Last night I sat down with some gifts to wrap, hot cocoa and my new arrival from blockbuster: Xanadu! Do you know it? It was a favorite with me and my sisters in 1980. And now, 27 years later (ok, I am officially OLD), Xanadu has let me down. It's a horrible movie, rife with cliche, including but not limited to: a frustrated artist stuck working for The Man, washed-up but very talented musician ready for a comeback, and otherworldly magical being who doesn't know about "feelings." Throw in some roller disco, big band music, legwarmers with pumps, and Zeus, and you've got a recipe for a fantastic journey only an 8 year-old in 1980 could love. And we did love it. Watching it last night, I surprised myself with my ability to recite parts of it verbatim. Yikes!
For an even more blistering take on Xanadu, click here.
2 comments:
I, too, was smitten with Xanadu! I choregraphed and performed my own dance at the school-wide talent show in 5th grade to a song from the sound track. I wore red shorts with white piping (you know the ones) and a yellow tee with one of those glittery iron-ons that said "free spirit". And I wasn't even embarassed!
NOOOOO! Don't tell me it was a bad movie. I loved that film. In fact, I even had the sound track. OK, it was dubbed off of my cousin's RECORD (we really are old, aren't we?) so the sound quality totally sucked, but back then I didn't know any better. There are so many movies like that for me: ones I completely adored and then watched later and realized that they weren't so good after all. "Grease" comes to mind. My sister made me go to the play at a dinner theatre and I couldn't believe how sexist and stereotypical it was. I used to love it. No accounting for a preteen's taste, I guess (which shouldn't be surprising given more recent phenomena such as the popularity of stars such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton).
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