Musical

  • Alfonso Corona Blake – Cabaret trágico (1958)

    1951-1960Alfonso Corona BlakeFilm NoirMexicoMusical
    Cabaret trágico (1958)
    Cabaret trágico (1958)

    One of the last and the best of those infamous Mexican nightclub melodramas (“Películas de Cabareteras”), it features a stunning noirish cinematography, over-the-top acting by half a dozen of wonderfully weird and wicked latina beauties such as Columba Dominguez and Kitty de Hoyos (looking like a drag queen performing Marilyn Monroe!) plus great -if low budget- musical show clips performed by the mesmerizing Esquivel, the “King of Zu-Zu-Zu”! Another masterpiece from the great (beer-drinking?) director Alfonso “Corona” Blake, who began as an assistant to Luis Bunuel and Emilio “Indio” Fernandez and gave the world some of the finest campy horror- and “Il Santo”-classics. Great fun to watch – if you ever get the chance to, for it’s not available on tape or DVD.Read More »

  • Jim Sharman – The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

    Jim Sharman1971-1980HorrorMusicalQueer Cinema(s)USA
    The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

    Quote:
    The shining textbook example of a film so bad it’s good, writer/director Jim Sharman’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show owns an absolutely unique place in film history, loosely considered the longest-running film of all time. This bawdy and cut-rate Frankenstein story became the definition of “cult classic” when theaters worldwide began offering midnight screenings (a tradition that continues today), attracting legions of decked-out fans to shout lines and throw rice at the screen, often while live performers acted out the plot. The film was quickly enveloped in kitsch, and since has become a well-known phenomenon frequently re-created on-stage, partly on the strength of such gonzo (and overtly sexual) musical numbers as “The Time Warp” and “Sweet Transvestite.”Read More »

  • Asit Sen – Mamta (1966)

    Asit Sen1961-1970IndiaMusicalRomance
    Mamta (1966)
    Mamta (1966)

    Monish Rai comes from a wealthy family, and is in love with Deviyani, who is poor. Monish has to travel abroad to further his education in law, but promises to stay in touch with Deviyani. After his departure, financial problems surround Deviyani and her dad. She approaches Monish’s mom for assistance, but is refused. In desperation, her father gets her married to a much older man, who is also alcoholic and frequents courtesans. Deviyani gets pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl, Suparna. Unhappy with her marriage and her circumstances, she runs away. She approaches a nun, Mother Mary, in a monastery and leaves Suparna in her care and disappears forever. When Monish returns he runs into Deviyani, but is told that the person he has seen is a Lucknow based prostitute, Pannabai. Is Deviyani still alive? Who is Pannabai? What happened to Suparna?
    —rAjOoRead More »

  • Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger – The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) (HD)

    Michael Powell1951-1960Emeric PressburgerFantasyMusicalUnited Kingdom
    The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)
    The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)

    Quote:
    A magnificent spectacle. A truly filmic version of a classic opera. Often mentioned as a favourite movie and constant inspiration for young Martin Scorsese.

    With the audacity that Powell & Pressburger were famous for we are presented with a wonderful performance of a truly “composed” film. All the soundtrack was recorded by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and then the filming was all done on the open stage (it didn’t need a sound stage) at Shepperton.Read More »

  • Michael Curtiz – Four Daughters (1938) (HD)

    Michael Curtiz1931-1940DramaMusicalUSA
    Four Daughters (1938) (HD)
    Four Daughters (1938) (HD)

    Adam Lemp, the Dean of the Briarwood Music Foundation, has passed on his love of music to his four early adult daughters – Thea, Emma, Kay and Ann – who live with him and his sister, the girls’ Aunt Etta, in the long time family home. Of the four, Kay has the greatest promise as a musical performer, specifically as a singer. Theirs is a loving family, however much the girls exasperate their father with their love of popular music, since he loves only the classics, most specifically Beethoven. The girls support each other however they can, but each is an individual with her own distinct personality and wants, including the type of man each wants as a husband. Practical but deep in her heart romantic Emma has long been courted by their next door neighbor, unassuming florist Ernest Talbot, and clever Thea wants to be Mrs. Ben Crowley, he a wealthy up and coming banker with prospects. Only the youngest, the fun loving Ann, states that she doesn’t want to get married. Their collective … Written by HuggoRead More »

  • Kriv Stenders – The Go-Betweens: Right Here (2017)

    2011-2020AustraliaDocumentaryKriv StendersMusical
    The Go Betweens Right Here (2017)
    The Go Betweens Right Here (2017)

    Legends of the indie Oz Rock scene, The Go-Betweens provided a soundtrack to a generation of music enthusiasts throughout the 80s, developing a unique and compelling combination of song writing, both angst ridden and sensitive, that eluded the mainstream and all the trappings of popular success.

    Four decades in the making, Right Here: Finding the Go-Betweens explores the quintessential Aussie band from formation in 1977 by Queensland University students Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, joined by Lindy Morrison on drums until the band broke up in late 1989, after six critically acclaimed albums. They reformed in 2000 for three more albums before McLennan died in 2006, aged 48.Read More »

  • Vera Stroyeva – Boris Godunov (1954)

    Vera Stroyeva1951-1960MusicalUSSR
    Boris Godunov (1954)
    Boris Godunov (1954)

    quote from Amazon user: A complement I say, as this not being complete (well, I’d better say severely truncated) it cannot be your sole Boris in a collection; necessary I add, because it preserved a sizable portion of the title part, as portrayed by one of its foremost exponents ever, the great russian bass Alexander Pirogov. This incompleteness is only implied but not clearly stated in the disc’s box, which should advise would-be purchasers. So what you get is some kind of “extended highlights” of this, arguably the greatest of russian operas and certainly the most popular. It is a film by Vera Stroieva, made in 1954 as part of a project dear to soviet authorities of putting into film both the lives of Russia’s greatest artists and adaptations of their works, to “educate the masses” and of course not being entirely without some ideological hints (or rather more than mere hints).Read More »

  • Joann Sfar – Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (2010)

    Joann Sfar2001-2010DramaFranceMusical
    Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (2010)
    Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (2010)

    Synopsis
    A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.Read More »

  • S. Sylvan Simon – The Thrill of Brazil (1946)

    S. Sylvan Simon1941-1950DramaMusicalUSA
    The Thrill of Brazil (1946)
    The Thrill of Brazil (1946)

    Synopsis:
    In this musical, Broadway producer Steve Farraugh is in Rio to preview a show he plans to take to New York. The star of the production, Linda Lorens, pines for Steve, but he is still in love with his estranged wife, Vicki, who arrives in Rio with divorce papers and her new fiancé, John Habour, in tow. Steve concocts a plan to win Vicki back, but, amid a slew of song-and-dance numbers, all goes awry.Read More »

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