Phantom of the Paradise: A Winnipeg Phenomenan

This thread idea came about from , of all places the "what are you listening while mofo'n " thread.

http://www.movieforums.com/community...d.php?p=669089


Now for the youngsters on the board that grew up in a world where home video rental of some form was always available, some of this may not make any sense whatsoever.

http://www.phantomoftheparadise.ca/why.html

interesting article on the phenomenon, among the factoids that defy conventional wisdom :

108,000 tickets were sold over an 18 week run (16 weeks longer than anywhere else)

Winnipeg accounted for 40 % of album sales that pushed the soundtrack to gold status.

I'm not sure what direction this thread will take.

By all means discuss the film , and maybe include examples of movies that did extra-ordinarilly well in your area for no apparent reason.

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

I love this film.. I just realized it from you that it was a failure..
Seems like people of Winnipeg have better taste than the rest of the world..

The Soundtrack certainly was clever in using several popular styles of music

Fleetwood Macish




a lil meatloaf-like
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Sha-na-na doo-woppish

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For me when i think of Paul Williams, i still think of him as Lil Enos from Smokey and the Bandit, which perturbs my wife to no end.

Nothing on that scale, but recently here in Portland, OR, the import animated feature A Town Called Panic did better here than anywhere else in the United States? Article HERE.

Why?!? Who knows? I mean, it's a good movie, and the three times I saw it theatrically the audiences seemed to love it. True word-of-mouth thing, even in this age of market saturation. It had three screenings at the Portland International Film Festival, but afterward stayed around for another three months in various theatres around town!

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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

On Saturday the Autograph Playhouse hosted the Baltimore Rock Opera Society's screening/performance of The Phantom of the Paradise "in 6D!"



My girlfriend and I had a great time at the show, which was a fantastic tribute to Brian De Palma's movie and Paul Williams' soundtrack.

The structure of the show was a combination movie/stage spectacle/rock concert. They projected the movie onto a giant cloth over the stage (with two other screens on either side of the stage showing live video feeds from within the theater) and whenever it came to a musical number, the theater would briefly go dark and when the lights came up, there'd be a band on the proscenium stage with actors playing out the scene on the thrust extension. These transitions were never quite seamless, and I imagine the show would have been less rewarding for people not-already-familiar with the film, but the music and performances were very polished and it's a great way to experience the movie, which has a lot of scenes of "live" music.

One of the show's many highlights was how pulled the "Somebody Super Like You" number straight from the movie, climaxing with the phantom sending a giant neon lightning bolt directly at Beef from across the theater in the projection booth.



They even simulated De Palma's 360° pan around Winslow during his piano solo, by having the actor and piano out on the thrust stage atop a hand-rotated riser. There was also a lot of participation from the (mostly-costumed) audience. I tried to take a lot of pictures but unfortunately the theater was a little too dark. If any of them came out I'll post them.

^ Loveeeeeeee Phantom of the Paradise and very jealous of the 6D performance you went to see!