Quasar Sniffer

I guess what I found troubling about the movie is that there are fictional versions of actual people, as well as pastiches of their music, but then actual Glam Rock songs from the era mixed in. I realize this probably has to do with a lot of rights issues pertaining to both the music and biographies of people (Bowie DID NOT like this thing from the script on forward), but it just contributes to the sense of unreality of the narrative and took me out of the film. Like, if "20th Century Boy" was an actual song in this world, then who is Marc Bolan in this film? He was a man who actually lived who had an actual friendship and professional relationship with both Bowie and Iggy Pop.

I like this idea A LOT @Cameron H., and even though I have watched all of The Witcher and decided I LOVE IT, I will be sure to give this a listen!

If anyone is interested in an imaginative, but more historically-based, telling of this era of David Bowie's life, then I cannot recommend highly enough this graphic novel by Steve Horton and Michael and Laura Allred. It functions really more as a biography of Ziggy Stardust than a fact-based study of Bowie, but I absolutely adore it.

Sorry for being late in posting my own thoughts here, but I wrote a whole piece on 2019 in movies. I wanted to wait until I saw UNCUT GEMS and LITTLE WOMEN to write it, but I had to get it done before the New Year so that just wasn't possible. Both films prrrrrrobably would have made the list. Peruse if you feel like it https://www.film89.co.uk/the-film-89-year-in-review-2019-part-6-john-arminio/

I agree, but I think I had trouble even connect me with some of the on-stage performances because, honestly, the singer was such a juvenile asshole offstage. I could barely look at his face without wanted to smack his dumb fat cheeks. So that limited my ability to have my faith restored in the characters with their musicianship. So maybe if he had more redeeming qualities, perhaps just a glimpse earlier in the movie, I'd be more into what they were doing musically.

Did anyone else notice that Joey "the Lips" is a member of the "Well-Meaning White Musicians with Inexplicable Backstories Playing Traditionally Black Music Because They Claim to Be Sent By God" Club?

I think I do agree with your nitpick. They seem like a band that would be more suited to battle the Electric Mayhem as an antagonist. So, if I were to make an Origin Back Story for the first Muppet Movie, maybe the Mayhem were recently decimated by the Nightmare Band in a Battle of the Bands and were so eager for a change of pace, they joined up with Kermit. ANYWAY, I think the river community around Emmet and his mom is so wholesome and supporting, to get an antagonist with any sort of intimidation factor, the story needed an outsider of some sort. And since this is a Christmas special kids would be watching, you didn't want anything too nefarious or threatening (like an evil developer or someone looking to skin an otter for its fur the way a psycho was looking to eat Kermit's legs in the Muppet Movie). So the solution was a semi-menacing (but still very catchy!) rock band. You know they're villains because they wear sunglasses indoors! Quality growls though

There's just something so comforting and warm about Emmet and his mother rowing on the river, having a conversation. It's the kind of quit, sincere moment that Jim Henson excelled at, and it makes you root for the Otters so fervently (even if their opposite number in the battle of the bands was basically Swampy Black Sabbath, something a given-to-grimness metalhead like myself might be more inclined to root for).

Also, I just really dig how dark this movie starts with. We know Emmet's father is recently deceased and he and his mother are so poor, that he has to make a makeshift musical instrument out of a wash basin, but the loss of that might very well drive his mother out of business. Even so, there are no characters more capable, more together than the Otters. It's rather inspiring.

Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, my affection for Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath, which I think the Nightmare Band is definitely inspired by, prejudice me towards them pretty heavily. I love the Jim Henson Universe version of heavy metal.

And, as always, many thanks to @Cameron H.for always beeing so on the ball with these threads and organizing the discussion. Well done, sir.

OK, so there are a couple truly magical musical Christmas movies that I adore (Nightmare Before Christmas and Muppet Christmas Carol) that are perennial favorites of mine, but I have also seen those, you know, 8,000 times. Because they are great. SO, if the group is amenable, I will keep us in the Jim Hensoniverse and go with a Christmas special that I have only seen once, years ago.....

Gene Kelly does more with rolled up sleeves than most actors can do with a full-on nude scene.

Art by Michael Allred!!!!!!!

For me, this is obligatory....

*late additional thoughts* I do really like this Greatest Showman, but I am also fascinated by how intensely some people love it. I ended up revisiting it for Musical Mondays with the friend I saw it with in the theaters. It was the first time I had seen it since then, but it would have been at least the 10th time for my friend, which to me, who doesn't re-watch films that often anymore, seems almost insane. But whatever. It was cool to revisit a film with somebody who really loves it. I think some of the shakey foundations in certain relationshipsis are not helped by the very arbitrary use of time in this film. Zac Efron just kind of shows up with an invitation from the Queen of England, then everyone decides that the invitation extends to the whole show, then the next scene they've made their way across the goddamn Atlantic. It's as if, in the course of two days, an invitation was sent to an entire cadre of performers, who then made travel arrangements, sailed to England, and made their way to Buckingham Palace at a time when a transatlantic trip actually took weeks. And all the business of how long it takes for Barnum to raise money, then build and rebuild his circus seems to be done over the course of a couple days as well. I think we're just supposed to intuit that all that is happening over weeks or months. All this is happening in the background as our characters are falling in and out of love with one another, so it makes it harder to track the emotional arcs of these relationships. But then again, a lot of big historical musicals that we've covered in the past get into the details like this and, as a result, are bloated, slow, and have a running time approaching three hours. That would definitely not have worked for something like this.

@theworstbuddhistUPDATE ON THIS! I actually pitched this to one of my friends so it might actually happen! At least for one episode of a podcast. If it ends up happening, I will let you know!

Yeah, it almost is using Barum's show business ideas and practices against him to tell this story. The movie is selling a totally fictitious depiction of a real man in a setting that resembles the real 19th Century America about as much Lawnmower Man was an accurate portrayal of virtual reality technology. Just like the Fiji Mermaid, we, the audience, know it's a sham, but we are here for it because it fascinating and beautiful and we get lost on those Zac Efron eyes and Hugh Jackman smile.

Thinking about it more, there are an awful lot of movies from the 1990s with a similar aesthetic. You know, future dystopias taking influences from the same movies (the aforementioned The Warriors and Escape From New York and the like), often adaptations, that take comic book, cartoon, and/or video game imagery and utilize a very literal interpretation in formulating its imagery. I'm thinking this film, Super Mario Bros., Tank Girl, Johnny Mnemonic, and the like. We could do a limited series podcast on these kind of movies; call it "Pixelated Dystopia" or "Four Color Apocalypse."

So I definitely watch this movie as a kid, probably rented it on VHS a couple times (my parents were very patient), but I probably haven't seen it in close to 25 years. If I tried to watch this 15 years ago, as a Very Smart 20 Year Old (uuuuggghhhh), I would most likely have seen it as a pile of garbage. But I'm like 20 minutes in and... I'm really enjoying it? I'm all-in for this "The Warriors-meets-Escape-From-New-York" world they have going. I mean, it's not good, but I can DEFINITELY see why this appealed to a 10-year-old-me. What boy 6-12 in 1994 wouldn't love this bullshit? I'm sure I did! High kicks and mohawks and weird cars with flames! Weeeeeee!

Well, I loved The Revenant and I thought Di Caprio's performance was Oscar-worthy. Granted, every year there are a dozen performances that are Oscar-worthy, and awarding any artistic achievement a golden statue in some sort of attempt at quantifying the "best" in a particular year is reductive and foolish at best, but I'm glad he got his statue.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Ewan is, of course, amazing in the film, but one thing I really liked is casting Henry fucking Thomas to act opposite Danny Torrence. I know he's a frequent collaborator of Flanagan's (Haunting of Hill House is magnificent horror storytelling), but it just seems so perfect to have the "kid from ET" to play the ghost version of the father of the other most famous child role of the last 40 years.

A bit, but WAY more out there. I mean, Tom Cruise is an elf and Tim Curry is...

YESSSS! The best musical starring one if the universally accepted "nicest guys" in Hollywood... that is about a real-life absolute fucking monster. I look forward to revisiting it.

Please please do. It's the height of "80s fantasy bullshit that made no money but kept getting made anyway." Fucking Ridley Scott directed it. I LOVE IT.