I thought the original film was much better, mainly because of it's sensational cast. Carol, Bernadette, Tim, and Ann were so amazing, and the ending was much more exciting.
We seem to clunk heads all the time, jazz lol. Yes, as a whole I thought the 90's film was better. While I do agree that the 80's cast was superior to the 90's cast ( except Aileen Quinn) I thought the tv movie as a whole was better. The 80's film felt rushed and the added songs really just weren't good. It was a very messy project.
i'm afraid I agree that the tv version was better. the ending especially of the original film was a problem for me, burnette suddenly doing an about face and trying to save annie. nope.
overall, nothing can possibly top the original Andrea McArdle version, that alas, has only been in my head for these last 35 years, since I never got to see it.
Chicago. For sure. But, I am basing my opinion off of the current Broadway production. I also saw it with Billy Ray Cyrus, so.... that pretty much explains itself.
I'd say the Hedwig and the Angry Inch movie is at least as good as the musical (and yes, I saw the original).
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Oh and Evita. I really think the film is underestimated and fixes some of the waste in the show. I do hate the lip-syncing though.
The Evita film is maddening because there are some things that ARE really well done (Alan Parker really nailed the crowd scenes and bigger spectacles that couldn't be done in a theater, imo) and some things that are absolutely terrible.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
The Sound of Music, even if I wish they did have the songs for the Baroness State Fair for sure (either version, although I like the later one better, truth be told-Ann Margaret was excellent) I think My Fair Lady and Chicago are equivalent to the productions I saw (I saw pretty much the entire original revival cast-Ann Reinking was the only one I didn't see. I also saw some excellent replacement casts. I have not seen it since it moved to the Ambassador.) My Fair Lady I'm mixed on because of Audrey Hepburn's lip synching. (I know Christopher Plummer is but somehow since it's not as big of a singing role I don't feel as strongly about it.)
Limiting this to cases where I've seen both the Musical and Film in question:
The Apartment (not saying I don't enjoy PROMISES, but the film is one of my favorites) Chicago Elf Monty Python and the Holy Grail Shrek
I love both the film and stage versions of ONCE too much to compare them to each other.
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
Couldn't have said it better, givesmevoice. The EVITA film really is horrible and the only things Parker got right were the crowds and the spectacle aspect. Everything else went downhill.
I think everything about the Hairspray film was as good as the stage show, with one glaring exception:
John Travolta as Edna. It was an interesting idea to drown him under latex and try to get him to pass as a woman (rather than clearly a man in drag as a woman), it just didn't quite work for me. I think they should have cast Harvey or had Travolta do it without the "woman suit."
In any case, it makes me wince.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
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