Category Archives: Musicals

LAGAAN (2001)

This is a 4-hour Bollywood musical about cricket, which for some of readers may inexplicably not be enough to sell you on this movie, but maybe give it a chance.

MOULIN ROUGE! (2001)

We open ten days of the movies of 2001 with a completely bonkers musical mash-up that transplants all of the pop songs to Paris circa 1900… and I love it.

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! (1966)

A beloved holiday Christmas special involving both Chuck Jones and Boris Karloff, which centers around the greatest diss track ever written and launched an increasing awful media franchise.

CLAYMATION CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION (1987)

One of the most used VHS tapes of my childhood was this TV special taped off of CBS… it is only marginally easier to access today.

GYPSY (1962)

In honor of Stephen Sondheim, here is one of his earlier works, about the seminal insane stage mom and her daughter who ends up as the most famous stripper of all time.

THE BAND WAGON (1953)

A big fun colorful 1950s musical that actually, for once, bothers to have characters and arcs and things, and also Fred Astaire dance-fights a bunch of guys.

MY FAIR LADY (1964)

Its reputation is as the most intellectual of musicals, lacking big musical production numbers in favor of lines like “The Rain in Spain is Mostly on the Plain.”

ALL THAT JAZZ (1979)

An “incredibly self-indulgent” sort-of musical in which Bob Fosse “choreographs his own death,” which I gotta say I was absolutely fascinated by.

FANTASIA (1940)

Disney’s early foray into “high culture” is probably weirder to than you remember and also includes a satisfying amount of dinosaur-on-dinosaur violence.