Update on "Carousel" Movie Musical

Old news, hun, do a search, please.

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Well, it would have to be better than the unwatchable old Shirley Jones version...

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You think Hugh Jackman and anyone in hollywood now doing their own singing is going to be better than the original? I can't stand Hugh Jackman's voice. Why remake this of all things? Why not something that REALLY needs it like A Chorus Line or A Little Night Music. Here's a thought...how about something that hasn't been made into a movie yet.

too sensitive and charming?! Did you see X-Men? As Sir Lawrence Olivier would say "My dear boy, why don't you try acting?"

"Didn't he do Carousel in concert with Audra McDonald as Julie at like Carnegie Hall or something a few years ago? "

Yes, he did, and he did get a lot of good reviews. I do remember reading a rave review by Howard Kissel

I have a hard time imagining this being made into a new movie musical that a lot of people are going to be that interested in seeing.

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I think John Waters got it right: Why do remakes of good movies? Remake horrible movies. That way you have a shot of improving on the old film. C'mon Hugh, get the rights to Heaven's Gate. Remake The Swarm.

Agreed that CAROUSEL is a really bad movie. If they did a remake and did it closer to the original stage play . . . then by all means, give it a shot.

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And you are more than good at it, toomey! You're great at it!!

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Clearly I'm a fan of the musical CAROUSEL.

I don't find the film version all that horrible...but I don't find it all that great either. It certainly didn't do justice to the original material.

I'd like to see Jackman take a crack at a new version of the film. I'd welcome a new generation of movie goers discovering CAROUSEL.

For me, in the best of all possible worlds, the '94 Lincoln center revival would have preserved...but I'll have to be content with my memories.

I wish Hugh Jackman all the luck in the world!

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Is Hugh Jackman right for the role?

I'd like to share excerpts from from Ben Brantley's rave review(NYTimes) of the stage concert version at Carnegie Hall in 2002.

http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9C04EED7153DF93BA35755C0A9649C8B63

"THEATER REVIEW; A Barker, a Mill Worker and Oh, That Fatal Chemistry
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By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: June 8, 2002, Saturday

Certain people, no matter what their size, seem to turn into giants when they set foot onstage. The Australian actor Hugh Jackman, as it happens, is a tall man. But that doesn't account for his towering presence on Thursday night at Carnegie Hall. It's not that Mr. Jackman, a fledgling movie star ('Kate and Leopold,' 'X-Men'), is larger than life. It's that he makes real life look large.

This fine alchemy was a distinct asset in the stirring concert presentation of 'Carousel,' a one-night benefit for Carnegie Hall. Mr. Jackman, a vibrant Curly in the recent London revival of 'Oklahoma!,' can switch on an embattled air of virility that, combined with his conversational way with a song, makes him a natural for the hardy heroes of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

With the incomparable Audra McDonald playing Julie Jordan to Mr. Jackman's Billy Bigelow, 'If I Loved You' -- that great yearning duet of awkward courtship -- never sounded more affecting. The tentativeness, the passion, the sweetness and the potential danger: all those elements seemed newly fresh as a rough-hewn carousel barker and a virginal factory worker once again resisted and succumbed to the laws of attraction in a coastal town in Maine in the 19th century...


Mr. Jackman's voice may not have the operatic richness of Ms. McDonald's, but it's a clean and deeply expressive instrument that brought an almost Shakespearean psychological intricacy to Billy's 'Soliloquy.' It must have been a bit daunting for Mr. Jackman to have John Raitt, the original Billy Bigelow of 1945, introduce the evening.

But without eclipsing Mr. Raitt's fully fleshed rendering of the character, which still leaps out at you from the first cast recording, Mr. Jackman put his own stamp on the role of a man of fatally divided impulses. He is indeed made for the musical stage. Let's hope that Hollywood doesn't make a prisoner of him."


Jo

That's the problem--I don't see how you can "modernize" it without destroying it. As soon as Billy hit Julie every woman in the audience would be screaming for her to leave him at once, and they'd probably cheer when he got killed. And to modern ears "What's the Use of Wonderin'" seems less like nobility and more like masochism. To say nothing of "It is possible, dear, for someone to hit you...very hard...and not hurt at all." Ick. I love CAROUSEL, but there's no getting away from the fact that those moments rankle (and not in a good way.)

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