Episode 101 — Xanadu: LIVE!

[Cameron H. 23786]

 

2) When Danny takes Sonny to his mansion, Danny says "They did things big in those days" in reference to his mansion. When Sonny takes Danny to see the building which will later become Xanadu, Danny says "Things are bigger now." I get that the second quote is comparing the small club he used to own to the place they're looking at; but I'm confused Danny! When were things big??? Make up your mind.

 

 

Good catches, Lillian!

 

To expand on your second point, Danny tells Sonny that they used to have wrestling there back in the day. I mean, it appears to be very big from the outside, but is it actually the size of, like, an arena? That club would be HUGE! I simply can't imagine what the overhead would be for a building that size. I imagine Xanadu--a roller-skating, disco-rock, big band fusion club that apparently doesn't serve alcohol and has a stage in prime dancing real estate simply so one of the owner's girlfriend can perform--would have to be packed every single night to remain solvent.

 

I would love it if Xanadu had a stinger after the credits of Danny and Sonny putting an "Out of Business" sign on the door, shrug, and say, "Well, that was a piss poor idea..." Or maybe they will save that for the sequel: Xana-2...

[JenniferGrünwald 66]

2) When Danny takes Sonny to his mansion, Danny says "They did things big in those days" in reference to his mansion. When Sonny takes Danny to see the building which will later become Xanadu, Danny says "Things are bigger now." I get that the second quote is comparing the small club he used to own to the place they're looking at; but I'm confused Danny! When were things big??? Make up your mind.

 

omg YES. I noticed that too. Awesome.

[JenniferGrünwald 66]

OK, so I made this... haha

 

[Cameron H. 23786]

OK, so I made this... haha

 

Ugh can someone tell me how to post an image directly in posts. I can't figure it out. To my shame.

 

No shame! I assume your pic is coming from a photo sharing site like flickr so it should be:

 

[IMG] the URL [/IMG]

 

You will need to drop the "s" in "https//"

 

Hope this helps!

[JenniferGrünwald 66]

 

No shame! I assume you pic is coming from a photo sharing site like flickr so it should be:

 

[IMG] the URL [/IMG]

 

You will need to drop the "s" in "https//"

 

Hope this helps!

 

OMG THANK YOU. It was that "s" that was messing me up! So I don't feel so dumb after all. haha

[NathanielParker 43]

I remember being fascinated with this movie when I was a dumb kid. I don't think I ever liked it, or ever hated it; it was just one of those movies, that, whenever they came on HBO I had to stop and watch. But I hadn't seen it since then, so with the gulf of time between viewings, and now that I'm a dumb grown-up, there were a few things I noticed:

 

Maybe they mentioned this in the show and I missed it, but did anyone else think it was weird that ONJ didn't have a single song until the last 20 minutes? And then they crammed about 3 or 4 songs in there for her.

I'd have thought if they gave her a song right at the start, letting her explain to the audience who she was and what she needed to do there, that would have gone a long way to lessening the madness of trying to follow the nonsense going on.

 

And the only thing I can come up with for the ending, where she doesn't seem to recognize him is that maybe as a muse she could take on the appearance of anyone? And she choose that form because that's who he was ultimately supposed to be with? Or maybe going from an immortal to spending the moment/eternity with a mortal just scrambles your brains for a while or something, I don't know.

 

Maybe it's the 30+ years of hindsight, but it just seems like everything was there for this to be a good movie, even with it starting as a 30 page script, (or whatever it was,) but all the cocaine just addled everyone's brains at the time so they couldn't see the obvious flaws and correct them.

[bendingsinister 1]

I think Michael Beck has developed a decent sense of humor about his place in movie history. I can't remember where, but once upon a time I read an interview with him where he mentioned that The Warriors had opened a lot of doors for him in Hollywood, and then Xanadu promptly slammed them all shut again.

 

I remember that quote from somewhere as well, but can't recall. There was a 'where are they now' article from 2005 called "Life After Xanadu" where Michael Beck spoke fondly of being Sonny. Also this little bit added to the multiple writers/no script detail:

"(I)t was difficult from an acting point of view, and I was a fairly young actor then. I would get revisions that had nothing to do with the story that I thought I was filming. And I would go, "Well, what am I supposed to be doing now?""

Link to story here.

Seriously, my love for this soundtrack is what still keeps this film nestled in a deep, dark, dirty place in the basement of my heart, only to be let out in a fantastic rainbow of roller fury when I am alone.

 

But if you think this was a fat rail of coked-up crazy, you should crush up the bathroom-floor-crystal-meth glory of another glittery musical debacle from 1980 called The Apple, directed by none other than B-Movie Maestro Menahem Golan of Canon Films!

 

[KennyHitt 5]

But if you think this was a fat rail of coked-up crazy, you should crush up the bathroom-floor-crystal-meth glory of another glittery musical debacle from 1980 called The Apple, directed by none other than B-Movie Maestro Menahem Golan of Canon Films!

 

Dear God in Heaven, THIS MUST HAPPEN.

 

I remember getting shit faced drunk with some friends and watching this in utter, abject shock. It may have the single filthiest song in the history of musicals. And the CARS, man...the goddamn CARS...

[nateslice 13]

In that bizarre Tron-world scene, did anyone find it weird that Zeus was addressing one of the muses, one of his daughters, alongside Hera... who was his wife, but not the mother of the muses? That title goes to a Titan by the name of Mnemosyne. Although the muses were not the product of Zeus raping someone or taking the shape of his victim's husband or some sort of weird animal (as Zeus was wont to do), his wife Hera was always notoriously jealous of Zeus' bastard children. This was most apparent in her torment of Heracles/Hercules (that whole episode where she drove Heracles mad and he ended up murdering his wife and children being one example).

 

Heracles's mother actually gave him that name in the hopes that Hera wouldn't fuck with him. She knew what she was dealing with. Heracles literally means "Hera's son".

 

I didn't watch the movie, but, from what I gather, this movie is about an offspring of Zeus who found themself in the modern world, befriended a loser and inspired them to better their life before heading back to Mount Olympus? This movie is just the chick version of Hercules in New York!

 

They should do a sequel where Olivia Newton-John and Arnold Strong; Mr Universe, (if they can find him, Arnold Strong only did one movie) escape from Mt. Olympus and try to inspire some loser sports team or some shit, I'm not a writer.

 

I apologize if I'm missing some sarcasm here, as it can be hard to get that across in writing, but "Arnold Strong" is actually a Hollywood legend who's better known by a different name. He's been in a ton of movies, and served a couple of terms as the governor of Cahleefohnya. Not Ronald Reagan; the other actor/governor of that state.

 

Ahnuld may be hard to recognize in that movie partly because his voice was dubbed over.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

Arnold Strong (you can hear both the dubbed AND original voice tracks on the DVD) was also involved in what I believe HAS to be the most accurate portrayal of Greek mythology happening on film ever...

 

[EricFusco 0]

Keep in mind I have not see Xanadu since it was first on HBO in the 80s,

That said, I interpreted the ending as that Kira had decided to become mortal and stay with Sonny, but by giving up her immortality she also gave up her identity/memories. That's why she didn't recognize him in the end.

[Smigg 1488]

Arnold Strong (you can hear both the dubbed AND original voice tracks on the DVD) was also involved in what I believe HAS to be the most accurate portrayal of Greek mythology happening on film ever...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qHua56N-Tg

 

I actually have Hercules in New York on DVD, it was the best 70p I ever spent.

[jarrycanada 2483]

Arnold Strong (you can hear both the dubbed AND original voice tracks on the DVD) was also involved in what I believe HAS to be the most accurate portrayal of Greek mythology happening on film ever...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qHua56N-Tg

 

The missing one-liner for that

 

What a sticky mess you've gotten yourself into silly bear! -arnond strong

[jarrycanada 2483]

I'll be back! i just have to wait here tell 1984..

 

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

 

Heracles's mother actually gave him that name in the hopes that Hera wouldn't fuck with him. She knew what she was dealing with. Heracles literally means "Hera's son".

 

 

Basically, it's like if I was the progeny of my biological father raping my mother, then my mother naming me "Chris" after her rapist's wife, Christina... or something. These Greeks are fucked up.

[Conal Cochran 21]

 

What about XanaDEUCE, because they must have dropped a deuce on a piece of paper and pitched it as the screenplay!

 

Xanadoody

[nateslice 13]

 

Basically, it's like if I was the progeny of my biological father raping my mother, then my mother naming me "Chris" after her rapist's wife, Christina... or something. These Greeks are fucked up.

 

Yeah, it seems weird at first glance, but it does make some sense. Zeus is a philanderer with a jealous, vengeful, and insanely powerful wife. This particular victim of Zeus's wandering pee-pee just figured, "Hey, if I name my god-bastard in a way that honors Hera, maybe she'll take some pity and leave the two of us alone. Please? Let this work?"

[KevenWright 1]

"My Wife loves this film and I love BJs" - 5 Stars.

[CiciRude 13]

So happy--this episode was perfect. I have a strange weird love for this movie...in all the June senses, I'm on board. (Overboard actually...I once went as Kira for Halloween. This was in 98 so of course everyone thought I was Rollergirl from Boogie Nights. I suppose I deserved that...)

 

I've seen it twice in a theater in the last 10 years, one for Outfest, referenced here: http://www.ew.com/article/2007/07/06/why-people-love-xanadu

 

& also saw this screening where live dancers come on stage during The Tubes/Big Band mashup scene; they dance along a la Rocky Horror: (bad quality filming but you get the idea):

 

Aaaaand a few years back a friend invited me to a party where there would be lots of musicians and singing etc...then because she knows how I am she said, "Oh yeah, and you're going to freak, it's at the home of Juliette Marshall...she was one of the muses in Xanadu." Of course I completely lost it, she's really sweet and talented--I did not ask her about Xanadu, as I did not want to bug her about it. Although I did try to get my friend to get in contact with her to see if she could drop in at Largo for this episode. My friend's response? "haha..you're crazy." Sigh. Yes, I am.

[Conal Cochran 21]

Just finished watching this for the first time.

 

I have no words.

[wyldride 285]

Random thought from relistening to this ep: Olivia NJ's character at the end is the woman from the 7 sisters painting, who is NOT Kira. She is a struggling actress/model working as a waitress. One of her jobs was posing for that album cover. When the muses come down to earth at the start of the movie they take their forms from that wall art where they located the portal from olympus. That's why they are checking out their new forms.

 

Fast forward to the end, as a final gift, after Kira is allowed to return for a farewell at the club, the gods arrange for the girl whose appearance she was using to get a job at the club to throw her into Sonny's path. Of course they've never really met, so she has no idea who he is.

[faye-raye 109]

I've just seen this for the first time and have a theory. First thing we see in the movie is an elderly man (Gene Kelly) playing clarinet at the beach. What if he then suffers a stroke and the whole film is his last jumbled thoughts as he lies there with two strangers (Sonny and Kira) who are trying to help him

[JesseDeLeon 16]

When I was a kid, watching this movie, my heart would melt every time Olivia Newton-John was skating. I had such a huge crush on her!