Who didn't think Hairspray was *that* great?- Page 3

[LoringsGuy]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:32pm

Agreed, Parsley. Fierstein would've been too larger-than-life on screen. Amazing on stage, perhaps, but not right for the slightly downsized, more "real" film version.

Similarly, you can get away with the Von Tussle redemption in YCSTB on stage because realism has gone out the window and it has become just one huge love-fest. Film is a generally much more "real" medium and the Von Tussles having such a quick change of heart just wouldn't fly (as much as I MISS that section of the song in the movie).

I also agree with the poster who mentioned the part where Tracy runs away when the police show up at the protest. It seemed completely out of character and was merely a plot device for Tracy to be elsewhere to move the plot along. Dramatically, it made no sense.

[ben4]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:37pm

I guess as much as I hated it, I can see how someone with low expectations could have had a good time.

It's when the comments about it being better than Dreamgirls, Chicago, and Moulin Rouge come up that I really have to do a double take...

Go rewatch those three and you'll realize that they are classic labors of love from directors/artists/craftsmen who care about the musical genre. Hairspray on the other hand is more of a consumerized product

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:44pm

I really thought Amber was going to join in the end because in the background you could see her learning the dance and stuff, so I was expecting it to happen, but it didn't happen.

The only part I really missed was Prudy. Allison Jenning was hilarious in her scenes, but she really didn't do much. I wish they had kept the part in Without Love where she walks in on them and then has a change of heart about "negros." I think it would have given her character more of an arch.

And the only other part I hated was Link singing in Tracy's bedroom in "Without Love." How lame. First, I don't think we were ever told that Tracy was put in the trunk, so when they pan to the car and you can hear one of her verses, it's confusing because we don't know what's going on. Then she gets out of the trunk? Without Love should have been another big dance number, but it was so random.

[Fenchurch]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:46pm

I thought it was cute, and well done, but nothing spectacular.

A good time was had, but the score, which I really hadnt heard before, was in my opinion largely forgettable, but still fun.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:47pm

Im sorry but it IS better stage to screen adaptation than Chicago and Dreamgirls,

Chicago had great performances but was shot and cut like an MTV movie and had NO HEART, yes it was a fun film though

Dreamgirls as much as i liked it suffered from over exposure and did not live up to the hype.

You only have to look on Rotten Tomatoes and see the reviews and see the Hairspray has done much better , even among the conservative critics.

Hairspray is a huge crowd pleaser which does not hide from its campy musical roots (unlike Dreamgirls) and does not pretend to be anything other than big hearted OTT fun musical (unlike Chicago)

And dont get me started on Moulin Rouge

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:50pm

Dreamgirls had better singing though. That matters a lot to me, whether you agree or not.

[Parsley]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:56pm

Dreamgirls was a decent film but so laboured in places and so many bits of it needed fast forwarding through.

Chicago was pretty good, despite Richard Gere's mediocre performance.

Hairspray is, of course, different again to each and I think it succeeds because it is damn entertaining throughout. Fun fun fun, and doesn't pretend to be otherwise

[ben4]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:58pm

30 seconds of Chicago, Dreamgirls, and Moulin Rouge has more heart, soul, subtext, and meaning than in the entirety of Hairspray.

Not to mention entertainment value, timelessness, and just mere competent directing. All these three things are completely absent in Hairspray.

[Parsley]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 12:59pm

don't you just love definitive authority in a post :)
Updated On: 7/23/07 at 12:59 PM

[LoringsGuy]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:00pm

"Hairspray on the other hand is more of a consumerized product."

Ben4, I respect your opinion, but I do disagree with you somewhat on this point. It's unrealistic of us to think millions of dollars are going to be spent making a film without taking the consumer into consideration. First and foremost, it's a business---the movie HAS to make money above all else, so why WOULDN'T they make adjustments to attact and appeal to as many people as possible, as long as it doesn't undermine the overall integrity of the piece? Watching Hairspray, it was obvious to me that it was a labor of love for virtually all involved.

Couldn't you argue that the makers of Chicago were trying to make a consumerized product? After all, they originally offered Billy Flynn to John Travolta (several times) in order to attract moviegoers. They cast Mya, a rising pop star, in a small role. They changed Mary Sunshine into an actual woman. All the songs take place in Roxie's mind. These are all steps the filmmakers took to make the piece more "commercial" and palatable to consumers. Dreamgirls took a similar approach--casting big names in key roles, eliminating some of the more purely "musical theatre" moments, and so on.

To single out Hairspray as doing the same thing is unfair.

[ben4]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:08pm

You make a good point. Every film to some extent does sacrifice some integrity to be more commercial.

But I would counter-argue that Hairspray tipped the scale. Travolta's performance, if anything, was more of a stunt and the screenwriters tried to make Pfieffer and Latifah's roles larger in order to mask how poorly Travolta actually did. To me this all had a disastrous effect upon the structure of an already flimsily told story.

I'm sure some are able to overlook these faults, but to me they destroy what limited entertainment value the musical had and it saddens me to think that poorly written, lazily designed, comeback vehicles for over the hill actors is where the movie-musical genre is heading.

[Parsley]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:10pm

"and the screenwriters tried to make Pfieffer and Latifah's roles larger in order to mask how poorly Travolta actually did."

So is that the way round it works in cinema - they cast and film the piece, and THEN the screenwriters get involved? I must have missed a trick there!

[mateo]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:10pm

How can Leslie Dixon make Pfieffer and Latifah's roles larger to mask Travolta's portrayal.. if no filming had begun?

[ben4]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:15pm

Well, I mostly meant that they had tailored the role to be less significant and less challenging for the ineptly trained Travolta, but truth be told it isn't uncommon for a film to be rewritten during production and I have heard that some reshoots were done for the movie.

Updated On: 7/23/07 at 01:15 PM

[Parsley]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:18pm

what on earth? Get some credibility won't you, please.

Besides, how would beefing up 2 other roles mask another's? If it were as poor or "inept" as you suggest then no amount of beefing up would mask it.

[mateo]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:21pm

I actually dont think any reshoots were done. At least none of the main characters.

If you look toward the end of the movie they had to repurpose a shot of Edna on the phone from an earlier scene- had they refilmed - they might have gone back and filmed that sequence.

Updated On: 7/23/07 at 01:21 PM

[LoringsGuy]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:24pm

Travolta's casting wasn't a stunt---it was necessary to get the film made. I believe Marc Shaiman himself has actually said that in order for the studio to greenlight the project, they had to get Travolta's buy-in because he is considered in the industry to be the only leading male actor who could "open" a musical film (based on Grease and Saturday Night Fever).

Regarding the script being re-written throughout production: you can bet that the script was revised AFTER certain actors were cast to take advantage of (or downplay) whatever it was they brought to the table.

[Bruce Memblagh!]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:24pm

Ben4 are you making half this stuff up? I am totally unsure where you are getting your 'ideas' from. It merely sounds that because you have an issue with the film (as you never seem to cease going on about) you are going to say anything to attempt to stick the boot in. Or are you doing so for the sake of getting noticed?

Posted: 7/23/07 at 1:43pm

I thought the film was good, not great. But an overall fun time.

I actually really liked John Travolta. He brought a lot of heart and sympathy to the character and it was a very realistic approach. I'm glad he wasn't an over-the-top ham, which he could have done easily. And he still had plenty of comedic moments. LOVED the Tina Turner moves during "YCSTB"

Nikki was good, but sometimes I felt like she sounded as if she were reading the script for the first time. Her actually acting could be better. Great singing voice though. Much better than Marissa's.

Amanda Bynes was great acting wise, great comedic timing, but her voice, while solid, was nowhere near as good as the women who have sung the hell out of Penny on stage.

Zac Efron needs acting lessons, and his singing is flat (not pitch wise, but there's no life to his singing). But he could've been worse. He wasn't bad, he was just sorta there. A "meh" performance, to be so eloquent.

Elijah Kelly is BRILLIANT. Hands down the best actor and singer in the film.

Christopher Walken was good. Not much to say about him.

Allison Janney was hillarious, but underutilized.

The actress who played Lil' Inez was perfect. (I don't know her name). I love her voice and she's so cute!

James Mardsen is very talented. I enjoyed his Corny and usually I'm very apathetic towards the actors who play him on stage.

Michelle Phiffer and Brittany Snow were adequate actors, but they need singing lessons.

And Queen Latifah was excellent. Her "I Know Where I've Been" was very effective.

All in all, the performances were not a problem to me.

***

To me, the fact is, the movie just didn't have the energy of the stage show. On stage, it's basically a 2 and a half hour adrenaline rush. The dancing, the timing, the pace, everything is just so vibrant and that's why Hairspray is one of my favorite shows.

On film, the energy gets lost in translation. Yes, there was tons of dancing, but most of the dancing faded into the background while the stars were singing front and center doing the more minimized steps.

It just felt like it dragged on a little too much....I'm surprised the movie is only 97 minutes long, b/c while I was in the theatre, it felt like it was almost as long as the stage show.

So yeah, for me the pacing really marred down the film. But it is, by far Adam Shankman's best film to date and I'm really happy that he did a good if not great job of the film. Then again, I'm not sure how much better it could have been because like I said, it's pretty hard to capture the live energy on show in a film. It might even be impossible.

Grade: 7/10, B

I liked it, but I thought Dreamgirls and (dare I say it, RENT *I really liked the RENT film, thank you very much) were better.

P.S. To me, Nikki looks SO MUCH like Riki Lake did back in 88. It's almost uncanny. She's a pretty young girl.

Updated On: 7/23/07 at 01:43 PM

[ben4]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 2:34pm

No need to attack... all I said was that it isn't uncommon for scripts to be rewritten prior to and during production (Did you know The Island was actually a hitchcockian scifi morality tale before Michael Bay signed on as its director?).

I had heard a rumor about reshoots awhile ago, somewhere on the net, but perhaps it wasn't true... no biggie.

Besides, I still maintain that Travolta was brought in despite not being adequate for the role. No matter how much clout or box-office appeal an actor has, I still think it's necessary for them to possess atleast some amount of talent in order to effectively recreate the role for film.

Granted, in the past many movie-musicals had done some pretty bizarre casting choices that I wasn't sure about. I really didn't think Beyonce was right for Dreamgirls and had no clue who Jhud was. And who knew Richard Gere could tap dance? (He couldn't sing, but his charisma and dedication made up for it in the performance) So having been pleasantly surprised before, I assumed that Travolta was cast because the producers/casting agents really thought he could pull it off.

Now I know many people like the movie and really love Travolta's performance, but frankly it's hard for me to not think that the films script revolved around Travolta and his abilities or lack thereof. And maybe that's why I just didn't enjoy it. That same charisma and relationship that was in the story between Tracy and Edna before is now more of a sub plot (an ineffective one).

The film instead plays up the "Tracy as a Crusader for Integration" angle (Which was in my opinion always the weakest part of the musical) and a lot of the Baltimore Crabs Vs. Tracy stuff seemed really contrived (Especially the scene between Pfeiffer and Walken).

I know I'm in the minority in my opinions, but it's not like I'm pretending to hate the movie. I actually really hated it and I feel like I need to express this now before we have to endure other stunt/publicity/boxoffice appeal casting.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 2:39pm

ben4---If you go back to the original Hairspray movie, Divine's "Edna" was definitely a supporting role.

They only beefed it up for the musical and for Harvey. I didn't have any problem with them toning it back down again (per the original film).

[DrTheatre]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 2:45pm

Many have mentioned that there are some wholes in the film and we have to remember a lot of things were filmed and cute. Some songs (including Tracy's solo)...there were two arrest scenes that were cut...one for Velma(well more escorted by police than arrested) and one for Edna and the protest gang....those scenes were not in the film and if they were (especially the one for Velma being escorted out of the studio) might have explained what happened more in closure to them and that they did not join in to learn there lesson...well in a way they did learn their lesson..was just not seen on film since they cut that scene, but I am sure it will be ont he DVD

[Kalimba]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 3:13pm

Ben4, did you audition for one of the dancers but got cut? Because you're certainly going out of your way to rip this movie to shreads (right down to the design aspects).

The reviews were extremely favorable, their weekend figures were excellent, etc., so they must have done something right, don't you think?

The powers that be actively courted Travolta for the role of Edna. They didn't make any bones about it when being interviewed.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 3:25pm

Well, for comparison's sake, I'll say I loved (and prefered) Chicago, and I haven't seen Dreamgirls.

[ben4]

Posted: 7/23/07 at 3:29pm

I'm just bewildered that people can say it's better than Chicago, Moulin Rouge, and Dreamgirls without even considering the merits of those three films.

Sure, it's all personal opinion. But how people can even compare three works of art that redefined the movie musical genre to a piece of fluffy entertainment that relies on nostalgia and people's curiousity to see Travolta in drag is just beyond me.