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19.12.2023 - 16:29 / polygon.com
In the 2002 movie Chicago, Catherine Zeta-Jones steps into the spotlight to belt out “All That Jazz” with a defiant kind of joy that takes on new meaning once it becomes clear that her character, Velma Kelly, has just murdered her husband. Zeta-Jones’ rendition of the song was irresistible: On a wave of critical and commercial success, Chicagopicked up the Best Picture Oscar (the first movie musical to win the award since 1968’s Oliver!), and studio executives started hunting for movies that could replicate the magic. In their minds, screen adaptations of stage musicals were suddenly bankable again.
Many tried to mimic Chicago’s success, but few did. Some subsequent movie adaptations of Broadway productions tried to retain the original stage casts, with shaky results. Others muted the genre’s excesses with realism, a head-scratcher in a setting where people are suddenly bursting into song and dance. Good, bad, or ugly, there have been dozens of major stage-to-film adaptations since the start of the 21st century. That includes three appearances by Meryl Streep, three films by Rob Marshall, two entries in the Mamma Mia Cinematic Universe, and one perfect shot of Dame Judi Dench in a cat basket, lifting her leg like a horny queen. But not all Broadway shows turned movies are created equal. Here, we sit down to compare them, from the razzle-dazzle-iest to, as the French might say, the miserables.
This list is periodically updated as new musicals are added. The latest: The Color Purple, Matilda, 13: The Musical, and Dicks: The Musical.
There’s something so deeply unsettling about this film, and it goes far beyond the “Ben Platt is too old” jokes. It’s frankly fascinating how a universally lauded (and truly phenomenal) star turn onstage gave its performer an almost Icarus-level sense of confidence that resulted in perhaps the single most destructive piece of film casting in recent memory. Platt’s on-screen performance, with his withered frame and grasping claws, robs the piece of any charitable interpretation that was left for it, refashioning it completely into an F.W. Murnau-esque horror show, the closest musical theater has come to a snuff film. Every tear-stricken close-up only serves to further reveal the creators’ morbid fascination with this story’s Richard III-esque softboy villain. 2021’s scariest film.
I don’t want to bury the lede: Three-quarters of the way through this adaptation of Michael John LaChiusa’s 1993 off-Broadway musical, itself a riff on Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde, there’s a totally-serious-but-feels-like-it’s-from-30 Rock music video for a gloriously tacky dance-pop banger called “Beyond the Moon,” performed by Audra McDonald in full-on Space Drag, intercut with her getting
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