Musical Mondays Week 106 Swing Kids

[GrahamS. 803]

I'm not a fan of the "use real-life trauma/tragedy and make it the setting/background for a musical"-style of filmmaking. It would take a filmmaker with significant mastery of tonal changes to pull it off. A surprising number of those have come from Korea (Bong Joon-ho and Chan-wook Park amongst them) and Swing Kids has an interesting setting/idea for this type of musical. In my opinion, the director just can't pull it off. There are parts that work--I do like seeing the war from the Korean POV--but it's so stylized in a " look-at-this" kind of way that it feels like the director is just using a wartime setting to make flashy MTV-style dance-offs and comedy sequences (which really seems manipulative to me). The film had a weird Baz Luhrman over-the-topness to it. The point seems to be the style more than the subject matter, which was disappointing because there are good story elements here.

Full disclosure: I didn't finish watching the movie. I made it past the sequence where the hero has the dance-off with the racist military dude and then the military dude frames the dance instructor. Somehow that sequence broke my eye-rolling:enjoyment ratio and enjoyment lost, so I called it a night.

 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

18 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

Yes, Mr. Roberts. When he first started talking I thought he was British then he was somewhere between British and American.

 

Haha Fair enough. Some people do it just fine, but others... why couldn't Doctor Strange be British?

Mr. Roberts is South African.

 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

8 minutes ago, GrahamS. said:

I'm not a fan of the "use real-life trauma/tragedy and make it the setting/background for a musical"-style of filmmaking. It would take a filmmaker with significant mastery of tonal changes to pull it off. A surprising number of those have come from Korea (Bong Joon-ho and Chan-wook Park amongst them) and Swing Kids has an interesting setting/idea for this type of musical. In my opinion, the director just can't pull it off. There are parts that work--I do like seeing the war from the Korean POV--but it's so stylized in a " look-at-this" kind of way that it feels like the director is just using a wartime setting to make flashy MTV-style dance-offs and comedy sequences (which really seems manipulative to me). The film had a weird Baz Luhrman over-the-topness to it. The point seems to be the style more than the subject matter, which was disappointing because there are good story elements here.

Full disclosure: I didn't finish watching the movie. I made it past the sequence where the hero has the dance-off with the racist military dude and then the military dude frames the dance instructor. Somehow that sequence broke my eye-rolling:enjoyment ratio and enjoyment lost, so I called it a night.

 

This article agrees with you and most others in here.

The film does for the Korean War what Life Is Beautiful did for the Holocaust — it injects verve and fun into very grim subject matter. But that film is about hope and the endurance of the human spirit, and it has one essential scene piercing Guido’s antics: that discovery of the smoldering wall of corpses in the fog, challenging Guido to face evil, rotten reality.

Swing Kids couldn’t care less about reality. Even the violence is stylish. The tension between musical and war drama at times overwhelms the picture — but god, even when it’s a failure, Swing Kids is entertaining as hell.

[tomspanks 9039]

3 hours ago, GrahamS. said:

Full disclosure: I didn't finish watching the movie. I made it past the sequence where the hero has the dance-off with the racist military dude and then the military dude frames the dance instructor. Somehow that sequence broke my eye-rolling:enjoyment ratio and enjoyment lost, so I called it a night.

Omg this reminds me of the scene where the corporal slaps Pan Rae and she comes back at him with a flying drop kick.  I somehow missed that on my first watch and on my second watch I rewound it a few times   So satisfying.

[Cam Bert 8145]

6 hours ago, tomspanks said:

Do you guys think Jackson eventually made it to Okinawa?

I agree with Cameron and I don't think so. I mean when he is trying to save the dancers he says something to the effect "They are my family the only people I've ever been close to." Which I found odd given his wife and that in Okinawa. I got the impression that maybe he did not really love her but was merely going back to marry her as it was the right thing to do. Given that Roberts probably immediately sent him to back stateside, and given everything that happened I figure he just kinda gave up on doing the right thing.

[Cam Bert 8145]

4 hours ago, tomspanks said:

So...what do you think happened to Pan Rae's siblings and the guy's wife?

I hope she stayed there to raise them. But given how the rest of the ending went... she was drove out of the village again and the kids starved and Linda had the last laugh.

Boy, most everybody in this movie is a terrible person...

[tomspanks 9039]

7 minutes ago, Cam Bert said:

I agree with Cameron and I don't think so. I mean when he is trying to save the dancers he says something to the effect "They are my family the only people I've ever been close to." Which I found odd given his wife and that in Okinawa. I got the impression that maybe he did not really love her but was merely going back to marry her as it was the right thing to do. Given that Roberts probably immediately sent him to back stateside, and given everything that happened I figure he just kinda gave up on doing the right thing.

Yeah, Jackson was probably sent to the US, dishonorably discharged, denied any benefits, and never tap danced again 

[tomspanks 9039]

49 minutes ago, Cinco DeNio said:

Mr. Roberts is South African.

 

Now that you’ve mentioned it, I can totally see it

[GrahamS. 803]

Has anyone seen the Christian Bale Swing Kids? I haven't, but it sounds like a terrible idea. 

@tomspanks

I also wanted to say thanks for suggesting.an aggressively off beat movie. I'm always down for those and the trailer for this had me intrigued. I'm glad I saw part of it, I just didn't need 133 minutes of it.

Is it weird that its energy kinda reminded me of Kung Fu Hustle?

[tomspanks 9039]

2 hours ago, GrahamS. said:

Has anyone seen the Christian Bale Swing Kids? I haven't, but it sounds like a terrible idea. 

@tomspanks

I also wanted to say thanks for suggesting.an aggressively off beat movie. I'm always down for those and the trailer for this had me intrigued. I'm glad I saw part of it, I just didn't need 133 minutes of it.

Is it weird that its energy kinda reminded me of Kung Fu Hustle?

Trust me, I’ve DNFed plenty of MM movies lol. 

And yes, I totally want to watch Swing Kids (1993) now. 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

16 hours ago, tomspanks said:

Yeah, Jackson was probably sent to the US, dishonorably discharged, denied any benefits, and never tap danced again 

WHEW! At @Cameron H.'s first comment I thought he was saying Jackson was killed.  Getting sent Stateside would seem to me to be a good thing, dishonorably discharged or not.  Although I suppose he would find sympathy in his community, talking about the events too much would get him prosecuted and jailed.

[tomspanks 9039]

1 hour ago, Cinco DeNio said:

WHEW! At @Cameron H.'s first comment I thought he was saying Jackson was killed.  Getting sent Stateside would seem to me to be a good thing, dishonorably discharged or not.  Although I suppose he would find sympathy in his community, talking about the events too much would get him prosecuted and jailed.

Jackson wanted to go to Okinawa (Japan).

[grudlian. 4725]

Does anyone happen to know when black soldiers are eligible for the GI bill? I know it was after WWII, but don't know if it was after the Korean War.

I can't say what life was like for black Americans in 1950s Japan, but black soldiers certainly weren't given hero's welcome in the US. WWII soldiers were still forced into poor areas to live and denied college education they were promised. While I never thought Jackson had a hope the dance troupe would be welcomed as stars of they were great, I guess I have to imagine he had some idea this was a chance at a better life.

[Cam Bert 8145]

For those that have seen Jojo Rabbit, better use of a David Bowie song Swing Kids or Jojo Rabbit?

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

2 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

For those that have seen Jojo Rabbit, better use of a David Bowie song Swing Kids or Jojo Rabbit?

I'll say Swing Kids.  I don't remember the song in Jojo Rabbit.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

22 hours ago, tomspanks said:

Jackson wanted to go to Okinawa (Japan).

I know, I just didn't think the General (?) would keep his promise after slaughtering the rest of the dance troupe.

[tomspanks 9039]

3 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

For those that have seen Jojo Rabbit, better use of a David Bowie song Swing Kids or Jojo Rabbit?

For those that have seen Jojo Rabbit...

better use of close-up shots of shoes in Swing Kids or Jojo Rabbit?

[tomspanks 9039]

15 minutes ago, Cinco DeNio said:

I know, I just didn't think the General (?) would keep his promise after slaughtering the rest of the dance troupe.

Ok, I think I misunderstood your original post

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

46 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

Ok, I think I misunderstood your original post

No, you didn't misunderstand.  I tried to say (not very clearly obviously) that I changed my thinking after Cameron posted his opinion.  I tried to clarify and just muddied the waters further.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Off-Topic: I found my Playbill from 2000's The Rocky Horrow Show with Joan Jett's autograph in it.  Dick Cavett also autographed it.  (He was The Narrator the night I saw the show.)  I also have Neil Patrick Harris' autograph on an envelope that he signed for me.  (The envelope was my Will Call ticket pick-up. I hadn't expected to meet him so I didn't have anything special to sign.)

[Cam Bert 8145]

6 hours ago, tomspanks said:

For those that have seen Jojo Rabbit...

  Hide contents

better use of close-up shots of shoes in Swing Kids or Jojo Rabbit?

 

You went there and I approve.

The more I think about it there are more than a few similarities

[tomspanks 9039]

3 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

The more I think about it there are more than a few similarities

I mean, is this Elsa or Xiao Pang?

Scheiße Ideologie

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

1 hour ago, tomspanks said:

I mean, is this Elsa or Xiao Pang?

Scheiße Ideologie