DigsMagazine.com | laze: IT CAME FROM THE 70s (musical edition)

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a home + living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation

02.07.2002

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rented any good movies lately? jump to the boards and recommend it.

other new + recent LAZE flick picks:
o In the Mood for Love
o Together
o Princess Mononoke
o Amores Perros
o My Life as a Dog
o Dark City
o Memento
o Unbreakable
o The Matrix
o Wall Street
o Trading Places
o Say Anything
o Show Me Love
o Snatch
o Zelig
o Fear of a Black Hat
o You Can Count on Me
o Man in the Moon
o Fearless
o American Beauty
o Can't Hardly Wait
o Empire Records
o Hard Core Logo
o Highway 61
o Traffic
o O Brother, Where Art Thou?
o Requiem for a Dream
o Quills
o Best in Show
o Drop Dead Gorgeous
o All About My Mother

It Came from
the 70s …
(musical edition)
by Diana Goodman | 1 2 3

So you think retro's fun, huh? How 'bout a heaping bowlful of failed '70s musicals to shock and entertain your friends on a Friday night. You can make a game out of it: Drink every time Steve Guttenberg shows no rhythm in the Village People opus Can't Stop the Music, or every time the BeeGees flash their giant teeth in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Or better yet, drink before to numb the pain. It's so campy you'll want to pitch a tent and go canoeing!

o o o

Can't Stop the Music isn't a movie, per se, so much as it is the end of Western Civilization itself. A grotesque amalgam of smarmy oversexed disco and '70s/80s vamping, "Can't Stop" banks on the rampaging popularity of '40s average-joe-hits-the-big-time musical formula and the universal appeal of the Village People. Yes, the Village People. More than just a concert movie made strictly for the fans, "Can't Stop" tries to make everyone love the Village People, whether they want to or not, by telling the fictionalized tale of the group’s formation and triumphant unending success.

Can't Stop the Music 1980
Directed by:
Nancy Walker
Written by:
Allan Carr, Bronte Woodard
Starring: Alex Briley, David Hodo, Glenn Hughes, Randy Jones, Felipe Rose
Look it for it under: musical
Language: English

The construction worker, GI, cop, Indian, cowboy and leatherman come together to record a demo of songs written by rollerskating Izod shirt enthusiast Steve Guttenberg, whose performance is bad EVEN FOR STEVE GUTTENBERG. They sing, they dance, they go to the YMCA (where you can get yourself clean and have a good meal) while retired model Samantha (Vallerie Perrine) gets them a record deal and romances gold-medal decathalete Bruce Jenner, whose evolution from uptight accountant to with-it fun guy is shown by him wearing a belly shirt and teeny-tiny cut-offs. Actually, just about everyone wears teeny-tiny cut-offs at some point, except for the Village People, who are ALWAYS in their character attire. Even the Indian. Especially the Indian.

There's no other way to put this: Can't Stop the Music is the gayest movie ever. Gayer than "La Cage aux Folles." It's so flamboyant, it makes Sydney's gay Mardi Gras look like Veteran's Day in Wichita. I was in shock, and I've marched in the San Francisco Pride Parade. Never has anything been so overwhelmingly stereotypically gay. And yet it's obvious the filmmakers were trying to capitalize on the supposedly wide-ranging appeal of the Village People. The final concert scene is clearly edited to focus on the straight-laced teens in the audience. When one man auditioning for the group in tiny gold undies twirling firey batons declares, "I'm James and flame's my game!" it's without much irony, like an in-joke that's supposed to go unnoticed by straight viewers.

keep moseying ... the musical mayhem continues!

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