Ten Times 2024 Movies Should Have Leaned Harder into "Movie Musical" Genre
Tuesday, October 15, 2024 at 8:01PM by Nathaniel R
I’m back! Well, not quite but working towards it. We're going to do an 80s theme in early November, okay? But let’s start with a question and a list to prove that I have actually been watching movies (and am alive) though I’ve rarely been writing and miss it terribly.
Has it been a good, bad, or ugly year for the always threatened Movie Musical genre?
The greatest of all movie genres is always threatened with extinction but it's also resilient and still with us almost a century after its debut. The year isn't over so the initial bolded question is premature. Mean Girls was a dud early in the year and the highly anticipated Joker Folie A Deux is currently flopping which serves it right for sidelining Lady Gaga (of all people) and being so uncomfortable about calling itself a musical. But we've still got one famous stage adaptation (Wicked), two experiments (The End, Emilia Perez), one animated adventure (Moana ), and three musician biopics (A Complete Unknown, Maria, and A Better Man) arriving before year's end so there's still hope.
Here are ten movies from 2024 that could have been musicals with a few tweaks or even more insanity from their auteurs. Consider...
THE SUBSTANCE © MUBI
10 The Substance
Kind of joking with this one. Or am I? Coralie Fargeat seems willing to embrace any urge in this purposefully gonzo body-horror Hollywood satire. The only reason we're including it in this pseudo would-be musical list is because of the insanity of the centered TV show wherein Demi Moore is doing something like Jane Fonda in the 1980s but than it becomes some sort of horny booty-shaking 2020s version of "Solid Gold" once Margaret Qualley plops out of Demi. What is this show? And can we watch a whole episode of it?
09 The Bikeriders
Jeff Nichols 60s drama about motorcycle gangs leans hard into its retro hit parade. But with Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) and George Jones (Michael Shannon) n the cast list, I longed for actual musical numbers. Especially since lead actress Jodie Comer seems down for anything that gets thrown at her.
FLY ME TO THE MOON © Sony Pictures
08 Fly Me to the Moon
What is the most underrated general audience movie of the year and why is it Fly Me to the Moon? Woody Harrelson sings the Frank Sinatra classic near the end which only reminded us that this movie would have been even better as a full musical. Scarlett Johansson can sing and Channing Tatum can dance, so why not? Everyone seems to have just shrugged when this high concept romcom appeared. Still, it feels like the kind of thing that would have been a big hit in another decade, when people were more flexible about what kind of movies they would buy tickets to. It sports two movie stars in peak beauty (Scarlett is so underrated in general, despite her massive fame), it’s got a lively supporting cast, it’s consistently amusing if not laugh out loud funny, and the eye-candy techs are pleasing, too (hat tip: Darius Wolski, Mary Zophres, Shane Valentino, etcetera).
07 Deadpool and Wolverine
The smash hit superhero team-up thoroughly abuses its Madonna and N'Sync privileges and wastes them beyond twisted brand-recognition yuks and nostalgia. Still, the movie has so much showboating energy, it’s practically Jazz Hands: The Movie... if Jazz Hands were blades and dance was a bloodsport.
THE IDEA OF YOU © Amazon
06 The Idea of You
Romcoms are often built on outlandish premises but suspension of disbelief is part of the appeal. Michael Showalter better-than-it-needs-to-be romp, has fun with its pop star adjacency as Anne Hathaway's newly 40 gallery owner falls for Nicholas Galatzine's 20something boy band star. Anne Hathaway powers the movie with her highly dependable star wattage but what's happening onstage isn't bad either. Galatzine is a believable boy band hearththrob and the songs by Savan Kotecha are fun.
05 Challengers
The sound mix and soundtrack of Challengers wants you in da club… er, on da court. "Come on!"
04 Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton's legacy sequel ignores that the original has already become a musical. To its credit, though, it does seem fully cognizant that everyone remembers/cherishes the “Day-O” sequence.
SATURDAY NIGHT © Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures Releasing
03 Saturday Night
Two of the comic highlights of Jason Reitman's hyper focused SNL origin story are song/sound checks the stuffy executives did not see coming: Andy Kauffman's (Nicholas Braun) classic "Mighty Mouse Theme" lipsynch and Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) hostile "Kill all the Whiteys" surprise. Bonus points for the brief mellow aside to musical guest Janice Ian (Naomi McPherson) which provides a slight breather amidst all the chaos of the countdown tension.
02 The Fall Guy
This action comedy romcom has real movie musical energy (dont ask me to explain; this is already too long). Unfortunately director David Leitch and editor Elisabet Ronaldsdottir don't capitalize on it. It's a great popcorn movie, don't get me wrong, but their one significant blunder is cross-cutting away from the built-in and built-up comic highlight of a karaoke night with Emily Blunt. What were they thinking?
Here's the biggest surprise on the list to prove the point that all movies should lean harder into their inner movie musical urges...
01 Blitz
As shocking as this will sound to anyone who hasn't seen it yet, I'm almost tempted to refer to Steve McQueen’s new World War II drama as a musical. It's not even close to that in a traditional sense, no, but the structure and pacing beats for it are right there. The story revolves around a young boy (newcomer Elliott Heffernan) and his mother (Saoirse Ronan) who are intentionally separated in the Blitz when children are being shipped away en masse from bombed out London. The strong willed quiet boy won't have it and leaps from his train and his solo odyssey back to his mother begins. The drama has not one, not two, not three, not four, but… I’m not joking… five sequences in which someone sings or dances, including Saoirse Ronan singing the lovely Best Original Song hopeful "Winter Coat" which was co-written by Oscar nominated composer Nicholas Brittel and McQueen himself.
What movie this year made you feel like singing or dancing?
Reader Comments (14)
Musicals aren't a genre I genuinely warm too but Fly Me To The Moon in another world stars Doris Day and Rock Hudson and is the biggest hit of it's day.
Scarlett would be wonderful in a musical,I don't necesarily think she's underrated,she has plenty fans but she isn't as revered as a Ronan,Stone or a Mulligan,she bends herself to any director's vision,sci-fi,rom/com,stylised weirdness,real life drama,action,voice work,she's one of the most exciting actresses working.
I hope I speak on behalf of everyone who visits here when I say it's lovely to have a new post from you.
It was beginning to feel like waiting for Bridget Fonda's comeback.
So happy to see your writings here again Nathaniel! I would certainly love to see a full on Blitz musical film. And I hope that It's director delivers us something on that genre sooner than later. I have hunch he would nail that kind of picture.
I'm so happy to read another post by you, especially one as fun as this specific one. Like PortugueseMiloThatch, I wonder if McQueen will ever do a full musical and would be very interested in seeing that. Between your words on BLITZ and the euphoria he captures with music in LOVERS ROCK, I feel like he could be a surprisingly great auteur for the genre.
Anora!
And speaking of which, I’m hoping you (or Cláudio) will write a piece comparing Anora, Hustlers and Zola, their directors, actresses, distributors and awards season trajectories.
Welcome back!
I will cheat on the premise and express my hope for the upcoming sequel to Red, White and Royal Blue to embrace the vocal chops of Taylor Zakhar Pérez and Nicholas Galitzine with a few great love songs for Alex and Henry.
Good to have you back, Nathaniel!
So good to read something from you, Nathaniel. <3
Frank -- Ooh, Hustlers was my fav of 2019 and Zola was my fav film of 2021! Anora is also the only movie I'm really looking forward to of this season... Clearly I have a certain taste lolol.
All that to say, I am very intrigued by that idea, so just wanted to reiterate interest in that topic! ;-)
Wonderful to have you back, Nathaniel. I always enjoy the inventiveness and imagination you bring to a topic.
Yes! I can see some of these as musicals! “Challengers” especially. The sad ballad when she sits under the tree, the angry back and forth where she accuses Josh of being a rich boy playing poor who will just go back to a seat on the board of daddy’s company. The Sondeim-like marital songs between her and Mike.
I love musicals, but they sure have a tough road to even general acceptance. They have to be oh-so-perfect, the script can’t be too old style or too new style, the artistic level that would be acceptable in a non-musical has the bar raised several levels. And then they are dismissed from general conversation and memory.
I really like the musical “One Love” about Bob Marley, released this year in the movie doldrum months. Its budget was $70 million and it made $180 million, even with no big push for it. This has to be called a financial success, and a “crowd pleaser” because it actually drew a crowd in.
I don’t know a lot of music history, so I wasn’t outraged that it didn’t have (?) the criteria of a stringent documentary. Or that it didn’t match a mental view of my own about Bob Marley.
But OMG! It had two of the most wonderful leads in the business. Lashana Lynch (James Bond, The Woman King, Matilda) is a beautiful compelling performer with a wide range and is also an experienced singer (so heartbreaking in her songs in Matilda).
Kingsley Ben-Adir - when I look at him, I think, finally a wonderful new actor that I really really like. An actor with an inner sweetness, so rare.
And Bob Marley’s music never grows stale, but remains urgent, meaningful, melodic.
How about "The Apprentice"? "You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two" and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" would fit right in perfectly.
Here's a hot take: I think current Hollywood is too cautious and cowardly to do musicals correctly, and if Hollywood is not going to have the confidence and conviction to do justice to the musical genre, I'd rather they not be done at all. Since you did bring up The Substance, Nathaniel, what makes that film so special is that it doesn't feel like it's apologizing to anyone for being the way it is. Coralie Fargeat knows exactly the type of movie she wants to make and she's not making concessions in anticipation of any criticisms she might get, she just says what she wants to say and leaves it to the audience to digest it... which is what all movies should be like!!!
And yet... we're seeing less and less of that in mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, and while I get that having so much money involved means there's more at stake, you can tell when a movie is constantly looking over at its audience begging it to accept what they're doing, and in musicals this results in too many references to how weird it is to have characters sing and dance and letting the audience know they're aware of it... NOOO!!! You're a MUSICAL!!! OWN IT!!! You're working within a style that embraces the artifice of filmmaking, and if you can't embrace it, then why employ it at all?
I actually liked Joker 2 more than most, but even I felt that the musical aspect of it was just Todd Phillips resenting that he had to make a sequel to Joker and simply added in everything he knew his audience would hate to see in a Joker sequel. The Mean Girls film felt more like they wanted to remake Mean Girls and just added the Broadway songs to have something new in it (the fact that I don't think it's a good musical doesn't help either... and, for the record, I think the 2004 film is a marvel).
be careful of what you wish for: some writer doing broadway may decide to write musical adaptations from this movies, jukebox style, and in some years from now, they get the musical remake treatment, just like mean girls and hairspray and the producers
I almost forgot Fly Me to the Moon even happened. Why isn’t that streaming yet?
Not too hopeful about Wicked (how can something look so colorful AND dreary at the same time?), but I’d love to be wrong!
Anyway it’s great to read something from you, Nathaniel!
I completely agree with your perspective on the movie musical genre's resilience and unpredictability. While some of Snow Rider year's entries have disappointed, it's exciting to think about the potential for films like The Idea of You and Fly Me to the Moon to evolve into full-on musicals, showcasing hidden musical talents. It’s always fascinating to see how a simple tweak can turn a good film into something truly spectacular. Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful breakdown!
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