Xanadu - Can't Stop The Music

Count me in as a Xanadu fan. I have the soundtrack and the DVD. I think that it had really great potential. The *idea* was great and was actually "borrowed" from an old Rita Hayworth flick. I'm a huge Gene Kelly fan so that's definitely a big plus and I also love ON-J.

Can't Stop The Music is another story altogether. I really can't stand that movie.

I like it!

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I think that's the flick that single-handedly ruined Valerie Perrine's career.

Yes she did. He was a dancer. Matt Lattanzi's his name. You can see him clearly dancing during the "Xanadu" and "All Over The World" sequences. She's older than him isn't she?

Dearest Jim Colyer,

I'm impressed. That's two threads you've started now that vaguely have to do with Musical Theatre, and not that crone Shania Twain.

This is duly noted.

For the record, I am also a Xanadu fan. Long Live Olivia!

Yours Sincerely,

Paradox_Error

(c) Paradox_Error 2005

Updated On: 4/16/05 at 07:20 AM

Xanadu is in a class by itself. If John Travola had been cast with Olivia in place of Michael Beck, there might have been more box office appeal. Travolta actually did a second film with Olivia Newton-John, Two of a Kind, but it was a dud. Broadway shows normally are made into movies. Xanadu would reverse the process, a movie becoming a Broadway show. One of the Xanadu sites claims that John Farrar (Olivia's producer) had a stage adaptation ready in 2002. Where is it? Jeff Lynne & ELO saved their best music for Xanadu. I'm Alive & Magic still haunt. The muses in the mural coming alive! Wow! Olivia as Kira! That there is a Xanadu preservation society says something. http://www.geocities.com/xanadupreservation/

Can't Stop The Music may have ruined Valerie Perrine's career or her career may have simply had limits. Valerie was a Las Vegas showgirl having a good time in the post-Vietnam/Watergate era. She was a marginal actress. She had a great body. She showed up in The Electric Horseman with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. The freedom of the disco years is legendary.

Jim Colyer

Updated On: 4/16/05 at 11:35 AM

Both films opened in the summer of '80 and tanked. But what a time to reflect on, nostalgically. The last breath of the disco era, before AIDS, Reagan, and the (fill in the blank). I remember seeing CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC at the Zigfield in NY, with about 100 people spread out in its cavernous space, there and the movie played at maximum Dolby levels (remember when "Dolby Sound" was an advertising come-on?) Yes, it was a different time, because people could smoke in the Zigfield balcony. Both movies are curious artificats of a distinctive slice of American culture.

Listen to Valerie's oddly portentious lines in MUSIC, all about how "the 80's are going to be soooo different," you can do and say and feel whatever you want! A sweet night of casual hook-up couldn't yet kill you, the country wasn't so obviously divided, and the big prognostication was that we were entering an era of "live and let live." If only... Who knew that such sentiments would seem so corny and naive?

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Updated On: 4/16/05 at 12:55 PM

XANADU is one of the best soundtracks EVER!

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You have to believe we are magic!

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Wow. I think I have to turn in my gay card or something.

*hands card to Marquise*

Wow, suddenly I like girls!
*grabs nearest single girl on BWW and kisses her*

I loved the Xanadu songs, but the movie went SOOOO SLOWLY. I loved that fact that they were muses, and that that man (forgot his name!!) tap danced...
I also love Zanna Don't! Get it? lol..I'm a little pathetic.

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