Singin’ In The Rain

To the BFI this afternoon for a bit of culture. I was supposed to have seen a stage version of this at Sadler’s Wells last month, but the Pestilence has seen that postponed until September next year. I have, of course, seen it before, but yeeeears ago, and never actually in a cinema, so when I saw that it was on I had to go.

It is of course a wonderful, joyful film. And of course I couldn’t help but think about how I would have edited it differently. There’s an odd shot right at the start of Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor together in the classic rainstorm scene, which is also present in the trailer, but in the film as it was released that is a Kelly solo number. Then I would have cut a few little scenes in the finale too – Jean Hagen’s explanation of how evil her character is is unnecessary for the denouement in which her character being overdubbed in the mise en abyme is revealed. She has already made herself thoroughly hateable by that point without the Baddie Monologue.

Bill & Ted Face the Music

I saw this yesterday afternoon in a practically empty Curzon Victoria. I’ve been both looking forward to it and dreading it for years. The first film in the trilogy was excellent. It was original, funny, and well made. The second wasn’t anything like as tight but at least managed to not be utterly bogus. And then a few years later there was talk of a third, and while those rumours were repeatedly and thoroughly denied they never went away.

This is not a great film. There’s nothing original about it of course, and it is merely competently made. Reeves and Winter do a surprisingly good job of portraying older, failed versions of their original characters, and the supporting cast do well too. The casting and makeup crew did an outstanding job on the Jimi Hendrix and Louis Armstrong impersonators.

But despite the lack of originality, despite having zero artistic merit, despite the old corny jokes … that’s what we want to see. This film is nothing but fan service. If you loved the original film, then you’ll enjoy this. If you’re too young to remember the original then don’t bother. And if you’re old enough to remember but didn’t love it then you are a joyless arse.