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Jan. 19th, 2009 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swingchickiei watched "bye bye birdie" on tv last night, for the first time in years. i'd forgotten how much that musical, and especially the movie version, is a crazy mix of "fun and jubilant" and "total disaster". i mean, what a great concept for a musical -- elvis-style teen heartthrob gets drafted, and his manager (and the manager's girlfriend) come up with a big publicity stunt where the star will kiss a member of his fan club on the ed sullivan show while singing his new song "one last kiss"! except the girl they chose just got pinned by her jealous boyfriend, and their little dink town doesn't know how to handle all the publicity! lots of teen energy, a hip-swiveling singer, and opportunity for all the characters to deal with all of their own crazy relationship issues.
except the movie version is all over the place -- the conrad birdie character has no sex appeal whatsoever and just phones in his performance, ann-margret looks spastic in some scenes and drunk in others, and paul lynde chews the scenery to bits. some of the musical numbers are so dull, i played gin online instead of watching. and the plot turns and musical numbers come out of nowhere instead of evolving -- there'll be a conversation about one thing, and then they cram in one sentence out of nowhere that is somehow supposed to move them over to the next wacky plot point or song. it's like if 2 characters were yelling at each other about steak for 5 minutes, and then one says "well, i like to eat steak in my underwear", and then the music swells and they sing an entire song about underwear and never mention steak again in the whole show.
while i was watching, i had a thought: that it'd be awesome to have someone completely re-do the show for today's teens. make the conrad birdie character the hot lead singer of a boy band, switch out ed sullivan for TRL (or whatever the kids are watching these days), do new arrangements of the songs to make them more modern. the movie screen could burst with "america's best dance crew"-style choreography. not sure how the "getting drafted" part could be resolved, since we're not bringing back the draft. but otherwise it could be overhauled, and some of the sins of the original could be fixed. i went onto imdb.com to look up the original, and it turns out there's already another movie version in the works, to be released in 2011. there's a rumor that it'll be a total overhaul with a hip-hop star in the lead. so i guess i'm a few years too late. :)
except the movie version is all over the place -- the conrad birdie character has no sex appeal whatsoever and just phones in his performance, ann-margret looks spastic in some scenes and drunk in others, and paul lynde chews the scenery to bits. some of the musical numbers are so dull, i played gin online instead of watching. and the plot turns and musical numbers come out of nowhere instead of evolving -- there'll be a conversation about one thing, and then they cram in one sentence out of nowhere that is somehow supposed to move them over to the next wacky plot point or song. it's like if 2 characters were yelling at each other about steak for 5 minutes, and then one says "well, i like to eat steak in my underwear", and then the music swells and they sing an entire song about underwear and never mention steak again in the whole show.
while i was watching, i had a thought: that it'd be awesome to have someone completely re-do the show for today's teens. make the conrad birdie character the hot lead singer of a boy band, switch out ed sullivan for TRL (or whatever the kids are watching these days), do new arrangements of the songs to make them more modern. the movie screen could burst with "america's best dance crew"-style choreography. not sure how the "getting drafted" part could be resolved, since we're not bringing back the draft. but otherwise it could be overhauled, and some of the sins of the original could be fixed. i went onto imdb.com to look up the original, and it turns out there's already another movie version in the works, to be released in 2011. there's a rumor that it'll be a total overhaul with a hip-hop star in the lead. so i guess i'm a few years too late. :)
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Draft?
Date: 2009-01-19 06:25 pm (UTC)Register for the Draft: It's Still the Law
Males 18 through 25 are required to register
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/defenseandsecurity/a/draftreg.htm
I did it.