Reel Hub: Sing-a-Long Weekend at the Brattle

Sing-A-Long Weekend
Grease (1978) - Friday, 4:15, 7:00, 9:45pm
The Muppet Movie (1979) - Sat. & Sun., 1:00 & 3:00pm
Moulin Rouge (2001) - Saturday, 5, 7:30, 10:00pm
Singin' in the Rain (1952) - Sunday, 5, 7:15, 9:30pm
Hairspray (2007) - Monday, 7:15 and 9:45pm
Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge
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There's something about the Bostonian summer that just makes us want to sing and dance, dance, dance, our way about town. But ever since Legally Blonde: The Musical came out, the urge to sing around Harvard Square has been overpowering, and only the fear of a public shaming has kept us from bursting into song at the Harvard Law Library, or joining in with the singing driver on the Green Line. Thankfully, the Brattle Theater has come to the rescue, offering musical lovers a safe harbor with their Sing-A-Long weekend.

The movies themselves are an interesting mix of the canonical (Singin' in the Rain), the modern (Moulin Rouge), and the Travolta, with musical styles ranging from Broadway classics to refashioned pop-songs. Yet there's also something odd about the curator's selections: almost every single one of these films is a media satire. Singin' in the Rain famously captures the early days of "talkies" and the changing studio system, Hairspray skewers mid-century television, and Moulin Rouge takes on cabaret, the cutting-edge medium of its day. While this theme helps explain why fine musicals like The Sound of Music and An American in Paris aren't being screened, it also points to the absence of the great Yankee Doodle Dandy, the story of George M. Cohan. One can only hope that the Brattle will screen this gem soon and make up for its omission. Still, add in the release of Tropic Thunder and this weekend promises to offer plenty of mirth at Hollywood's expense.

The best of this weekend's movies are Moulin Rouge and Singin' in the Rain. Both films strike the perfect balance between form and style. Moulin Rouge is an often-exhilarating visual spectacle, with hyperkinetic images and equally blazing musical numbers, yet none of this playfulness ever detracts from the plot (to the extent that there is a plot, that is). Along the way, the director, Baz Luhrmann, manages to do something really quite incredible: he takes a location, Paris, that's been filmed countless times and shows it to us in a way we've never seen before. He also proves to be a fine manager of actors, drawing good performances from both leads and an excellent supporting turn from Jim Broadbent as Harold Zidler, the Moulin Rogue's manager.

Singin' in the Rain is justly considered the greatest musical of all time. Gene Kelly gives the performance of his career as Don Lockwood, and the movie flows effortlessly from one moment to the next. Although it's not as visually arresting as Moulin Rouge, Singin' in the Rain is no less inventive: a montage traces the multiple levels of vaudeville in America, a monologue about Lockwood's origins is comically undercut by the visuals, and a brilliant set-piece ("Broadway Melody") reveals the protagonist's personal and professional struggles while showing off the full range of Mr. Kelly's dancing abilities and alluding to his An American in Paris. Singin' in the Rain is also the rare musical that seems believable with nearly half of the musical numbers occurring as parts of films or performances of some sort. Sure, it may stretch the limits of strict verisimilitude, but if you were that in love, wouldn't you want to sing in the rain too?

Post contributed by Eitan Kensky.