Musical

Legacies – Salvatore: The Musical!

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Legacies – Salvatore: The Musical!
  • wiki: link

Legacies - Salvatore: The Musical! television review

Legacies offers its version of a musical episode with “Salvatore: The Musical!” Unlike how several different shows have handled the concept, the characters don’t suddenly burst into song. Instead, all the musical numbers are saved for the second-half of the episode in which the show puts on its first musical. The episode’s events are caused by the release of a Sprite from Malivore, taking the form of the school’s guidance counselor Robin Goodfellow (T.J. Ramini). The monster distracts the students for a time while playing with MG (Quincy Fouse) who keeps discovering the Sprite’s secret only to forget before he can tell anyone else, which provides one of the best running gags of the series. Although Goodfellow’s actions are initially cruel, pushing characters apart and causing conflict and anger, ultimately they are able to bring several characters closer together.

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People Suck in Indiana

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Prom
  • IMDb: link

The Prom movie reviewAdapted from the stage musical, The Prom sends a group of Broadway performers (Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannells) to Indiana looking for a cause to turn around public opinion about their narcissistic nature. What they find is a teenage high school student (Jo Ellen Pellman) denied the right to take her girlfriend (Ariana DeBose) to the prom.

Directed by Ryan Murphy, The Prom is a bawdy life-affirming story populated by mostly paper-thin characters walking through the plot to set-up the next song and dance number. While Corden has received the most criticism for a stereotypical performance, other than the two girls in love, none of the characters have any more depth than a damp sponge. Pellman turns out to be one of the best casting choices as the beautiful young woman who wants nothing more than to be herself, and DeBose manages to steal a moment with her performance of “Alyssa Greene.”

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Rocketman

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Rocketman
  • IMDb: link

Rocketman Blu-ray reviewA biopic of Elton John, Rocketman is a serviceable but forgettable film noteworthy only for Taron Egerton performance in the title role. Other than admitting to the fact that Elton John was gay, came from bad parents, and struggled with drugs and alchol, the film doesn’t offer much insight to his life. Oddly, the most memorable moments involving John’s songwriting seem taken directly out of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I honestly don’t know if writer Lee Hall and director Dexter Fletcher wanted us to laugh with or at the film (I did plenty of both). Although there are certainly comparisons one can make in terms of story and style, Rocketman is less successful than Bohemian Rhapsody whose big musical numbers far outshine even the best moments here.

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Guilty Pleasure – Coyote Ugly

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Coyote Ugly
  • IMDb: link

Coyote Ugly DVD review

Throwback Thursday takes us back to… wait, has it really been 19 years? Piper Perabo stars in 2000’s Coyote Ugly as aspiring songwriter Violet Sanford who leaves the comfort of her sleepy New Jersey suburb to move to New York City and become a singing barmaid at a trendy bar known for its attractive waitresses dancing on the bar.

While not what one would call objectively good (sappy and predictable are both apt descriptions), the movie does work as a guilty pleasure mostly for Perabo’s lead performance, the high energy from her often scantily-clad co-stars (Izabella Miko, Bridget Moynahan, Tyra Banks), and the film’s soundtrack sporting four songs written by Diane Warren (which proved more successful than the film itself).

The larger supporting cast includes Maria Bello as the bar’s gruff owner with a heart of gold, Adam Garcia as Violet’s love interest (who is thrown together with Violet in a sickeningly-sweet meet-cute), and John Goodman as Violet’s disapproving father, both of her move to New York and how she spends her nights.

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Yesterday

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Yesterday
  • IMDb: link

Yesterday movie review

Yesterday is a feel-good summer movie with a non-traditional leading man, an intriguing idea, and a terrific soundtrack. The film has everything it needs to succeed, but, despite being thoroughly entertaining for much of its running time, never reaches the heights it should given what it has to work with. Even enjoying Yesterday for what it is, it’s hard not to be at least a bit disappointed for what it might have been.

The set-up is simple. A struggling musician (Himesh Patel) wakes up to a world where only he remembers the Beatles. Remembering enough of their music to pass off some of their hits as his own, he finds fame and popularity for the first time while feeling the weight of his lie and the the ever-increasing pressure to continue to produce more and more of the band’s hits. Although it does corner our protagonist into only one likely outcome, leaving little room for surprises (other than one small twist involving the recurring appearance of a pair of ominous characters), when director Danny Boyle‘s film stays focused on Jack Malik’s (Patel) musical rise to stardom (and the humorous moments involved, such as trying to remember the lyrics to “Elanor Rigby“) the movie is everything you want for light summer viewing.

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