Giles ,'Sleeper'
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Hilarious cruelty alert:
Of course, Lord Lloyd Webber's music is the whole point of the film, and Joel Schumacher, the director, does his best to find a visual style to match the vulgarity and pretentiousness of the soundtrack.
A. O. Scott (NY Times) vs. Phantom of the Opera. Scott 1, Opera 0.
And more hilarious cruelty about Phantom of the Opera from Salon:
Now it can be told: Although the press has connivingly led us to believe otherwise, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Joel Schumacher are really pseudonyms for two 11-year-old girls from Allentown, Pa., who, disgruntled because their parents wouldn't buy them canopy beds, decided to sit down and write themselves a musical, darn it. And they'd make a movie out of it, too, just you wait and see. "The Phantom of the Opera" is the long-awaited result.
I so totally had a pink canopy bed from the time I was 3 until I was 16 and it was totally old and falling apart, and you couldn't plop down on it with any sort of force or the box spring would fall through the frame and you'd crash to the floor. I can completely understand being bitter about not getting one, because it is the most awesome thing ever. So that would actually explain the awful punishment that is Phantom.
Lord Lloyd Webber's music
I wouldn't be this pedantic if it wasn't the New York Times and if I wasn't weirdly obsessed with correctness in such things, but it's "Lord Lloyd-Webber" with a hyphen. (Yes, even though "Andrew Lloyd Webber" doesn't have one.) Don't ask me how I know this.
Don't ask me how I know this.
How do you know this?
I wouldn't be this pedantic if it wasn't the New York Times and if I wasn't weirdly obsessed with correctness in such things, but it's "Lord Lloyd-Webber" with a hyphen. (Yes, even though "Andrew Lloyd Webber" doesn't have one.) Don't ask me how I know this.
Yes. But wouldn't that be showing actual, you know, respect for Andrew Lloyd Webber?
And how did he get to be a Lord? And can Sir Elton John defeat him in a fight?
And can Sir Elton John defeat him in a fight?
I'd think that's a foregone conclusion. Particularly if the weapon of choice is musical composition.
I'd think that's a foregone conclusion. Particularly if the weapon of choice is musical composition.
Zing! and Hell, yeah.
Oh dear Loward. Flashback to SCTV and the Liberace vs. Elton John showdown as acted by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.