Musical Monday #199

This is from an early-ish episode of Frasier, in which Frasier has to write a eulogy for his horrible aunt but can't think of anything nice to say about her without just lying, while in the subplot Martin writes a song for Frank Sinatra which gets rejected, and then the two plots collide at the finale as they should in any decent sitcom.

Lady of Mine (Groovy Lady) from Frasier, episode 'Martin Does It His Way'
First scene performed by Kelsey Grammer, John Mahoney, David Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves.

Musical Monday #198

There are three versions of Hairspray - the original film [1988], the stageshow [2002] and the film based on the stageshow [2007].  Once you've seen them all, it becomes a bit of a soup trying to remember which one is which.  I think basically each one was an improvement on the last, but at the same time each one does one theme better than the others (I think the race plot was handled best in the original, the romance was best on stage and the mother character most interesting in the remake, although like I say, it's all just soup to me now).  Maybe they should make a fourth version with the best bits from each.

Ladies' Choice from Hairspray

Written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman

Song performed by Zac Efron

Dance performed by Nikki Blonsky (among others)

Musical Monday #197

I wasn't bowled over by Coco like some of my friends were.  I'm not sure I've really liked a Pixar movie in two decades, and both Disney and Disney Pixar reeeeeally need to give the whole 'twist villain' plot a rest.  And while I also wasn't bowled over by The Book Of Life, which was too all over the place, it did pretty much utilise a lot of similar ideas better than Coco (one is about a boy who wants to be a musician but is instead forced to be a bullfighter, and one is about a boy who wants to be a musician but is instead forced to be a shoemaker - I mean, come on, one of those is just a lot more fraught.  In one our hero is actually killed and sent to the afterlife, in the other our hero just sort of randomly goes there for vague reasons maybe to do with a curse but it wasn't very clear.  In one the finale has the dead joining our hero in a kick-ass fight with villains, in the other the dead join our hero for a hug and a dance.  One has an awesome twist ending where an adversary but also best friend would sacrifice himself for his friend, and the other the best friend turns out to be a lame murdery jerk).  In fact, the only place where I feel Coco was superior was in the music.  So.

La Llorona from Coco

Performed by Antonio Sol and Alanna Ubach

RatRations Unboxing

I waited in all morning for my latest order of stuff I have bought my rats to arrive and I thought, why not record the unboxing and put it on youtube.  I may regret it but oh well.  Now I have a YouTube channel which I may do something with later.

Inigo was keen to help out and even decided when the video should be over my turning off the camera on my phone.  Thanks Inigo...

Musical Monday #196

I really need to get an early night tonight, so here's a nice lullaby to send us all off.

La La Lu from Lady And The Tramp

Written by Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke 

Performed by Peggy Lee

#Cramuary

So The Housemate got a subscription to NowTV with his new phone contract or something-a-rather, and because we apparently live in the dark ages, you have to go out and buy a stick to plug in to the TV to make NowTV work, which makes you wonder what the point of our new smart TV even is, and this stick came with a one month free subscription to the movie package.  Now considering we already have Netflix and Cinema Paradiso and a huge home DVD library, we didn’t want to get lumbered with/suckered into paying for another film service.  So instead we decided to watch ALL OF THE FILMS in the one free month, so dubbed #cramuary by The Housemate.

I started out mostly watching films I actually wanted to see, and then veered off into watching pretty much anything that I had ever heard of.  Then I discovered that even though the TV subscription lasts two years, a lot of the shows on NowTV randomly disappear in March, and I’ve wanted to watch Modern Family for some time, and now I had to watch nine seasons of it before March, so I got a bit distracted doing that and let the movie-cramming slide a bit.  Then I realised the month was almost up and I still had a lot of movies to get through, but they were mostly ones I wasn’t that bothered about, and so I ended up giving up or fastforwarding quite a few.  Finally the free subscription ended – while I was halfway through watching Downsizing.  But it would probably have ended up in the ‘Meh’ pile anyway.

A while ago a friend of mine said I don’t like anything, which I dispute.  I don’t think it would be possible to put the films in a very exact order of how much I enjoyed them because in one month I watched 45 movies all the way through and 12 movies in part and by the end my ability to absorb information or use critical faculties had been eroded quite a lot.  My mind is just movie-porridge now.

But out of 57 movies – I roughly enjoyed 26 movies, had fairly neutral opinions on 16 movies, actively disliked 6 and couldn’t be bothered to watch to the end 9 movies.  I don’t think that’s the score of someone who doesn’t like anything.  I liked a lot more than I disliked.  Okay so I could also look at it as out of 57 movies, I enjoyed less than half, but I did watch a very diverse selection of movies, which at least shows I have an open mind; it’s not my fault there’s so much ‘meh’ out there.  The moral here is I only DISliked 6 out of 57, so I win.

Here’s what I managed to cram during #cramuary:

High Noon [1952]
Dog Day Afternoon [1975]
Holes [2003]
The Karate Kid [1984]

Kramer Vs Kramer [1979]

Please Stand By [2017]
To Sir, With Love [1967]
This Is The End [2013]
Hello Dolly! [1969]

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie [2017]
Date Night [2010]
Cinderella III: A Twist In Time [2007]
Baby Driver [2017]
True Grit [1969]
Clueless [1995]
Erin Brockovich [2000]

                                       Candleshoe [1977]

Game Night [2018]
Beverly Hills Cop [1984]
The Boss Baby [2017]

So B. It [2016]
Coco [2017]
Beverly Hills Cop II [1987]

Breaking In [2018]
The Ten Commandments [1956]
The Lego Ninjago Movie [2017]

Almost Famous [2000]

Smokey And The Bandit [1977]
Mars Needs Moms [2010]
Escape From Alcatraz [1979]
Father Goose [1964]

The First Wives Club [1996]
Cool Runnings [1993]
To Catch A Thief [1955]
Nine To Five [1980]
Being Charlie [2016]
Patch Adams [1998]
Empire Of The Sun [1987]
Downsizing [2017]

Field Of Dreams [1989]
Funny Face [1957]
The Desert Rats [1953]

West Side Story [1961]

Indiscreet [1958]

48 Hrs. [1982]

Say Anything… [1989]
Pretty Woman [1990]
The Thomas Crown Affair [1968]

The Monster Squad [1987]

Thumbelina [1994]

















The rest might have turned out all right in the long run but I dunno because I was on a time limit and they weren't grabbing me so I gave up on them:

Lawrence Of Arabia [1962]
Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging [2008]
Steel Magnolias [1989]
Swiss Family Robinson [1960]
Rampage [2018]
Coming To America [1988]
King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword [2017]