Dan Gives Thanks

by Dancin' Dan

2017 started off in a rather dark place, didn't it? And it's kinda stayed there, hasn't it? It's difficult to look at the entertainment industry at the moment and not want to just throw your hands up in disgust - are there no decent men (besides Tom Hanks) anywhere?!? But on the bright side, at least the entertainment 2017 has had to offer has been up to the task of nourishing our souls. I have been to the cinema more times this year than I have in any other year, and other than a certain remake of a certain animated musical, I haven't hated anything I've seen, and I've loved quite a lot of them.

But of all the things to love, these are the things I'm most thankful for:

• The perfect endings of BPM, Lady Bird, and The Florida Project, in part because they lead up to their respective endings brilliantly

• The fact that, no matter what happens with The Greatest Showman, we've already gotten a great movie musical this year, and that it's as weird and wonderful and fabulous as The Lure is...

Click to read more ...

Soundtracking: "The Lure"

Just in time for Halloween, musical oddity The Lure has joined The Criterion Collection. Here's Chris on its soundtrack...

Yet another Polish lesbian mermaid pop musical? Geez. For those that complain that musicals have no originality anymore, may I introduce a bloody disco ball of a film: The Lure. The story of two mermaids who come aground and quickly rise to success singing in a Warsaw nightclub, it’s both fairy tale and metaphor for female sexuality. But most importantly, the music kicks a whole lot of ass.

Led by young stars Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszańska and with some disco diva stylings from Kinga Preis, the film is about the most delightful genre hybrid we have seen in some time. It’s a femme-centric mix of musical and horror, with more pointedly ironic sexuality than any music video once banned from MTV. It would be glib to describe it as a t.A.T.u. performing a Let The Right One In jukebox musical of Abba songs but that is the closest I can get to painting a vision of its giddy melodic morbidity. Or describing the fun of its singular strangeness.

Click to read more ...