Movies in the Musical genre

The cinematic landscape has become so cluttered with the biopics of musical legends (and a few that fall into the “legends in their own mind” category) that the tendency is to shun these chronicles of hard times and inner struggles in favor of...

Hollywood loves coming back to this story; it shows the entire lifecycle of show business and celebrity in one easily-digestible morsel. Over the years, A Star Is Born has attracted the likes of Frederic March, Gloria Gaynor, Judy Garland, Jam...

The passage of time has labeled 1983’s Staying Alive as a turkey, but the contemporaneous view (at least to Paramount’s bean counters) was somewhat different. Although critics lambasted the movie upon its release, with Roger Ebert giving an es...

Upon its release in 1984, Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense was hailed by many critics as the "greatest concert film of all time." The picture, which captured a live concert performance given by the Talking Heads, used state-of-the-art direct-to-...

Upon its release in 1984, Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense was hailed by many critics as the "greatest concert film of all time." The movie, which captured a live concert performance given by the Talking Heads, used state-of-the-art direct-t...

Every December, one of the major studios brings us a musical - something to lighten the spirits and brighten the holidays. This year, in the proud tradition of Chicago and Dreamgirls, we have Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. With T...

Released in 1974 to celebrate MGM’s 50th anniversary, That’s Entertainment is a clip-show motion picture designed to highlight many of the studio’s beloved musicals. More than 50 songs are featured from movies as old as 1929 (The Hollywo...

What a year 2021 has been for Lin-Manuel Miranda. In addition to having one of his stage plays (In the Heights) transformed into a movie, he has also enjoyed major involvements in two animated films (Vivo for Netflix and Encanto for Disney) and ma...

2016’s Trolls, an animated confection based on the toy line, was a pleasant surprise, both in terms of its appeal and its box office prowess. The latter (as much as the former) determined that there would be a sequel. At one point, distribut...

By the 1990s, the movie musical has become a dead art form. Four recent revival attempts have not been met enthusiastically. The first two, Newsies and Sarafina, went to video after approximately one-week theatrical runs (even the Disney name c...