Yeah, I think this movie loses a lot when divorced from its 1980s context. Too bad it's not possible to "unsee" something like The Mummy for a couple of hours in order to watch IJ without preconceptions.
Your comparison to Top Hat is an interesting one. To be honest, I don't think of the Astaire/Rogers films as "musicals" at all--to me, a "musical" is a Rogers and Hammerstein extravaganza that has a lot of singing, not a whole lot of dancing, and a fairly coherent plot. (Probably because they're what I grew up with.) A/R films to me are exquisite dance numbers and snarky banter held up by flimsy-yet-amusing plots and a bit of singing. Both kinds are great movies, but very different types of films.
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Date: 2009-12-28 07:10 pm (UTC)Your comparison to Top Hat is an interesting one. To be honest, I don't think of the Astaire/Rogers films as "musicals" at all--to me, a "musical" is a Rogers and Hammerstein extravaganza that has a lot of singing, not a whole lot of dancing, and a fairly coherent plot. (Probably because they're what I grew up with.) A/R films to me are exquisite dance numbers and snarky banter held up by flimsy-yet-amusing plots and a bit of singing. Both kinds are great movies, but very different types of films.