The Xanadu Appreciation Thread

Xanadu
1980, dir. Robert Greenwald
The Stars:Olivia Newton John, wispy voiced pop star and first crush of
many men now in their late 30's, early 40's.
Gene Kelly, huge film icon of the 40's, highly respected musician and dancer
Michael Beck, "Swan" in The Warriors whose career inexplicably hit the skids after this film.

Tagline: "A Fantasy, A Musical, A Place Where Dreams Come True."

The Story/Music:
"I'm Alive" performed by ELO, is the opening song to the movie- when the nine sisters come alive. Seldom has an opening sequence so effectively set the tone of a film: we zoom in past a grey, desolate world on a wall mural depicting the 9 muses and watch in wonder as they are brought to life through the music of Electric Light Orchestra (and weren't we all?):

In this scene of swirling diaphanous frocks we meet our heroine, Kira, who has returned to Earth to inspire an artist to create Xanadu. Enjoy with me the sequence where she springs forth into the 1980's (and didn't we all?):

It's worth noting at this point that the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1980 went to Sissy Spacek for "Coal Miner's Daughter".

"Magic" performed by Olivia, plays in the background as Sonny first meets Kira, in an abandoned building where she later intends to be the place to make his dreams come true.

The spell is cast. The magic begins!

This isn't Kira's first stint at musing a mortal into the biz we call show. Back in the 40's, she inspired a musician who apparently lost sight of his dream when she vanished. He now spends his days playing clarinet at the beach - the Los Angelean version of "hard living". "Whenever You're Away From Me"- sung by Olivia and Gene Kelly - shows them singing and dancing together back in the 40's - the memory comes to life and the dancing number for these two begin.

As is her wont, ONJ disappears into thin air at the end of this, leaving Danny dancing with himseh-elf. Oh, what might have been!


"Suddenly" sung by Olivia and Cliff Richard, plays in the background to Sonny and Kira's first night out rollerskating together. Special effects soar as they share a moment but when they get caught- they are chased out. Kira just so happens to bring Sonny back to the abandoned building where they met. Subtle, isn't she?!

"Dancin'" sung by Olivia and The Tubes, begins with Sonny and Danny standing in the middle of the deserted place where Kira inspired Sonny him to go. Danny sees a fabulous 40's band and dancers playing music, horns, trumpets and the female group singing oldies tune, dressed in elegance and style while Sonny sees an 80's Rock & Roll band, screaming guitars, wild dancing. While the song flips back and forth between 40's and 80's music- the outrageous scene brings the two bands together to produce a fantastic song with both bands entwined. Convincing both, that they can in fact bring their dreams to life. Even racial tensions are eased as blacks and whites learn that everybody's cool as long as they can dance.

In a shrewd bit of musical foreshadowing, "Don't Walk Away" sung by ELO, plays while Kira and Sonny celebrate the union of Xanadu. They appear in animation form, floating in the sky, swimming in the water as fish, then returning back to animated people, kissing as a flower closes with them in it.
awwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

"All Over The World" sung by ELO, plays in the background as the three of them go to the store to buy Danny clothes. Implying that he is going to need something with a bit of "Pizazz". Something with a little "Glitz", something that's "Hot" for the opening night. It's a lot of wheel-spinning, plot-wise, but hey, it's Gene Kelly!

The number ends with a quiet moment between Sonny and Kira. They're falling in love. And we're falling in love with their falling in love. And that's trouble, kids. Kira's a muse. She's lone wolf. And Sonny just doesn't get it, yet.

"The Fall" sung by ELO, plays while Sonny returns to the park on rollarskates. After having been told that Kira was only sent to make Xanadu happen, that she is only a muse- who inspires and then leaves- Danny, who realizes that without Kira, Sonny has no dream (remember his dismal fate as a beach musician), talks Danny into going after Kira. Getting the courage, Sonny skates through the painted wall in one of the most insanely romantic gestures ever filmed. Hitting a brick wall at top speed on skates could have seriously winded him, but it's a risk he's willing to take.

"Suspended In Time" performed by Olivia, after Sonny attempts to take Kira back to earth with him, a confused muse sings after discovering she has feelings. Feelings her parents can't understand. They only know of humans what they've learned from their mortal history class. (Historical note, even in 1980, that line really made people cringe.)

"Xanadu" performed by Olivia, as Xanadu's grand opening begins. Gene Kelly starts it off on rollarskates, Olivia performs and dances this number while the skaters, and dancers put on a show of their own. It's a musical extravaganza!

The dream is a reality and the muse got her man!

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

............ errrrm.

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Not quite sure what to post. I'm intrigued to watch it, yet at the same time i get the feeling pissing razors would be more enjoyable. The enthusiastic write up and, well iffy screen shots create a rather disconcerting juxtaposition. What am i missing?

Wow! I certainly appreciate the effort required to start this thread, if not the movie itself.

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"I know, honey. Look at the map. We go your way, that's about four inches. We go my way, it's an inch and a half. You wanna pay for the extra gas?"

Oh.my.god

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We all have movies that we love for some odd reason or another, even though objectively we KNOW they are irredeemable crap. And I'm not talking about a movie you think is underrated or the critics or audiences just didn't "get", I mean movies you know damn well are indefensibly awful, but you turn to them with fondness anyway.

My greatest guilty pleasure, though I've worked with a therapist to get to a place where I'm not really ashamed to admit it, is Xanadu.




Xanadu (1980). Horrid movie. A lame, completely misguided attempt at a '50s Hollywood Musical, but with the trappings and milieu of everything that was so very awful about the late '70s (hard to remember if there was anything GOOD about that time period, pop culture-wise). Olivia Newton-John stars as Kira, daughter of Zeus, one of the Nine Muses. Improbably enough she rollerskates around Venice Beach and literally runs into Sonny Malone (Michael Beck, The Warriors, MegaForce). Sonny is a painter who's lofty artistic temperament keeps getting him fired from his sell-out job of reproducing album cover art (???). Sonny then meets Danny McGuire, played by the one and only Gene Kelly. Danny is a one-time Big Band leader from the '40s who now spends his time drifting around the beach wistfully playing his clarinet. Kira's mysterious powers cause not only love for her (natch'!), but also inspires these two unfulfilled artists to team up and build a rollerdisco! No, really.

Of course there's plenty of singing and dancing along the way, with the bulk of the tunes provided by The Electric Light Orchestra. There's even an fantasy animation sequence by Don Bluth (All Dogs Go to Heaven, Titan A.E.). Plenty of cheesy effects that often look like an unconvincing mix of a blacklight poster and Tron. I absolutely adore Gene Kelly, but this movie is a waste of his time and considerable talents, even as diminished as they were by this stage of his life. For Xanadu to have been Kelly's last big screen Musical is a travesty.



And yet...I frippin' LOVE this damn movie. Believe me, I know exactly how dreadful it is in virtually every way conceivable, but I guess when I was eleven years old it tapped into something dark and cheesy inside me. This is the very definition of a guilty pleasure, though I don't know how "guilty" I am about it. I keep it out on the shelves in the daylight with my other movies, and not locked in the deep dark closet with the porno. I was oh-so-happy when it was released onto DVD, finally letterboxed at last! I own the soundtrack on vinal - lots of pops and scratches from repeated spins, as well as import CD (no 8-Track though). I often hate myself for liking this film, but damnit I do!


And as I always say in the "guilty pleasure" threads when this invariably comes up for me, let's see somebody beat THAT confession.



"A place where nobody dared to go,
the love that we came to know,
they call it Xanadu-ooo-ooo-ooo...."

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Did you have to do this on my anniversary?

Actually, much though I love ELO (one of my favorite groups of ALL time, honest! -- ask my kids!), this one line says it all:

"Michael Beck, 'Swan' in The Warriors whose career inexplicably hit the skids after this film."

"Inexplicably"? I think not.

Even sprinkling ELO throughout this movie couldn't save it. I couldn't even force myself to buy the soundtrack.

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heh... about 25 years of nostalgia, mainly.
For the time, this film was pretty cool - keeping in mind that at the time, I was 14.
Looking at it today, after the further development of Mtv, CGI, music, fashion, taste, etc... it's a guilty pleasure or the cause of a screaming migraine.
But for those of us who found ourselves immersed in a musical film for the first time, and introduced to magic realism, it was actually pretty mind-blowing.

The write up is mostly tongue-in-cheek.

You know... I threw mine away years ago, and dammit now I regret it!!

It was the latest mention in that thread, combined with having just read the "Best Movies of the 80's" thread that inspired me to write this.

I LOVED this film when it came out. I had the record... and the tunic, peasant skirt and legwarmers. I think those of us who experienced it at the time see it really differently than those who look back past exposure to Blade Runner, Tron, Mtv, etc. I still love the magic realism genre without apology. And I really do think parts of the story are hugely charming - especially the thing where Danny realises that Sonny has to have Kira for his dream to have meaning. I could reword that as "love is not an abstract concept', if I really wanted to soap-box, but it would only be undermined by the extreme cheese factor in the film. It's a delicate imbalance.

Two thumbs down for this piece of crap

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Okay, why is it that I keep getting notification emails for this thread stating that jrs is posting, but he's apparently only posting a single letter: h ... g.... ??

What am I missing? I'm soooooo confused.

Cool, doll. Very cool.

Never cared for the movie, but always loved the tunes. Right now I have All Over the World stuck in my head.

The main reason I never liked this film...Gene Kelley. For the same reason that Holden already mentioned. I saw Singin' in the Rain for the first time while I was still in training pants, and have always loved him. Seeing him reduced to this always made me sad and angry. I know it was his choice, but still.

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it's not only this thread linda...he's done it on others as well...

i have never seen this film, probably due to the fact that i never got into olivia newton-john...and the fact that this film got a really bad write up (but that usually never stopped me, i love mannequin, talk about bombs, that's one of MY guilty pleasures)

they used to show this quite a lot...i will just have to sit down sometime it shows up again and watch it...i do like gene kelly...

thanks for this thread sammy

Wow, that's weird then. This morning in another thread I got a notification that he'd posted ... welll, nothing. I clicked there and sure enough, no evidence of his presence at that point in the thread. Silly like bird, ain't he?

As for Xanadu ... I don't think I've ever actually seen it shown on TV anywhere around here on any channel. Not that I've been looking, mind you. If it does show up at some point, maybe I'll watch it out of perverse curiosity (and an undying love for ELO)....

Not that I'd tell YOU guys about it.

Ive noticed this as well and its been bugging me a bit. Sometimes i turn on my email and see that i have 30 new messages, and when i get all excited thinking i have friends, it just turns out theyre notification emails from MOFO where jrs has made a post with three letters in it.

Come on Jrs, fess up! What you doing?

As for this wonderful thread Sammy, all i can say is....


I MUST SEE THIS FILM

Screw Rashomon for movie club, lets rent this!

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

I remember when it first came out. I was excited to see it because I also adored Gene Kelly and Olivia was...well the pop sweetie I loved to hear or see anything about.

I'm not sure how far I sat through this...all I know is I just couldn't take seeing Gene like that (and cringing), and left the movie. The first time I've ever done that. Fortunately, after all these years, I've blocked it out of my mind...he's still godly to me and can't do wrong.



Ok...Sammy...since you and Holden love the type of cheese that's in this movie.....maybe I should check it out again. I have been into cheese lately, so maybe I can appreciate it better this time around.

I love Xanadu...but I wouldn't recommend it to ANYbody. Your instinct to flee was the correct one.




*and look here, Xanadu fans:

an interview with Michael Beck.

Yes, because at least a dozen or so fans demanded it, on June 24th comes a new special edition DVD of Xanadu complete with new interviews and features, digitally remastered picture and a new 5.1 audio track plus the entire soundtrack CD.




And yes, I'm sure I'll buy it.

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