Xanadu (1980)

[Mofo Rising]

In the pursuit of bad cinema, I often subject myself to movies I know I'll hate.  It's bad enough to watch a movie that's terrible in a genre I like (horror, sci-fi), but I hate musicals.  Even the best musical ever made would be hard pressed to get my interest.

This one, Xanadu, is not the best musical ever made.  It has disco.  Disco music.

Starting off, things were going somewhat well.  I didn't hate it right off the bat, so I thought there was a small chance I might make it through this thing unscathed.  Then the musical numbers started.  Turns out this movie is my own personal disco apocalypse.  The Discopalypse, if you will.

Quick summary.  Michael Beck, keeping up his bad-ass persona from The Warriors, stars as struggling artist So-and-So.  Roller skating muse Olivia Newton-John (sadly not in a leotard) roller skates her way into his life and his heart (aww).  Along the way she convince him to help Old Man Gene Kelly to build Xanadu, which is evidently nothing like Charles Foster Kane's residence.

See, So-and-So had met former bandstand leader Gene Kelly on the beach and struck up a conversation.  Something to keep in mind, folks, if an old man you just met on the beach invites you back to his place to listen to records and show you his "memorabilia," chances are the evening will not go quite as smoothly as you hoped.  Then again, that might be your thing, especially if this movie is your idea of a good time.  Well, I'm not one to judge, but he's old, and this movie sucks.  A lot.

You know, I'm writing this as I watch the movie, and I'm currently plotting the demise of all the major characters.  Yikes!  Dragon's Lair!  You hate to see quality animators used for the forces of evil.

One hour in.  Good God, why is this happening?  This music... these people...  These are the dread pipers piping while the idiot god Azathoth blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity.  Beyond this lies only madness and endless disco blaring in the night.

Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.

Here's a quote from Michael Beck: "The Warriors opened a lot of doors in film for me, which Xanadu then closed."  I've heard this movie killed the musical; it killed Michael Beck's career and it's almost killed me.  You hear me, movie?  I've got a bottle of pills right next to me and I'm not afraid to use them!

You know, that Olivia Newton-John is an attractive woman, but I hate Grease, I hate this movie, and that "I honestly love you" song has my vote for the most boring song ever written.  This is not a good track record.

...

...

You know, taking all those pills a little while ago seemed like a bad idea at the time, but I think I understand now.  I must have died sometime ago.  The last fifteen minutes of this movie are akin to a hellish recreation of Dave Bowman's trip through the monolith and beyond the infinite.  It is the Discopalypse, and this movie is the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.

"If you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away.  But if you've made your peace, then the devvils are terally agnegls freeing you fr from thi s Ear  th
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[RCMerchant]

 GIVE HIM SOME ROOM! LET THE MAN BREATH!!!!

  Give the man a straight ciggerette...
 LOSER-Don't you die on me,man!

 Ugh. Xanadu. Never seen it,but my sister Brenda used to have the soundtrack back when I was a teen. I had to douche my brains with Sabbath and Zep daily. I think disco is the reason I started smoking pot and went anti-social.

 

[Mortal Envelope]

"Discopalypse" hahaha that's good...and accurate.

I was subjected to this movie multiple times back in the early 80s -the years of "The Movie Channel" when it was the only gig in town.  I always hoped Danny would have hurt himself real bad when he skated through the wall to the land of whateverthehell.

The "climactic" disco breakdown in the club at the end when ONJ changes into about 80 outfits was enough to kill a horse.  The mix of big band and disco during performances during the two guys' fantasy counterfactual thinking scene was enough to kill us all.

<shudders>

[Andrew]

Way back when I first reviewed this, I honestly had this plan for the entire plot section:

THIS MOVIE SUCKS

The moment I screamed at the screen was when Michael Beck skated through the brick wall.  I had survived the glowing blue people, painful songs, but when the script denied me the satisfaction of seeing that idiot bouncing off the wall I lost it.  Oh, and even stiff and old, Gene Kelly could cut the rug out from under Olivia Newton-John.

Edit to add:  just because I am feeling sadistic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m1UWSD-FaA
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[asimpson2006]

A few months ago, when I couldn't sleep I turned on the TV and while searching through the movie channels I happened to see that this was one.  I watched about 5 minutes of it and that was all I could handle.

[Mr. DS]

"'The Warriors' opened a lot of doors in film, for me, which 'Xanadu' then closed." Michael Beck

You know, this film is bad.  A bad musical to boot.   I didn't think the music was the worst I've ever heard though.  Some of the songs are a bit catchy.  Its one of those films people may find themselves enjoying for all the wrong reasons.  When my wife and I went to NY in May they were advertising the Broadway show then.  All I could think of it they've finally made a musical I would watch. 

My personal favorite moment in the movie...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eEOFvBdD2k
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[Torgo]

This movie comes close to causing my brain to implode.  Gene Kelly deserved better.

But I do have to admit that I thought that Olivia Newton-John was quite pretty growing up.

[Zapranoth]

It's funny... this board just goes to prove that everybody has their thing that they can't take.

Example:  in med school I worked for the eye bank, harvesting corneas.  To do that, our policy was to remove the globes and take them back to the lab to remove the corneas there.   Once I was on a trauma floor collecting tissue, and one of the trauma nurses said "oh, it's the eye guy, I'm leaving!"     I talked with her, and yes, she could help with cracking chests and doing other pretty gory work, but she couldn't handle watching enucleation.

Similarly, even the battle-hardened veterans of this board can't take some things.  I guess in D&D terms (3.5 rules), I would have to describe someone like Andrew as "damage reduction 20 / ELO"   (or what have you).   RC might be damage reduction 20 or 15... not sure what would overcome his damage reduction, in terms of bad movies.

I'd be more like damage reduction 10 / Uwe Boll, myself

I can watch Xanadu, though.  I don't like it. I have to admit, the damned blue people and the roller skates get to me, but I can at least focus on it.   And when it's over, I can sing

I'm alive!
And the world shines for me today!
I'm alive!

[Rev. Powell]

Funny.  I've been thinking about this movie lately.  I even thought of starting a thread titled "Movies You Fear" with XANADU as my example.  What I mean is, I know it's just soul-rendingly awful.  But I also know that someday I will break down and watch it.  I'm not sure which day I fear more; the day of my death, or the day I watch XANADU.

[Derf]

I actually saw this in the theater. I was a teenager. It didn't seem that bad then. Then again, I also found things to enjoy about Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Xanadu hasn't aged well; it couldn't since it is full of disco music. At the time, it seemed to be mediocre but harmless fun. It wasn't particularly well written, well acted or well executed, but there are still quite a few movies I'd put below it on my "To Be Watched" list. I will admit that even then I knew that Gene Kelly must be really hurting for money to do a movie like this, but it didn't hurt me to watch it (then, at least).

[Mofo Rising]

Well, that's the thing.  When I started the movie I tried to shift my sensibility over to that of somebody who would actually enjoy this movie (basically a twelve-year-old girl).  It couldn't be too bad, right?

But it just kept going.  Every musical interlude sapped more and more of my strength.  Basically the only thing keeping me going was coming up with the jokes above.  No mistake, it's a wretched, awful movie.

But different strokes, I guess.  I noticed Andrew caught a lot of flick for panning this movie in the Reader Comments of his review.

[Derf]

I'm not really defending the movie. It is most definitely bad. I'm just saying that at the time (a time when my tastes were even more questionable than they are now), the movie didn't seem painfully bad (merely harmlessly bad). If I tried to watch it today, it would likely be very bad; the clips were enough to show me that. But there are other movies that do to me what Xanadu does to you. For example (sticking with musicals for a moment), Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, made me want to take up emo-style self mutilation. The Sound of Music, which I will readily admit is a good movie, makes me want to claw my way through the back wall to escape. Dumb and Dumber made me want to take up emo-style Jim Carey mutilation and claw my way through Jeff Daniels' head. I would rather watch Xanadu than any of these. Then again, I'd rather watch a roadkill possum rot into oblivion than watch any of these also.

[Torgo]

A few years back, some friends of mine and myself did a weekly bad movie night (now, it's more like every couple of months due to everyone's different schedules).  One night, a female coworker friend of my friend Rex came along and brought with her the DVD of Xanadu.

The thing was is that she actually loves this movie and also loves the soundtrack.  We proceeded to try to tear this movie to shreds but Xanadu is just so stupefyingly awful with everyone image it smacks your brain with that you just get to a point where you just get numb and can't react anymore to it.  There are very few movies that can do this to me. 

She got all mad at us for how much we hated and loathed this movie. She really honestly couldn't understand how anyone could not like it.

So afterwards we subjected her to Godmonster of Indian Flats and The Being back to back and we got our revenge!   

Someone mentioned the Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive, hell, that one doesn't cause my brain to turn to jello like Xanadu does.  There's just some sort of demonic power that Xanadu has that is hard to explain in typical bad movie/Movie terms. 

[Killer Bees]

Mofo, you crack me up   

I totally agree with you on this movie.  But the soundtrack is good.  All those flashy over the top ELO disco numbers.

You just can't keep good trashy music down.   

[Killer Bees]

I just had a thought.

Why haven't the MST3K guys done Xanadu?

Surely it's just begging for a good heckle?