A big guilty pleasure

If, like me, you work in what's sometimes called the 'alternative' end of theatre (basically it's just like the rest of theatre except it's less well-paid and there's more onstage swearing), then a show like 'Jesus Christ Superstar' should be the kind of thing you sniff at - a big, weepy blockbuster with lotsa dancin' and a Lloyd Webber soundtrack. However, while I love Sarah Kane and Edward Bond, I love JCS too. I was only just born when they were recording the original album and it was one of those things that was always playing in somebody else's house during my childhood. I then forgot about it for years, until in 1999 I saw an amazing techno version called 'DJ Christ Superstar', performed into the teeth of a sandstorm at the Burning Man festival - one of the most truly heroic performances I've ever seen.

Reacquanting myself with the movie (which I found WAY too gritty as a kid) it all comes flooding back - that nagging, vaguely middle-Eastern guitar riff, Ted Neeley's spectacular cheekbones, Yvonne Elliman's wonderfully overblown 'I Don't Know How To Love Him' (sorry, Ms. Elliman, but Ziona Cohen in Nevada in '99 just had the edge on you), Simon Zealotes and his munchkins jumping all over the place, and the alarming cameo by the Israeli army as the Romans - don't think anyone was trying to make a comment there, but if they were, pretty prescient for 1973.

The late Carl Anderson gets the gold star as Judas (although Murray Head was great on the original album) and I actually quite like Neeley's rather eerily high voice. Again, Ian Gillan on the original album had more force and substance, but then Neeley doesn't indulge himself (as Gillan sometimes did) in random and unnecessary 'Whooa yeah's (Jesus as singer in Deep Purple). The soundtrack sounds not very well mixed to me, with the voices too upfront and the music too far back, but it's true to the time.

The commentary by Norman Jewison and Ted Neeley is fun and full of interesting trivia, and you find out incidentally why Neeley never speaks in the movie; from his accent, it would appear that our Lord came from well below the Mason/Dixon line. JCS is very silly, totally over-the-top, pretentious, vulgar, all that stuff, but it's still an astonishing piece of work. Films that deal with the Jesus story basically never work, because they come at the story too directly, or too sentimentally, or too piously. There are only maybe three that a grown-up can watch without wanting to throw things at the screen - Pasolini's 'Il Vangelo secondo Matteo', the Python team's 'Life of Brian', and just maybe the movie of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'.

Incidentally, this and 'Life of Brian' are perhaps the only movies about Jesus in which we never find out for sure whether or not he was the son of God.

Not even worth 1 star! Truly awful!!

This has to be one of the worst films I've ever seen!!! It hardly has a plot. I know it's and 18 but seriously, half of the violence, swearing and stuff didn't do anything for the story. And they're making a musical about it, I believe. How can you put this tosh as a musical? Apart from the dancing, (which was the only good bit) it was absolutely terrible. It's not worth buying, renting or watching on TV when it comes on.

Wonderful except...

This is a beautiful film of one of the best loved Operas by Puccini.
The cast is excellent throughout and it makes a great change to see a singer in the leading role who actually looks the part.
The film looks beautiful even if there are some minor mistakes in the design of the set (on the whole accurate) such as the graveyard having stones very unlike any Japanese ones I have seen in Japan as well as the sotoba wooden memorials looking not quite authentic. At least the kimono etc are authentic on the whole like on most other productions of this opera (ENO's production in London comes to mind where the kimono sleeves were very wrong...more chinese than Japanese). These are very small issues but can irritate the viewer as it would have been easy to make things look authentic even if it was shot in Morocco and not in Nagasaki.
My one real complaint lies in the lack of the several languages in subtitles[...]. I bought this here because of the price as a gift for my mother who is finnish. Yet there are only four languages subtitles available on this disc. Curiously I had previously bought this DVD [...] and it does have finnish subtitles. Because of this my mother was unable to fully enjoy this marvellous DVD![...]

Restoration of a Classic Musical Movie

The restoration of this new issue of"The King and I" is nothing short of magnificent - the colours are really vibrant, and there is no hint of graininess or colour loss. A really beautiful job.

One thing however that strikes me as rather strange - I think this issue presents the movie as it would have been when it first went on General Release, as opposed to a RoadShow version. There is no Overture, no intermission (and therefore no intermission music) and no exit music. So ... if you have a previous edition of this DVD which contains these, don't ditch it!

At Last !

At last this Rodgers & Hammerstein classic musical is available
in a 2 disc special edition.
This is a vast improvement over the rather savagely cut versions that have been available previously.
My only gripe is the fact the wonderful stills that were shown on the old DVD whilst the overture and intermission music were played are missing on this new DVD version.
That said, it is a small sacrifice as both sound and picture have been beautifuly restored.
Also included on disc 2 is the full roadshow version of the film, but this does only have a stereo sound track rather than the 5.1 on the cinema version on disc 1.
Packed full of extras this set is realy a"must have" for any Rodgers & Hammerstein Fan, and whilst we cant have the Tod-Ao HD on DVD Yet, We can get the wonderful surround sound that made this film so special for me when I first went to see it in London's west end, in the late 1950's

london new wave?

Lester is an underrated director, or perhaps he didn't pull his weight with 'The Beatles', but 'A Hard Days Night' is a stylistic gem with moments that recall Godard and Truffaut. Intercutting grainy hand held tracking-shots-on- the-run, sharp edits, an odd mix of Ealing style British comic style and French New Wave. 1964 predicts 1968, while the fab four escape screaming throngs of beatlemaniacal girls and retire in rooms with a grandfather in tow to discuss class politics in the British 60s, north south divide and all. A heady mix; so if you can tolerate a film that looks a little bit like 'The Monkees' TV series, with its faintly surrealist TV-lite, boasting the charming antics of the boys in an obvious teen marketing ploy; it has other merits as a film. A nod to Cssavetes and Godard; can this be British cinema? The anarchy of Ealing Studios suffused with avant-garde style?
In which case we tolerate the documentary sections with the 'boys' performing every song from their album in realtime in ever ludicrous locations with a zany silly, playtimeTV-style, although the songs are great, but the cameos just don't work. There are gems of dialogue, witty, smart, cutting, and a refreshing look at Britain in the 60s, the politics of a generation of self-proclaimed working-class heroes, pop troubadors, popular intellectuals, a sort of UK experimetal Surrealism of which Lester is a fascinating exemplar, and the film, 40 years later, still resonates with recognisable themes and clear context.

Enjoyable nostalgia

Fame was a fun series and a phenomenon at the time, although now it does show its age a bit. The series itself is entertaining, but there are absolutely no extras, which is a great shame - surely they could have tracked down a few of the cast members for some retrospective interviews or something?
And one minor problem - why on earth did they make Leroy sing so much? He was a great dancer, but a horrible singer!

wonderful

Remembered from my own childhood, bought recently to watch with my 7 year old daughter. Fantastic film, great music, good story, a real classic. Daughter loves it and can sing all the songs. Prepare to watch it many times over and over.

One note of caution - the ending is quite scary and unpleasant for young children - Bill Sykes is chased through a dark London and shot dead - I would save this until a child was 6-7 years old.

Thoroughly Modern Millie

This is a spectacular musical production starring Julie Andrews as an eager young Millie Dillmount. She arrives in New York City in the 1920's seeking a secretarial job for a rich, handsome eligible boss. She decides to have her hair 'bobbed' to match the fashion of the time and even buys new clothes and beads. Millie checks into a women's hotel, run by Mrs Meers (an excellent character played by Beatrice Lillie), who also runs a white slavery ring, she meets the beautiful, naive Miss Dorothy (Mary Tyler Moore). Millie does suceed in getting her job with a very handsome boss, Trevor Graydon (John Gavin), but he only has 'eyes' for Miss Dorothy. Millie is therefore forced to do with Jimmy Smith (James Fox), a paper-clip salesman. They attend a party at the Long Island estate of the wealthy Muzzy van Hossmere (Carol Channing). Millie finds that Miss Dorothy has disappeared! When she and Jimmy detect the scent of opium in Mrs Meers's room, they realise she has a sideline. The valiant Jimmy must go in drag to uncover the whereabouts of the white slavers' hideout......Listen out for the 'Oh pook', 'sad to be all alone in the world' and 'shoe show', a catchphrase that will last forever!
The cast and crew perform admiraly in this light farce that is almost too sweet for its own good!
A must-see movie for all ages.

Jolson Story, The / Jolson Sings Again

I watched this movie years ago when I was a boy and wanted to own it on dvd. It is just as good as I remember, the songs and Larry Prks plays the part so well. My children watched also and although their nine and eleven they watch it whenever they get the chance and konw all the songs. they also want me to buy Al Jolson CD's.

Picture quality

A previous reviewer had doubts regarding the picture quality, and I think he is right. Perhaps it is due to the fact that the TV set has to do an NTSC to PAL conversion, and something is lost in the conversion process.
Why have the makers not given us a PAL version? Nevertheless there is much to enjoy on this DVD. T Powell

Terrible really....

I haven't seen this on stage so I judge only by what I see here. This is hard to define as a musical as there are so few actual musical numbers in the traditional sense. It veers from the odd proper musical number to odd bits of singing without any connection. The whole Cassie story seems attached to the rest of the film and why don't they just chuck her out of the theatre - how hard is that? It opens well with the mass auditions but it is downhill after that. The only decent musical number is the T1ts and @ss song which earns the entire 1 star here. The rest makes very little sense. Why do they all come back for the ending? Odd.

Their is a reason this film is always in the bargin bucket

The most god awful film ever made, I loved Grease and knew that this"film" would be different but to be fair its the same film,but written for day time T.V!! the roles are reversed and the music sucks so don't waste your money, get the orginal and watch something that you want to sing along to!!!!!

Unfortunate

There's a half-decent, 90 minute, old-style biopic lurking in here somewhere, but it's unbalanced by too much back story or (more accurately) side-story, viz the whole Florence Ballard thing. A sad story for sure, but unfortunately - and surely unintentionally - the film makes a pretty good case for why she was given the boot. Great technique, amazing voice, but that that's not what pop and selling millions of records is all about. And not exactly what you'd call a team player either...

Beyonce's good for the lead - she has the lightweight vocal and personal qualities which made Diana Ross a great pop star (if not a technically great singer) without whom the Supremes would have been just another production line girl group. The rest of the cast is good too, if not exactly stretched. Good to see Eddie Murphy turning it down a bit and just acting.

The film seems confused about what it's supposed to be though... the stage songs and the performances are good-ish, if a bit sort of conventional and linear (reminds you how great the original Supremes material was, for sure), but the digressions into conventional musical tropes - what were they thinking? The Florence Ballard aria in the middle bemoaning the injustice dealt her seems to go on for about a month, to the point where you really just wish she would go.

So... good cast, decent story, some interesting angles but clumsily executed. Unfortunate. Would have been interesting to see what someone like Paul Thomas Anderson would have done with it.

MARTIAN EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!!

An absolute essential if you appreciated the stunning 1978 album!
My earliest meeting with Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds was as a 10 year old lad in it's original year of release - and 30 years later, I'm still in love with one of the greatest alien invasion stories ever written (Also very fond of the 1953 film, but a little bit dissapointed by 2005's Spielberg epic - great FX though!)
What really makes Jeff Wayne's concept perhaps the best adaptation is that it's 100% faithful to the early 20th Century England setting. The juxtaposition of Martian technology & pre-World War One weaponry being a fascinating element.
This 2006 show is really spectacular! The entire album played LIVE at London's Wembley Arena from start to finish! And an enormous audience under an absoluteley dazzling light show!
What you have is a combination of the cream of rock musicians & a full orchestral section all under the supreme guidance of Jeff Wayne who is clearly having the time of his life conducting - What a smile!
Added to this are a fine ensemble of stage performers such as Russell Watson & Justin Hayward to bring the characters & story to life on stage. Every performance is exemplary and faithful to both H.G.Wells's novel AND the original studio album.
Richard Burton 'returns' here in the form of a CGI face, lip-synched to his incredible & unaltered narration. His passing in 1984, still mourned today. The face is projected onto a gigantic screen that is erected behind the performers, which also serves up a feast of CGI Martians, Fighting Machines & Martian Warfare! Now the CG animation is certainly not at the level of the FX in the Tom Cruise movie by any means but it's very effective especially in the opening prologue which shows us
the Martian world & the Alien menace plotting to destroy Mankind. I understand a CGI full length feature film is in progress and I am keenly awaiting this - hopefully it will come out this year!
There's even a FULL SCALE Martian Tripod that appears on stage - It doesn't actually do a lot but it looks great & serves as a physical link between the animated backdrop & the on stage action.
The musicianship of course is exemplary; one standout performer is four string maestro Herbie Flowers, returning from the 1978 album - Just listen to that bass guitar on"Horsell Common and the Heat Ray"! One of the best & most mind-invasive bass lines I've ever heard!
This is just big, epic music - progressive, symphonic rock with both theatrical & feature film elements.
The opening piece"The Eve Of The War" is just massive with its HUGE strings & futuristic synths & rock guitars!
You might well like this if you are into The Trans-Siberian Orchestra or the admittedly much heavier, S&M album by Metallica.
Any lover of the 1898 novel, science fiction, the original album, progressive/symphonic rock and indeed classical really needs to invest in this - along with the studio CD if not yet acquired...

Entertaining Shmultz

Garland has a pretty nasty voice by any measure, and the songs themselves set a high standard in banalty.

The awful sweetness of this DVD would make a hardened sailor wretch, but the thing trots along briskly enoough, for which it merits 2, not 1 stars.