Movies in the Musical genre

Into the Woods left me out in the cold. The long-gestating cinematic adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's fairy tale-infused Broadway musical, Into the Woods can claim a clever screenplay and a few enjoyable performances but little else. The generic ...

Initially, the stage-to-screen transition of the Broadway musical Jersey Boys was expected to be helmed by Jon Favreau. When Favreau withdrew, it opened the door for veteran director Clint Eastwood to take the reins. Eastwood's approach to telling ...

La La Land, Damien Chazelle’s much-anticipated follow-up to his stunning 2014 feature debut, Whiplash, illustrates the magic that can result when a director is fully committed to a vision. Chazelle doesn’t just want to tell a story (altho...

Les Miserables, believed by some to be the best novel ever penned in French, has been adapted in nearly every form imaginable, including dozens of movies, television mini-series in French and English, loose "thematic reworkings," and comic books. ...

The 1986 version of Little Shop of Horrors is a celebration of two beloved motion picture genres: the musical and the cheesy science fiction flick. Before making it to the screen in its final form during the '86 Christmas season, Little Shop of Ho...

Spoilers Ahoy! This review talks in detail about plot points, including the ending, so if you haven’t seen either the play or the movie and want to experience it without knowing beforehand what happens, I suggest avoiding this review.In late...

Love's Labour's Lost has always been regarded as one of the most enigmatic of Shakespeare's plays. In modern times, it is almost never performed, and, unlike the text of the Bard's major works, it fails to come alive on the printed page. In an in...

Mamma Mia! delivers exactly what one can reasonably expect from it. It's a faithful adaptation of the stage play of the same name but, more importantly, it's a repository for ABBA songs - nearly two dozen in total. Considering that the average ru...

Even recognizing that it’s among the most unnecessary sequels ever made and that it exists purely because of how much money the original Mamma Mia made ($144M domestic, $610M worldwide), it’s difficult to hate Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. I...

At the end of the 1964 film Mary Poppins, the character of Bert (played by Dick Van Dyke) offers this final wish: “Goodbye, Mary Poppins, don't stay away too long.” Walt Disney Pictures hopes that 54 years – the longest span between a mot...