Sunday, August 26, 2012

Why the Hell Did I Watch..."Xanadu"

A dangerous mix led me to watch this, friends: morbid curiosity, loneliness, and the naive belief that, "Well, 'Ruby Sparks' was good. So maybe I'll like the same thing, only done much, much worse!"
So, what are the problems with the intoxicatingly bad "Xanadu," where a muse inspires an artist and a former bandleader to do, um, something? 

1.) Our protagonist's main attribute is that chicks dig him. And Michael Beck plays this role with a level of aloof entitlement that makes it impossible to like the guy. I can picture the director shouting, "Make us hate you, dahling!" 

2.) The movie's main conflict doesn't come along for an hour, so get ready to enjoy dance sequences that look like they were shot inside the world's biggest Lite-Brite. 

3.) Gene Kelly, who's like 106 here, has a dance sequence with Olivia Newton-John, a wonderful singer but a stiff dancer, that looks like it was filmed in slow-motion.

4.) Roller disco! 

5.) There's not enough acid I could take that could help me recreate the plot.

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