... you can learn from:
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Hedwig: Our apartment was so small that Mother made me play in the oven. Late at night I would listen to the voices of the American masters, Tony Tennille, Debby Boone, Anne Murray who was actually a Canadian working in the American idiom. And then there were the crypto-homo rockers: Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, David Bowie who was actually an idiom working in America and Canada. These artists, they left as deep an impression on me as that oven rack did on my face. To be an American in muskrat love, soft as an easy chair not even the chair, I am I said, have I never been mellow? And the colored girls sing... doo do doo do doo do doo... but never with the melody. How could I do it better than Tony or Lou... HEY BOY, TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE!
John Cameron Mitchell's queer rock-musical masterpiece was dropped into limited release 20 years ago this very day! This is one of the ones I can always point to and say, "SEE? I don't hate ALL musicals. I just need them to actually have decent music for me to like them." And my god does this show ever. I ended up seeing the recent stage revival three times! PS I very much recommend y'all pick up the Criterion disc that came out in 2019, every nook and cranny of Hedwig's squalid experience looks so stunning it'll knock your wig straight across the mobile home.
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2 comments:
I have Shortbus on DVD and that is very graphic sexually. I rented this thru Netflix several months ago and my partner couldn't get thru it, I did finish it and it is a very strange movie.
"Hedwig" is such a brilliant film (yes-we do know it was a play first)! I often think it would be so much better than "It's A Wonderful Life" as a movie staple for the "holidays". "Hedwig" has such wonderful songs, nearly psychedelic camp, a superlative animated scene, powerful identity angst and hilarious, sly jokes. It is certainly my favorite musical of the last 40 years and one of my fave films of all time.
I'd love to live long enough to see the "average" nuclear family sing- and maybe dance- along with "Wig In A Box". I predict it will improve every family that does this.
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