Timecop hddvd movie#

The central characters are now an uptight Army enlistee and a free-spirited hippie, played by John Savage and Treat Williams, who end up switching places when the enlistee is ordered to Viet Nam. While the film retains most of the original score, the story was almost completely re-written. Unfortunately the Flower Power Broadway musical of the late 1960s was considered passé by audiences who ignored it. The film that should have gotten greater recognition was Milos Forman’s Hair. Oscar-nominated Roy Scheider is obviously playing Fosse, which made the film seem immediate for many, but it’s a rough going all the way.

The feat is incredible for a film that is mostly about the hallucinations of a womanizing, drug abusing dancer while he is undergoing open heart surgery. Most favored Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz, which won four Oscars and another five nominations. The emphasis for the next three decades would be on musical drama and fantasy.Ĭritics were split over which film was the best musical of 1979. Charlie Martin Smith and Don Stroud were outstanding as members of his band. Gary Busey won a richly deserved Oscar nomination for his electrifying portrayal of Holly.

The best musical of 1978 was The Buddy Holly Story, about the short life of the legendary rock ‘n’ roll singer from Lubbock, Texas, who was killed in a plane crash in 1959 at the age of 22. Co-produced by Scorsese and The Band’s Robbie Robertson, the film also contained performances by such artists as Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and Muddy Waters. This one, because it had a hot-name director helming it, was given major distribution and played to packed houses. There had been concert films before, but with the notable exception of 1970’s Woodstock and one or two others, they usually played small theatres for a week or two if they got distribution at all. Never mind that the dancers’ feet were cut off for most of the musical numbers, it was the chance to see a more contemporary musical with John Travolta fresh from his Oscar-nominated performance in Saturday Night Fever starring opposite 1970s pop star Olivia Newton-John.Ī better example of contemporary music on screen was Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, a documentary of the last concert given by The Band. Artistically it catered to the undemanding, easily entertained masses. If A Little Night Music was an artistic and commercial failure, Grease which was also released in 1978, was at least a commercial success. I left off in 1978 with the dismal screen adaptation of another Sondheim classic, A Little Night Music, which was pretty much the death knell of the traditional Broadway-to-Hollywood musical that soared so majestically for more than two decades with such sublime entertainments as The King and I, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver! and Cabaret.

Timecop hddvd movie#

With the opening of Tim Burton’s film version of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd this past weekend, it’s time for my third and final dissertation on the evolution of the movie musical. Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good movie on DVD!