So when are we going to get the musical treatment for A Dirty Shame? Seriously though, Alan and December both reviewed the film when it danced into theaters this summer, but now you get my take on the recently released DVD. Guaranteed to be worth the wait!
Editor’s note – Guarantee not valid to those who actually read this note.
Hairspray
4 Stars
You might think that a happy-go-lucky sugar-fest of happiness musical about civil rights is the worst idea since Hollywood thought it could make an easy buck with a film with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. By no means would you be wrong; but on the other hand, last summer’s Hairspray certainly wouldn’t prove you right.
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Burdened with expectations of seeing a 100% faithful John Waters adaptation, my first go with Hairspray was somewhat of a letdown – so I’m grateful to have watched the musical for a second time. It’s still not the explosion of pop culture yummyness that I wish it had been, but it’s hard to put down the movie. There’s a cast that’s having just as much fun as the audience as bumps and bounces to the beat, there’s cinematography that’s just as sharp and colorful as a candy shop, and most importantly, the music is competent when not the bomb-diggity. Here’s a YouTube of the show-stopping finale, ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat.’ If you can watch it and not have it stuck in your head for the next twenty-four hours, I will personally come to your residence and give you a high-five. I’ll also see what I can do to unfreeze your black heart; but if these 60s R&B tunes can’t do anything for you, I don’t know what will.
The sole problem of the film lies in a solid twenty-minute chunk just before the aforementioned show-stopping finale. This stretch of the film is the heaviest – the one that solely deals with the racial injustice inhibited with early 60s America. It’s an important part of our history that needs to be told; but it’s already been told extensively, and in a movie that excels at its happy-time good feelings, it feels like a good movie in Adam Shankman‘s filmography – that is, out of place. With a the weakest song of the film, sung by Queen Latifah, and second act drama that isn’t hardly dramatic at all, it’s the one soft spot in a film that could have otherwise been an easy contender for this writer’s Best-Of for the year.
There are plenty of fine films that I wouldn’t buy – a good film might only merit one viewing – but Hairspray is not one of them. The catchy songs and the almost comical upbeatness of the film make it one worth revisiting. In the revitalization of the movie musical that Hollywood has been undergoing, Hairspray is great reason to turn on the subtitles and sing along.