1 review
Agreed that when this movie was made, the music video were not passe, it came about 30-35 years later, probably with ABBA introducing the concept in a proper way. Great Music doesn't make a great movie, nor some great dancing (last-one by Nicholas Brothers , or the dancing on the drums by Robinson) do.
There has to be a story, which was almost there; and acting, which was so completely missing, that the movie, as a movie, became an eyesore.
May be it wasn't so back then, but on today's context, probably the story could be thrown to the dustbin, anyway it wasn't properly developed, and the rest could be split into numbers of individual videos and marketed.
All the great singers/ performers were not good actresses, but they knew their limitations and limited their acts. Only when the performers are good actors too, this should have been attempted, as was done with Garland, Durbin, Peter Alexander, Mártha Eggerth etc to name a few. Whereas some like Cugat etc kept their appearance limited.
What was more distressing was the racial stereotype remained strong. Though an all colored-cast movie, probably it wanted a big chunk of white-market, and that required the stereotyping. Not that this has gone still, it remains firmly in the blood of the movie makers. Even if you take all the people of the same hue, caricature isn't really called for, and that could have been easily avoided, had they just jettisoned the story, and thereby characters like Gabe, Jake etc too would have disappeared. Not that the others did a non-stereo-type roles.
Watch it only as a series of musicals, and fast forward when there is no music.
There has to be a story, which was almost there; and acting, which was so completely missing, that the movie, as a movie, became an eyesore.
May be it wasn't so back then, but on today's context, probably the story could be thrown to the dustbin, anyway it wasn't properly developed, and the rest could be split into numbers of individual videos and marketed.
All the great singers/ performers were not good actresses, but they knew their limitations and limited their acts. Only when the performers are good actors too, this should have been attempted, as was done with Garland, Durbin, Peter Alexander, Mártha Eggerth etc to name a few. Whereas some like Cugat etc kept their appearance limited.
What was more distressing was the racial stereotype remained strong. Though an all colored-cast movie, probably it wanted a big chunk of white-market, and that required the stereotyping. Not that this has gone still, it remains firmly in the blood of the movie makers. Even if you take all the people of the same hue, caricature isn't really called for, and that could have been easily avoided, had they just jettisoned the story, and thereby characters like Gabe, Jake etc too would have disappeared. Not that the others did a non-stereo-type roles.
Watch it only as a series of musicals, and fast forward when there is no music.
- sb-47-608737
- May 9, 2018
- Permalink