Moviefone: "Xanadu: Embracing the Cheesy Goodness!"

[JamesG]

Second Look: Xanadu -- Embracing the Cheesy Goodness!
August 6, 2010 | By: Marina Zogbi


Sunday marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Xanadu, the fantasy musical starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly that in many ways symbolized the glittery excesses of the late '70s.


Directed by Robert Greenwald (who recently helmed several hard-hitting documentaries), Xanadu was inspired by the '70s roller-disco craze and featured eye-boggling singin'/dancin'/skatin' scenes to music by Electric Light Orchestra, among other artists.

While Newton-John was following up the mega-successful Grease, legendary hoofer Kelly was re-entering his movie-musical career after a long hiatus.






The movie received mixed reviews and was a box office bomb, though its soundtrack would spawn several hits. Post-Xanadu, both stars would virtually abandon Hollywood, with Newton-John concentrating on music (she'd release the double-platinum 'Physical' LP the next year).






So, how does the movie hold up today? Has time been kind, or is it even cheesier than we remembered?



Thanks to endearing performances by its cast, healthy doses of camp, and general air of playfulness, the movie is surprisingly entertaining, especially if you have any nostalgia for the time period.

It may be slight, silly and stylistically muddled, but in these cynical days Xanadu comes off as, well, refreshing. And who doesn't enjoy nicely aged cheese?
















The Story:


Michael Beck, fresh from The Warriors, plays Sonny, a frustrated artist toiling at an L.A. record label, where he paints enlargements of album covers. He becomes smitten with the image of a girl on a cover; she turns out to be Kira (Newton-John, looking lovelier than ever), a Muse sent to inspire him (knowledge of Greek mythology helpful but not required).




Sonny glimpses Kira rolling around town and finally catches up with her in a decrepit old Art Deco theater where she practices skating, but she's elusive and slips away.

Meanwhile, he meets Danny (Kelly), a clarinetist who once owned a club in New York City and played with Glenn Miller before giving up music for a career in construction. He dreams of opening another music joint and enlists Sonny to help.

Turns out that a singer who looks remarkably like Kira was his Muse back in the day.





Kira, who's starting to return Sonny's feelings, suggests the old theater for the new club. Danny excitedly imagines the place filled with elegant, tux-wearing guests dancing to Big Band music while Sonny envisions a rocking New Wave-ish band with writhing dancers.

Both visions compete with each other in a gigantic musical number before converging in a cheerful hybrid. "I love it!" cries Danny.






When Kira shows up at the theater reciting a few lines from Coleridge's poem 'Kubla Kahn' (which mentions Xanadu), Danny recognizes his Muse from the past and they agree on the name for the new club.

Sonny again tries to pin her down and she's evasive ("I live with my sisters"), but they finally kiss and morph into a fantastically corny animation.




As their relationship (chastely) heats up, Kira finally reveals that she's Terpsichore, the Muse of dance (and, obviously, rollerskating) and again flees the forbidden romance.

Sonny eventually finds her by skating right into an outdoor wall mural of the Muses, behind which is apparently Mt. Olympus. Though Zeus (or at least, his voice) is against Kira joining humanity because "other people have dreams," an older goddess sways the big guy into granting Kira either one night or forever on earth -- the gods can never get human time straight.


No, plot isn't a strong point.







Then! A phantasmagorical opening night takes place at Xanadu, during which Kira and the Muses perform various numbers, then disappear, but she later reappears as a waitress delivering a drink (and eternal love?) to Sonny.


The End.















The Stars:


• Newton-John is a sweet, upbeat presence whose almost otherworldly prettiness makes her Musehood believable.


• Kelly, looking splendid at age 67, seems to have lost none of his dancing (or skating) skills, and his character is a lovable throwback to classic musicals.


• Beck is likable enough; despite an Andy Gibb-like shag and general cuteness, his subsequent movie career never took off.










Special Effects/Visuals:


• Kira and her "sisters" are often outlined in glowing neon, representing their otherworldliness.


• Costumes are very much of the era: lots of body hugging, brightly-colored spandex, feathered hairdos and legwarmers.


• Many of the sets in general are eye-hurtingly colorful, not necessarily in a bad way.










Dialogue:


Simplistic but fitting for what's basically a fairy tale:

"Dreams die."
"Not by themselves. We kill them."
"So here we are, someone who believes that dreams come easy ..."
"And someone who doesn't know what they believe in."


Brilliant banter would be so beside the point, anyway.










Music:


The soundtrack, which contained five Top 20 singles including 'Magic,' 'Xanadu' and 'All Over the World,' is a dizzying mishmash of styles, including The Tubes' hard campy rock, ELO's big symphonic sound, '40s swing and late 20th century showtuney pop.


Oddly, it works.










The Big Numbers:


There are several musical numbers, choreographed by Kenny Ortega ('MIchael Jackson's This is It') among others, that went straight to camp heaven:

• The aforementioned Rockers versus Big Band showdown ('Dancin''), which is awesome.


• The animated Disney-ish duet between Kira and Sonny ("Don't Walk Away') -- pure, unmitigated cheese.


• The scene ('All Over the World') in which Kira and Sonny take Danny shopping for opening night "glitz," featuring Kelly in a variety of pimp-worthy outfits (yet somehow always looking elegant) -- mind-bogglingly great.


• The climactic opening night of Xanadu -- dancers roller-boogie, pop/lock and execute many other types of choreography -- which morphs into several different themes, each starring Newton John and the Muses performing in increasingly wilder outfits. Amazing.














This is a movie that, in retrospect, was just begging to be made into a Broadway musical (which finally happened in 2007).

While the stage version was pure camp, the movie straddles the fine line between awesomely bad and wildly entertaining. Those looking purely for fun will definitely find it in Xanadu.

http://insidemovies.moviefone.com/20...d-look-xanadu/

[MrCleveland]

I didn't like the ending much and I wish they would've gave everyone else better scenes besides Gene Kelly...who had the best scenes in "Xanadu".

Here's the best scene from that film....

[dakert]

Instead of Cheesy, Campy and Corny--Cant people just say FUN????

Xanadu was a Fun movie

[catlover79]

I've seen Xanadu so many times it's not even funny. Even though the movie tanked, ONJ doesn't mind being associated with it, as to this day she still sings the title song and "Magic" in her concerts. I found the trailer:



And do you believe me now, Sonny?

[JamesG]

Originally Posted by catlover79

I've seen Xanadu so many times it's not even funny. Even though the movie tanked, ONJ doesn't mind being associated with it, as to this day she still sings the title song and "Magic" in her concerts.

Michael Beck has also somewhat embraced the film. In a 2005 interview he recognized the film as a "cult classic" of sorts and is glad that there are people that enjoy it.

A while ago, one of his famous quotes was, "'The Warriors' opened a lot of doors in film for me, which 'Xanadu' then closed."



His film career never took off and he pretty much did bit parts in various television series for the most of his career.

According to IMDB, his last credited work was providing his voice for The Warriors video game in 2005.

[catlover79]

Michael Beck has also narrated quite a lot of audiobooks - like Bill Clinton's autobiography and almost the entire John Grisham catalog.

Here's an article I found about him from a few years ago:

http://www.themorningnews.org/archiv...me_to_know.php

The Love That We Came to Know
Love! Romance! Roller skates! Xanadu actor Michael Beck comes to town, and SARAH HEPOLA reflects on what the movie meant to an entire generation of little girls (and boys) who wanted to be Olivia Newton-John.

In the middle of a roller rink, underneath a glittering disco ball, Michael Beck answers questions about the movie that ruined his career.

‘What was it like to kiss Olivia?’

He chuckles. ‘Well, I’d just gotten engaged to my wife.’

‘Were the legwarmers to hide Olivia’s thick ankles?’ asks someone else.

‘I plead the fifth!’ he says.

No one quite knows what to ask Michael Beck, because no one knows anything about him. Everything that came after 1980—the wife and two kids, the decades of television cameos and reading books on tape—is invisible. To the crowd assembled here, wearing hair ribbons and roller skates, Michael Beck is still Sonny Malone, a frustrated artist who falls in love with a comely muse on roller skates played by Olivia Newton-John. The crowd of twenty- and thirty-somethings is trying to reconcile that Michael Beck—the shirtless vests, the Andy Gibb good looks—with this silver-haired gentleman in a loose sweater and fitted slacks.

‘What are you doing now?’ someone shouts.

‘I’m writing a novel.’

No one asks him what it’s about. They do, however, repeatedly ask him to roller-skate.

Beck has come to Austin, Texas, for an odd kind of celebration. Odd because the film being honored is 23 years old and largely considered one of the worst movies ever. The London Evening News called it ‘the most dreadful, tasteless movie of the decade. Indeed, of all time.’ And yet, it is beloved by the people gathered here tonight. They know the lyrics, they know the dances. For them (okay, for us) it has some ineffable pull. It calls to us with its familiar, soaring songs. It calls to us with its legwarmers, its turquoise and pink, its zebra stripes. It calls to us from another age entirely, from a moment when the sun shone neon.

And we call it Xanadu.

This kind of fandom was just what Universal hoped for when they released the film. They had launched a then-unprecedented marketing blitz, including television specials and even a Xanadu clothing line. MCA Records president Bob Singer boasted that by the time Xanadu came out, everyone in America would have heard the name six to eight times. One studio head boldly pronounced, ‘We all know that Saturday Night Fever and Grease saved our business in 1978, and Xanadu will save it in 1980.’

Xanadu was unsinkable. Like the HMS Titanic.

The film began as a modern, roller-skating version of the 1947 Rita Hayworth romance Down to Earth, about a muse named Terpsichore who charms a Broadway director into rewriting his upcoming play and, in so doing, produces a flop. But Xanadu certainly had its own share of script changes— after the 1979 films Skatetown U.S.A and Roller Boogie capitalized on the skating phenomenon, executives frantically tried to spin Xanadu as a ‘timeless romance.’

‘We really wanted to make an old-fashioned Hollywood musical,’ producer Lee Kramer said. Of course, there was the small matter of all those roller skates.

Critics savaged the film upon its release. And yet, to a certain niche audience, Xanadu was nothing short of magic.

I was six years old when I saw Xanadu in the theatre. For months afterward, I danced in my bedroom to the soundtrack—a joint effort by ELO and Olivia Newton-John—with my feet brushing across the red shag carpet, my arms swiveling overhead. ‘Have to believe we are magic! / Nothing can stand in our way!’

‘Magic,’ #1 in the summer of 1980, was a fitting anthem for a generation of girls who dreamed of waking up one morning, walking over to the mirror, and finding Olivia Newton-John’s face in the reflection. We dressed like her. We wore our makeup like her. Her magical transformation in the Grease—from gawky to goddess—was an endless source of false hope. When Livvy appeared in the video for ‘Physical’ with short hair and a headband, I snipped off my long curly locks and wrapped a ribbon around my forehead. It was a grave and painful miscalculation.

‘Sarah got in a fight with the weed whacker, and the weed whacker won!’ a kid in my class joked the next day. Looking back on my life, I can see it was the moment when everything turned sour.

But two decades later, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was browsing through a record store in 2001 when I found the familiar blue-and-maroon CD case. This old thing? I turned it over to find the songs like old friends—‘I’m Alive,’ ‘Suddenly,’ ‘Don’t Walk Away-ee-ay.’ I felt a familiar tug, as though I had to pee, or blast ELO till my face melted. At home, listening to the ancient songs in my bedroom, I knew I had found a kind of Rosetta Stone to my youth. ‘The love, the echoes of long ago / You needed the world to know / They are in Xanadu.’ I was six years old again. I was in love. And I wasn’t the only one.

Around the turn of this century, after spending decades as a punchline, Xanadu made a comeback. Midnight screenings packed in audiences. In Los Angeles, there was Xanadu Sing-Alongs and Xanadu Live! actress Amy Pietz’s tongue-in-cheek stage version of the film. ELO’s Jeff Lynne, who had long distanced himself from the whole miserable project, released Flashback, featuring his own performance of the infamous title track. Olivia Newton-John’s longtime composer John Farrar was reportedly at work on a Broadway version of the show. Reed Johnson’s 2002 Los Angeles Times piece about Xanadu obsession christened the film’s renaissance as a genuine cult phenomenon, dubbing its legion of fans ‘Museheads’ (a term I hadn’t heard before or since).

In Austin, a local comedy troupe played to sold-out theatres every night by roasting Xanadu as it played on screen. The attitude toward the film was one of tender disdain—mocking the bad acting and limp, almost-nonsensical script while acknowledging a certain dopey charm. It’s certainly a bad movie by any critical standards. And yet, whenever I see Xanadu, I am struck by the ambitiousness of its discrete parts. A brilliant soundtrack by ELO. Glorious gel-backlighting. Gene ****ing Kelley. A long (albeit pointless) animated sequence by Don Bluth in which the lead characters turn into fish and birds. In one fantasy sequence set to the song ‘Dancin’,’ two separate musical numbers—‘80s rock (performed by the Tubes) and ‘40s swing—literally become one, the sounds and the sets merging together. It’s not the crane shot from Goodfellas, but hey, it’s not bad.

Some Xanadu fans go much further in defending the film. When William S. Repsher tossed off a clever rip on Xanadu for Leisure Suit in 1999, it kickstarted an epic and unironic conversational thread that is still going on today.

‘XANADU IS THE BEST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN!’ one writes.

‘I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone could possibly love this movie more than me!’ writes another. ‘I would breathe, sleep, live, and even EAT Xanadu if it were at all within my power. Just ask my little dog, Sonny Malone.’

The site has become a meeting ground for the film’s rabid fans, and reading through the 60,000-word-plus thread is a jaw-dropping example of the Internet’s ability to bring like-minded lunatics together. Months after his review ran, author Repsher marveled at the overwhelming number of emails he’d received, and wrote, ‘The continued response to this article is a sure sign that the apocalypse is nigh upon us.’

It’s four years later, and the fans aren’t done yet.

‘That feeling that I get from watching, hearing, or talking about [Xanadu] just can’t compare to any drug I’ve had!’ writes one. ‘And trust me, I’ve experienced them all!’

In the film, Xanadu is the name of a roller disco with the power to transcend time. In the finale, after Olivia Newton-John descends from her neon cage in heaven for one last appearance on earth (long story), she performs a series of musical numbers that whisk her through various epics—from ‘30s cigarette girl to Old West cowgirl to futuristic goddess—as though this place, this Xanadu, could literally transport her.

Of course, this is just a metaphor for what music does in our lives. Just a few well-chosen notes and we can plummet through the trapdoor, find ourselves in another world entirely. Back in childhood, back in love. In a roller-rink in Austin, perhaps, listening to Michael Beck.

‘I have found over the years that there are tons of people for whom this movie really means something,’ Beck says. For decades, director Robert Greenwald has received fan mail from teenage girls praising the film. Which is to say, critics be damned, maybe Xanadu is a timeless romance. It’s hard to imagine that the Great Films of 1980—Ordinary People, which won Best Picture, or Raging Bull, which should have—would attract so many to the Playland Skate Center on a Thursday night. And their audiences certainly wouldn’t be wearing white toga dresses.

Later, after the Q&A, the skaters return to the rink. Some of them hold hands. Some of them skate backward. Some of them topple and fall spectacularly, spinning to a stop on the ground like a breakdancer.

The DJ has saved the best song for last. The lights dim and the neon throbs as the skaters blur past, arms swiveling overhead. Their lips mouth the familiar sounds. ‘And they call it Xan-uh-doooo-uuh-oooh. Uh-OOH-ooh.’


Sarah Hepola would like to thank the following for their help with this article: The Xanadu Preservation Society, Tim League and the Alamo Drafthouse, Mr. Sinus Theatre, and the music of the great Jeff Lynne.