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THE
TOP 5
PROJECT

WEEK NO. SEVEN
Main Page (including links to all past Top 5 weeks)

THE TOP 5 MUSICALS:

view full results       see how points are awarded
Rank Film Points L #1
#1 Singin' in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donan & Gene Kelly, USA) 23 6 3
#2 Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier, Denmark) 19 6 -
#3 The Sound of Music (1965, Robert Wise, USA) 17 6 1
#4 West Side Story (1961, Robert Wise, USA) 14 5 1
#5 The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming, USA)
Beauty & the Beast (1991, Kirkdale & Wise, USA)		 11
11		 4
3		 1
1
L=How many lists each film appears on             #1=How many number one votes each film recieves

A record week here at The Top 5 Project. 16 lists came through the wire for the topic of Top 5 Musicals (at least 6 more than any other week). We of course had a record amount of total points as well - with 23 for the winner. And speaking of winners, I suppose it comes as no great shock that Singin' in the Rain took home top honours this week, in a race that kept changing hands all throughout the voting process. The big surprise though, was the second place finish for Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, although a much welcomed surprise, considering I personally listed it as my number two as well. Third place was taken by the often maligned The Sound of Music. The top 3 had been vying for the top spot, back and forth, all week long, in a race that was more widespread than any before it. A total of 48 films were involved in the 16 different lists.

The number 4 spot was taken by West Side Story, while number 5 was a tie between The Wizard of Oz and the animated Disney fluff, Beauty & the Beast. Also getting multiple votes were Oliver!, My Fair Lady, The Music Man and somewhat surprisingly, O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night garnered a bunch of votes too, but just missed out on the Top 5 by a single point. The real hard-luck story of the week was Oklahoma!, which managed to be mentioned on 4 lists (as many as 5th place Wizard of Oz), but due to never being placed any higher than 4th place on those lists, ended up with just 6 points, for an overall 11th place finish (they should be embarrassed to go out on the town in their surry with the fringe on top).

Individual lists:
Albert Muth
Auteurophile

NECESSARY BUSINESS-A plea for sanity and good taste. Can we please begin a moratorium on "Boogie Nights" for all future lists? Only in-the-closet drooling size queens sat through this until the end to see Marky Mark's prothesis. (Did Tom Cruise use the same one in "Magnolia?") I want my porn hardcore or no core.

I must apologise to all my fans for my lack of elaboration on last week's list I know that you look forward to my cogent, incisive, and pithy remarks, and when I fail to include them, you can react only with consternation and disappointment. The delay by our illustrious Webmaster in posting week five's results postponed my column until there was not enough time to include proper discussion. I shall do all in my power to prevent this unfortunate situation from occurring in the future.

  1. Footlight Parade (Berkeley) This was the epitome of the Thirties Hollywood musical. Busby Berkeley not only choreographed the musical numbers, but he in essence directed the entire film. With Jimmy Cagney, Dick Powell, and Ruby Keeler leading the way, the film winds up in a veritable orgy of Busbyness with three, count them, three musical numbers following immediately one upon the other, with the final sequence exploding in frenzied patriotism with a card section that portrays the flag and then FDR. It is fucking trippy, dudes. (FYI-The single greatest production number in all Busby Berkeley films is 'Lullaby of Broadway' in "Goldiggers of 1935.")

  2. Dancer in the Dark (von Trier) Dogme guru Lars von Trier is the most inventive, courageous, and passionate film director working today. He takes a cast that includes La Deneuve, Bjork, and Joel Grey and makes them sing, dance, laugh, cry, win, lose in this savage condemnation of the American justice and penal systems. By the time the film's inevitable denouement unfolds, you feel as though your heart had been ripped from your chest, truly audacious film making.

  3. Cabaret (Fosse) Pre-war Germany before the fall of the Weimar republic and the accession of Hitler and our characters are unaware of the horror which is coming as they lead their lives of detached debauchery at the Kit Kat Club. Liza Minelli and Joel Grey deservedly won Oscars for their performances, and Michael York, Marisa Berenson, and Helmut Greim are excellent as well. The songs by Kantor and Ebb have become standards, and the staging is simply FOSSE! FOSSE! FOSSE! In the scene at the outdoor restaurant when the Hitler Youth sing 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me," you are chilled by the realisation of what is to ensue.

  4. The Persecution and Assassination Of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis deSade (Brook) Take a cast of characters that includes lunatics, cripples, retards, psycopaths, and other assorted degenerates and have them scream, groan, vomit, drool, urinate, and defecate to music and dance, and you could not ask for a more heartwarming and entertaining evening of musical theatre. This is the bizarre elevated to the surreal, but there probably is more sanity inside these walls then existed outside during the barbaric extremes of the French revolution.

  5. West Side Story (Wise) Here are the ingredients: a tale by Shakespeare, music by Bernstein, lyrics by Sondheim, choreography by Robbins, direction by Wise, and you get the big, bold, splashy, pull out all the stops, Broadway musical turned into a spare no exspense, brash, ballsy movie musical as only Hollywood can do it. It is stunning, scintillating, and captivating to the point that you go along and truly believe. (NOTE: Because so many of Robert Wise's films were such huge commercial successes, his reputation has been denigrated to an undeservedly lesser level of appreciation.)

OTHER ESSENTIAL VIEWING - A Woman is a Woman, Singin' in the Rain, All That Jazz, Gold Diggers of 1933, Gold Diggers of 1935, The Wall, 8 Women.

A FINAL RANT - If any of you have included Grease or anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber, please go away and die a long, slow, painful death.


Sherry Messimer
Europhile & Cinephile


1. A Nous La Liberté (Clair, 1931)
2. Meet Me in St Louis (Minnelli, 1944)
3. Dancer in the Dark (von Trier, 2000)
4. Singin' in the Rain (Donen, 1952)
5. Peau d'Ane (Demy, 1970)


J.E. Snavely
Home-Theatrical Cinephile

Caveat: I hate musicals. I run in the other direction when someone mentions musicals. I will never go to Broadway or see any stage production that involves actors breaking out into song during a dramatic or pivotal scene. That being said, there are a few musicals that I've somehow come to appreciate:

  1. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart) - Gene Wilder as the enigmatic title character who seemingly dislikes children and tempers his performance with wit and sarcasm towards the parents. And who can ever forget the Oompa-Loompa songs.

  2. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming) - I still have nightmares of evil flying monkeys and the queerly perverted Lollipop Guild.

  3. My Fair Lady (George Cukor) - The loverly Audrey Hepburn doesn't sing (she was dubbed by Marni Nixon) but beautifully portrays the cockney flower girl who attempts to learn the social graces.

  4. Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier) Bjork sans swan costume gives a compelling surreal performance deserving of the Oscar. The musical dream-like sequences are phenomenal.

  5. American Astronaut (Cory McAbee) - Must be seen to be believed. My favorite quote: "Eraserhead in outer space!" That about sums it up. (in a tie with) Pink Floyd The Wall (Alan Parker) - Best watched while comfortably numb.

Nick & Nora
Manhattan-based Cinephile Detectives

1. Singin' in the Rain
2. 42nd Street
3. West Side Story
4. The Sound of Music
5. (tie) Wizard of Oz / This Is Spinal Tap

Honorable Mention: Lagaan, Hard Day's Night, Rock n Roll High School, Holiday Inn

Choice Cuts:
Kiss Me Kate: "Brush Up Your Shakespeare"
Bye Bye Birdie: "A Lot of Livin' to Do"

Worst Musical Ever: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

C.C. Webster
Filmmaker

  1. Trollflöten (The Magic Flute) (Ingmar Bergman, 1975) If you want proof that there is a God, then combine Mozart, Bergman, the architecture of Drottingholm Castle, and an audience of children. Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute, is sung in glorious Swedish and shot as the story of creating an opera for stage and watching the audience take it in. It's here where it jumps to brilliance. Bergman holds on the faces of the people in the audience and lingers there letting us rejoice in their absolute enthrallment of what Mozart has the capability to do. It was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1976 and lost to a Canadian film. However in true Bergman style, he brought us Scenes from a Marriage, the next year. Oh that Ingmar.

  2. A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester, 1964) This, and my next film, are top choices of the amazing Andrew Sarris, and if he considers it a musical, then who can argue? Richard Lester, a director far too under-rated, brilliantly matches the wit and charisma of the fab four with his sharp black and white and innovative camera. It's pure joy. I showed the opening to a group of very artsy, very cynical freshman at Columbia, and even the grumpiest, "I-only-like-Goddard-and-maybe-Maya-Deren" kids LOVED it, literally ate it up. I would watch it even if it was only about Paul's grandfather.

  3. Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, 1952) This is an easy choice. Gene Kelly can do no wrong in this. There are whimsical, heart-warming, and even dark moments, which make it a bit like reading old love letters from your grandfather to your grandmother, by a fireplace, in a rainstorm, with a dog snoozing at the door--comforting, lovely, and lonely all at the same time. A few years back I had the pleasure of watching this film with Stanley Donen and his current girlfriend at the time, Elaine May, in the audience. They were enjoying themselves more than anyone else in the audience, and that was saying a lot considering the laughs and amazement coming from the crowd. After the screening he was giving a talk, and Elaine asked him a question. She said, "Stanley, why did you make this picture?" And he replied, "Because I could."

  4. Tommy (Ken Russell, 1975) Ah Tommy. Tommy is an attack on the senses that only a film about a deaf, dumb, and blind kid can be--outrageous, bombastic, and divine. Russell's use of color, post-modern symbolism, and outright cheek, make the music pop from the screen. The Sally Simpson sequence is one to watch, and also, the pinball wizard, and the Amazing Journey, oh hell, just watch the whole thing.

  5. Hair (Milos Forman, 1979) I am a hippy at heart, but that's not why I love this version of Ragni and Rado's Hair. Forman takes a very scattered stage piece and makes a layered narrative about non-traditional families. Sure it's dated. Sure some of the cast aren't singers. And sure, that is Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life sitting beside Berger at the dinner scene. But there are Twyla Tharp's moves, the scope and storytelling of the Aquarius, Walking In Space, and The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In) sequences, and Annie Golden just popping her gum like an angel.

Special Jury Award: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001) John Cameron Mitchell, not enough superlatives to describe his work here.

Special mentions: Blues Brothers, Jesus Christ Superstar, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Meet Me In St. Louis, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Matthew J. McCue
Writer

1. The Wizard of Oz
2. Oliver!
3. The Sound of Music
4. The Music Man
5. West Side Story


Jim Timlin
aka "Cowboy Jim"

Late, but just my two cents. Survey on tracking shots?
For me, take ANY I mean ANY shot from "Lawrence of Arabia". A visually stunning movie, just recently watched it on TV and it holds up amazingly well considering the time period and technology available.

  1. West Side Story - Sondheim/Bernstein rewrite the rules.

  2. Woodstock - hey it was all about music. And a seminal Moment in National History. Witness Jerry Garcia - "Marijuana exhibit A"

  3. South Pacific - from great book by James Michener and dear to my Hawaiian soul.

  4. Guys and Dolls - Sinatra and Brando. Also from a unique Niche of Americana - the writings of Damon Runyon. Try finding his work these Days.

  5. Oklahoma! - it's a cowboy thing.

Julia Tilley
Poet & Performance Artist

1. The Sound of Music - Julie Andrews at her best. So sad the golden voice no longer sings. I love to sing along to this one! I was in the gazebo that was in the “I am 16 going on 17” scene and yes I sang and danced and made a fool of myself. It was great!
2. Dancer in the Dark - Oh so wonderful Bjork. Loved her take on the “Favorite Things” song. Nice contrast to Andrews’ rendition.
3. Grease - When I was in High School (late ‘70’s early 80’s) I could sing the entire score. I must have drove my parents nuts playing the tape over and over.
4. Beauty and the Beast - Disney never gave up on the musical.
5. Oklahoma! - Classic Rogers and Hammerstein. (Hammerstein died in Doylstown, PA.) Shirley Jones, before the Partridge Family ruined her.

Some honorable mentions: Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis (fabulous score, iffy plot), White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Tammy and the Bachelor (I adore Debbie Reynolds). Oh, can we just sing them all????

Bill Keisling
Writer, Author of the book, "The Wrong Car"

Overall Best Musicals:

  1. Music Man

  2. West Side Story

  3. Sound of Music

  4. Oklahoma

  5. Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli 1968)

Musicals with best songs:

  • Porgy and Bess

  • Mary Poppins

  • Bye Bye Birdie

  • Grease

  • Jesus Christ Superstar

Susan Norris
Premedia Specialist & Secret Poet


1. Singin' In the Rain
2. Top Hat
3. Moulin Rouge
4. Oklahoma!
5. The Wizard of Oz

A Second Tier:
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum...
Fiddler on the Roof
Mary Poppins
The Muppet Movie
   (“A bear in his natural habitat: a Studebaker!”)
The King and I


Herbert R. Wolfe II
aka "The All-Knowing Biffster"

  1. Oliver!

  2. GiGi

  3. O Brother, Where Art Thou?

  4. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

  5. Hans Christian Anderson



Kim K. Johnson
Cinephile from Bluegrass Country


1. GiGi
2. Thr King & I
3. My Fair Lady
4. The Sound of Music
5. A Chorus Line


Carter Liotta
Filmmaker & Film Expert

  1. Beauty and the Beast/Aladdin - Representative of an era when the musical was dead except in animated features, both present incredible musical numbers and animation. The kind of musical I remember from my youth.

  2. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Certainly the best Marilyn Monroe picture. Though considered by few to be the best MUSICAL out there, it's the kind that I like.

  3. Evita - People love to hate Madonna in film, and have been scathing about Antonio Banderas's singing, but I find both to be amazingly good. I don't give a shit about Patti LuPone, and whether she could have done better.

  4. Mary Poppins - Chim-chiminee, chim-chiminee, chim chim, charee.

  5. A Hard Day's Night - You can tell that this movie was a blast to make, and it perfectly captures the early Beatles before the fighting.


Ryan Stroup
Artist


1. Pocahontas - Racial Harmony and appreciation for nature. *smile*
2. Beauty and the Beast - I want the library in the Beast's house!
3. Singin' in the Rain - Life should always be a musical.
4. Sound of Music - Lonely Goat Puppet Show! Yaay!
5. The Little Mermaid - Seashell bra! Seashell bra!



Jeanette "Doodlebug" Trout
Poet & Novelist


1. Singin' in the Rain
2. Dancer in the Dark
3. A Hard Day's Night
4. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
5. White Christmas


Kevyn Knox
Sesquipedalianist Film Critic & Film Historian

The Musical. The most artificial of storytelling devices, yet an artifice full of (excuse the cliche, but it is the most descriptive way of wording my point) toe-tappin' show-stoppin' surreality that blasts through any and all metaphysical blockades of suspensions of disbelief. Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage." and Ethel Merman sang, "There's no business like show Business like no business I know." and Judy Garland said to Mickey Rooney, "Let's put on a show." and Richard Rodgers said to Oscar Hammerstein, "Come here often?". The Musical, for all its hate mail (including my in-laws and even one of our panelists), and all of its artificialities, is the King (or some may say Queen) of cinematic storytelling - and goddammit, I liked the show Cop Rock too!!!

Before I emerse you fine readers in the swirling soup of my Top 5, allow me to make comment upon another panelist's ravings about a certain moratorium set upon a certain movie. I agree wholeheartedly with the necessity of swiftly (and possibly brutally) shoving Boogie Nights to a far-off dark place where it can no longer hurt anybody - ever again. That said, on with the show (like no show I know)...

  1. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - (1964, Jacques Demy, France) The thing my wife enjoys most about Musicals (her favourite genre, along with Documentaries), is how, at any given (or ungiven) moment, people (and/or animated animals of all sorts) will jump up - in the middle of a fucking conversation - and go into an elaborate song & dance number. Well, I'm sorry to dissapoint her, but Demy never stops the singing, so we never get sudden feline-frantic expulsions of songs spewing forth at the most inopportune moments. What we do get is a vibrant explosion of style and a vividly primal melange of colours, an archetype doomed love story and the streaming, pulsating, rapid-fire, yet casual showmanship of Demy, all rolled into the best Musical of all-time - and you get Deneuve at nineteen and dressed in form-fitting sweaters. Ooh lala mon cheri.

  2. Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier, Denmark) - As tragic and morbidly delightful as any von Trier film, AND you get Bjork (oddly enough, one of the sexiest women to ever step upon a stage, or behind a microphone, or in front of the camera - with or without her wrongly maligned Oscar swan gown) singin and dancing and crying and dying.

  3. Love Me Tonight (1932, Rouben Mamoulian, USA) - From the opening moments of sound poetry turned musical montage to the final horse-whinnie-ing Eisensteinian paradiacal climax, Mamoulian's troubadorian achievement is beyond reproach.

  4. A Hard Day's Night (1964, Richard Lester, UK) - If the Marx Brothers had arrived on February 7th, 1964 to throngs and waves of adoring, screaming mimis of fans and went on to produce number one hit after number one hit, then this could have been their masterpiece, but alas (for Zeppo at least) it was the Beatles who romped about in this classic Brit-com of the Sixties - full of epoch-changing music and screwball comedic timing.

  5. Les Golden Eighties aka: Window Shopping (1986, Chantal Akerman, France) - Akerman, who had created the four hour masterpiece Jeanne Dielman in 1975, decided to make a movie about the casting of a Musical. It was called Les Golden Eighties and was a subterfugical film of strangely-lit Godardian pretense. Three years later, Akerman actually produced the Musical that she showed herself casting. Six years after that, the film was finally released in America. A beautifully tacky exploitation-exposing riff on mainstream French (and American) moviemaking - and fun songs to boot.

Special Jury Award: Cabaret (Bob Fosse)
Special Preponderant Genre Award: Nashville (Robert Altman)
Nouvelle Vague Award: Une Femme est une Femme (Jean Luc Godard)
Audience Award: Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donan & Gene Kelly)

Honourable Mentions (in chronological order):
Duck Soup (Leo McCarey), Gold Digger's of 1935 (Berkeley), Oklahoma! (Zinnemann), Guys & Dolls (Mankiewicz), West Side Story (Wise), Robin and the 7 Hoods (Douglas), Tommy (Russell), The Wall (Parker), Moulin Rouge (Luhrmann), 8 Femmes (Ozon)

and My Guilty Pleasure Award: White Christmas (Michael Curtiz)

and My Anything-Bert-Hates Award: Grease (Randal Kleiser)

*points are given as follows: for numbered lists, first place recieves 5 points, second place recieves 4, third place 3, fourth place 2 and fifth place gets 1 point; for unumbered lists, each film will recieve 3 points; total points are then tallied up and a comprehensive Top 5 list is created


The Next Topic is:
Name The Top 5 FILMS SET IN PARIS

e-mail me at kevynknox@thecinematheque.com with your picks for week #8,
no later than 6pm on Sunday, August 14th.

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