Musical Mondays Week 102 Preview (theworstbuddhist's Pick)

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Ok @theworstbuddhist!

(buddhist)

[Cameron H. 23786]

[theworstbuddhist 572]

Haha, ok, I tried to give Gigi time to step in but she must be busy so I will go ahead with my pick, which was inspired by the recent Emmy wins for the wonderful Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek. It's the fourth of the right honourable Lord Haden-Guest's mockumentary films, starring many of the same repertory cast as his previous and later ones, but this one is about the subculture of American folk music. It features the great Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara as Mitch and Mickey as well as Bob Balaban, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, Parker Posey and many more. We're watching:

It should be available for rent in a variety of outlets as near as I can tell and it may be on Prime as well. Enjoy!

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

It is on Prime but not for free. It is on Hulu for people who subscribe to that

I have this on DVD somewhere, it's a favorite though I haven't watched it in a looong time. I don't even have a DVD player anymore...

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

1 hour ago, theworstbuddhist said:

Haha, ok, I tried to give Gigi time to step in but she must be busy so I will go ahead with my pick, which was inspired by the recent Emmy wins for the wonderful Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek. It's the fourth of the right honourable Lord Haden-Guest's mockumentary films, starring many of the same repertory cast as his previous and later ones, but this one is about the subculture of American folk music. It features the great Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara as Mitch and Mickey as well as Bob Balaban, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, Parker Posey and many more. We're watching:

It should be available for rent in a variety of outlets as near as I can tell and it may be on Prime as well. Enjoy!

Awesome! I love this movie. I can do Kast viewings for people later this week.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Justwatch says it's available on Hulu.

 

[Cameron H. 23786]

I’m looking forward to this! I’ve been wanting to see it for a long time.

[GrahamS. 803]

Looking forward to rewatching it! It might be my favorite of this crew’s films (the one where they make fun of the Academy awards is my least favorite).

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

15 hours ago, GrahamS. said:

Looking forward to rewatching it! It might be my favorite of this crew’s films (the one where they make fun of the Academy awards is my least favorite).

It's definitely my favorite but it's a small sample size.  I've only seen this and Best in Show all the way through.  Started on Waiting for Guffman but don't remember why I haven't finished it.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

I know it's not a musical but I watched Brian's Song for the first time last night, as a Gale Sayers tribute.  Very moving.  I had no idea it started as a TV movie nor that it was so short in length!  It's only 74 minutes.  Does that mean there were 46 minutes of commercials or was it shown in a 90-minute time slot?

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Now that we're in the preview week I have Get On Up: The James Brown Story on deck in tribute to Chadwick Boseman.

[GrahamS. 803]

2 hours ago, Cinco DeNio said:

Now that we're in the preview week I have Get On Up: The James Brown Story on deck in tribute to Chadwick Boseman.

I enjoyed it. I’m sure a lot of stuff was sanitized but it was entertaining.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

I'm doing Kast showings tomorrow night at 7 and 9 p.m. Eastern. The movie is fairly short, only 92 minutes long.

[grudlian. 4725]

21 hours ago, Cinco DeNio said:

I'm doing Kast showings tomorrow night at 7 and 9 p.m. Eastern. The movie is fairly short, only 92 minutes long.

I was going to do the 7pm, but some stuff came up. I should be able to watch the 9pm showing if you're up for it. 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

37 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

I was going to do the 7pm, but some stuff came up. I should be able to watch the 9pm showing if you're up for it. 

Absolutely.  I forgot the 7:00 one so I'm starting that now.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

21 minutes ago, Cinco DeNio said:

Absolutely.  I forgot the 7:00 one so I'm starting that now.

Here is my room if anyone wants in before the 9:00 show.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

@grudlian, this is your 10-minute movie call.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

On 9/29/2020 at 1:08 PM, GrahamS. said:

I enjoyed it. I’m sure a lot of stuff was sanitized but it was entertaining.

I watched it last night.  My big problem is James' being so sure he was right at every turn, especially when his bandmates complained about not having been paid.  He acted like they were being totally unreasonable when he was committing a breach of contract.  His seeing Bobby Bird at the end rang a little hollow but I liked the look on his face at the very end.  They skipped over "Living in America".  I was surprised at that.  That would have been a signature performance for Chadwick.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

If people remember my comment during 1776 week, I wondered why soundtracks weren't released more often, especially for movies.  Now I understand why, and why my stance was wrong.

Performances, especially theater, are snapshots in time.  The very nature of theater is ephemeral.  The point is that every night can be different because it's a brand new performance of a work.  The only way to capture a specific performance is to record it and recording is prohibitively expensive.

As the Disney+ movie of Hamilton shows, even a recorded performance isn't a single performance.  They recorded four or more performances and had the cast come in for close-ups and pick-ups.  Any movie musical (like The Greatest Showman, for example) is combined of multiple takes so there still isn't one performance.  On top of that, movie performances are often different than the released soundtracks.  A stage musical like Les Miserables has a lot of interplay and filler that was left out of the soundtrack.  Listening to the CDs still doesn't give a full performance.

Watching a movie is inferior to listening to CDs because CDs can be listened to while doing other things.  Watching a performance requires sitting in front of the screen and devoting a measure of attention to the performance.  Yes, you can do other things while watching but you miss things or the impact can be lessened.  Watching half-heartedly only works if you've seen the performance before.  I have listened to the Hamilton CD soundtrack often in my car and couldn't watch it.

Lastly, listening to a CD allows one's imagination to play.  Like reading a book, a listener can fill their own picture of the characters, cast, scenery, etc.  Watching a performance or movie limits the user to a certain vision.

Give me recorded soundtracks any day now.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

[theworstbuddhist 572]

On 9/29/2020 at 11:07 AM, Cinco DeNio said:

I know it's not a musical but I watched Brian's Song for the first time last night, as a Gale Sayers tribute.  Very moving.  I had no idea it started as a TV movie nor that it was so short in length!  It's only 74 minutes.  Does that mean there were 46 minutes of commercials or was it shown in a 90-minute time slot?

It was not unusual for Really Big Events on TV to have extra commercial time sold. I remember that was the case with the TV premiere of Star Wars, which they padded out to something like 3 hours by adding a bunch of interviews and stuff that you would normally find now in the special features of a DVD. I think it was fairly common practice with big miniseries as well like The Winds of War or The Thorn Birds. Brian's song was just a regular TV movie originally but as their wiki points out, it was crazy successful and went on to a theatrical rerelease and life on home video.

The running times of TV movies did vary wildly (you can find some good captures of them on Youtube) but in this case I wouldn't be surprised if some of that time was filled with a nonfiction video package giving background on the players. It's also possible that the time slot was designed to end five or ten minutes before the top of the hour, giving a lead-in to whatever was on afterward - that was something they used to do with The Tonight Show, Saturday Night live, some local newscasts and the like.