mostly a version of Jason saying 'Face/Off' and 'Con Air' are amazing and I haven't changed my mind. I wonder if this would have been a different ep if June wasn't there. (not BETTER, just different. I love June.)

He was a replacement Zuko in the very early touring cast - I'm pretty sure he's mentioned in the 'I Was There Too' eps about 'Grease' - as well as the 1990's revival that Fister mentions. Source is here.

Perfect. We need a mashup of Mr. Grey on a Skidoo to the tune of 'Cool Rider' now.

I hope the very presence of this adaptation makes it into the next minisode: that's an amazing detail, well done. Look at the teaser poster, where they both mock the fact that it's even happening, AND include a ladder in the promo. It was apparently so well received in concert it got a revival a little while later. No word on the Broadway transfer.

I caved and am listening to the episode while I try to grade papers. Results are... mixed.