A sextet of movies, part 1

Last weekend I did nothing but watch movies, or at least it seemed like that. By the time I went to bed on Sunday night, I’d watched six movies in 72 hours which isn’t by itself all that big of a deal, but when you consider how much we had going on + a toddler in the house is always a hindrance to that kind of stuff, it actually is quite a big deal.

Friday night we drove to Carroll and left Anna with my folks while we went to The Phantom of the Opera. I was kind of surprised that Heidi actually wanted to see it because she has historically hated musicals with a passion—it’s a huge testament of her love for me that she went to Evita with me not once but twice while we were dating. But she’s working on a manuscript that has some of the same themes as Phantom, so she really wanted to go see it. I’ll see just about anything in the theater, especially when it’s free like it always is when we go to the movie in Carroll as my folks always give us passes that they buy for some phenomenally low price.

Anyway, the movie. I have to say that I think it is one of the most hysterical bad movies ever made—and I that’s a compliment. Over the top, garish, shlocky, not particularly well acted or sung, but OMG it’s an instant (albeit unintentional) camp classic. It was kind of like Glitter in the respect that as I watched it, I found myself liking it in spite of myself.

Heidi, of course, hated it. Most of the problems didn’t come from the movie itself, but rather from the source material. I’ve always read that Phantom of the Opera the show was a little bit of an unlikely success. I turned to Heidi during the movie and said “This music is a little bit schlocky” to which she replied “You think? Just a little bit?” And apparently the show is the same way. So plot problems and lack of character development weren’t necessarily the problem of the filmmakers, but Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Heidi hated Christine and has still not tired of calling her a spineless twit (her exact words.) And in her defense, yeah, Christine is pretty spineless. Oh, I’m mesmerized by the Phantom. Oh wait, I suddenly love the closeted gay Mormon from “Angels in America” even though I have no reason to. On second thought, maybe the Phantom ain’t so bad after all. Decisions, decisions. The best part of the whole movie was Minnie Driver as Carlotta, and she was just a cliché. But she was chewing the scenery and having a blast.

At any rate, I simply must own the movie when it comes out on DVD—it was that gloriously bad. In the meantime, there's Phantom in 15 minutes.

SING, MY ANGEL OF MUSIC!

(more on the other movies I saw in later posts...)