Tuesday, December 27, 2005

All-dancing Nazis

Never really been one for musicals – they tend to be low-budget, low-effort opera with all the emotional truth of soft porn. But I’ve seen two musicals in as many days.

Saw the Sound of Music yesterday, for the first time ever. Can see why the Dr got giggly. As well as being fun – a lot of the appeal in Maria’s clumsiness and silly faces – its last half-hour really lifts it up. Laughed at Liesl, who’s meant to be sixteen, and found it a bit odd that little Friedrich is Spider-Man while the suave Captain’s also a bald Klingon.

(Via which link I've learnt a new word: fanon. Christ.)

It could easily all have ended with the wedding and still been a memorable girlie movie. The Anschluss gives a jolly, frothy story some real depth. Rolfe is an interesting character, and I genuinely didn’t know which way it would go in his final confrontation with von Trapp. Would he shoot? Would he let them go? Would he flee with them? Blimey.

Today we ambled down to Beckenham to see The Producers. Knew I’d seen the original, but couldn’t remember how it all played out due to mixing it up in my head with Cabaret. Which, as the Dr pointed out, is not the same. She laughed and laughed, and it’s all good fun.

Though Captain Jack is scary in his blue contact lenses.

1 comment:

0tralala said...

Mission Impossible's Jim Phelps is on the Sound of Music DVD, fronting a documentary about the real von Trapps. Is this recursion?