Ploydsge just watch it!

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Gary L. Thompson Xanadu should rank right at the top of the best Hollywood musicals, in the same company as the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies, Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris, White Christmas, Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, etc. Unfortunately, the reason it doesn't is due to one missing ingredient that glares out at the audience right in the opening credits.The opening credits blazon the names of Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John. And then after the movie's opening scene comes on screen, the movie adds almost as an afterthought "Michael Beck".That's the central problem of Xanadu right there. When Gene Kelly is on screen, you can't take your eyes off him. When Olivia Newton John is on screen, you can't take your eyes off her. Unfortunately, Kelly is the supporting player and Newton John is the leading lady, but neither is the main star. Michael Beck is not bad. He's not good either. He's NOTHING. Kelly and Newton John are valiantly trying to push forward this train lacking an engine to pull it, two stars of first magnitude orbiting a black hole. There's a simple way to demonstrate this reality. If you've seen the movie, I'm sure there's any number of trippy scenes you could easily pull out of your memory. However, aside from that opening quiet scene of a drawing being sketched, I defy anybody to recall any scene in Xanadu which took place in that artists studio. That's because there's no Danny McGuire or Kira character to prop up the Sonny Malone character while he's working at his day job--it's up to Michael Beck alone to carry those scenes, and he's just not up to it.It undermines the romantic plot line that is so key to the climax of Xanadu. Supposedly Kira is smitten by a forbidden erotic passion for Sonny Malone. Again, I ask those who have seen the movie, is it really credible that Newton John's character would be totally immune to Gene Kelly's charms decades before (heck, was it that believable that she would have been immune to Danny McGuire in the MODERN DAY?) and totally fall for a nonentity utterly lacking in charisma like Sonny? Frankly, the Nick character in that old movie watched by Sonny and Kira at one point in Xanadu showed more charisma and stage presence in those few seconds than Michael Beck showed in the entirety of Xanadu!As heretical as it was to Hollywood's legendary ageism, I think Xanadu would have been immensely better if the movie had centered around just Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John. As it is, Xanadu becoming a successful stage musical shows the vehicle itself was never at fault in the movie. Xanadu does have many great songs, superb choreography, and a superb tribute paid to the nostalgia of Golden Age Hollywood. So the movie is well worth watching, if for no other reason to ponder what it might have been with a REAL LEADING MAN.

The_Film_Cricket In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure dome decree. - Samuel Coleridge, poet I can't say much for Kubla Kahn but at least he had sense enough not to turn Xanadu into a disco roller rink.I am more or less indifferent to a movie like Xanadu, it asks so much and gives so little. I have found that it stands at an interesting crossroads in the history of American bad taste. It came out in 1980 right at the moment when disco was an endangered species and the early age of ear-shattering 80's pop music was about to be dubbed MTV. Between groovy and gnarly lies this humiliating effort to fuse the two eras together. It turns out to be little more than a long bit of publicity for the soundtrack. And yes, I do believe that this is a movie wrapped around Top 40 songs (though one is hard-pressed to call it a movie).The 'movie' takes place in a beach community in Southern California where we meet Sonny (stoic hunk Michael Beck) a frustrated commercial artist who specializes in the kinds of album covers that made Journey famous. As we first meet him he is . . . well, frustrated. How do we know he's frustrated? Because all dissatisfied artists in the movies destroy their work inches before completion. He shreds his work into confetti and tosses it out the window where it lands in front of a mural depicting nine muses from Ancient Greece. Well, that's what we are told anyway, because the girls are all dressed the latest fashions and are all sporting roller skates. They dance around in a blue glow like the post mortem Obi-Wan Kenobi.Apparently littering breaks the magic spell because the muses come to life. One of them is assigned to Sonny who sees her for the first time as she roller skates around him and disappears uttering only the information that her name is Kiera. She is played by Olivia Newton-John, the tow-headed, drink-your-milk pop star of Grease upon whose image this cinematic house of sand was constructed. She smiles and beams appropriately enough to sell Coppertone.Kiera skates into Sonny's life at just the right moment because Sonny has one of those gruff, butt-headed bosses that you only find in two places: the movies and real life. The tyrant throws an assignment at him to paint a beautiful girl (guess who) in front of a building. What?! Can this be?! Yes it can Sonny, this is a movie, shut up.Anyway, he finds Kiera roller-skating in an abandoned roller rink called the Platinum Palace. What we don't see coming is the presence of the greatest performer ever to put his feet on the floor. Enter: Gene Kelly. He beams as always as Danny Malone who tells Sonny that he once played clarinet for Glenn Miller's band and shows him a picture from WWII with Kiera on it. Shuffling Sonny out of the way, we get an extended scene in which the great hoofer is transported back to the good old days to dance with Kiera in full 40s regalia. The dancing? Remember those guys who used to spin plates on long sticks on The Ed Sullivan Show? It's like that.Sonny is inspired. He quits his job and devotes his time to the disco roller rink. It is Kiera who decides to name this dump. This new venture is celebrated as Kiera and Sonny turn into cartoons (don't ask) animated by the great Don Bluth, not doing his best work here. This is followed by a painfully disturbing shopping montage in which the lovers dance around affirming capitalism while the department store dummies sprout to life and start dancing (it's that bad).Turning the Platinum Palace into Xanadu apparently takes as much time as vacuuming your living room because it's up and running in a cinch (Kiera apparently got help from some of Zeus' contractors). The movie then moves on to the single dumbest moment (yes, there is a moment dumber then dancing department store dummies): After having pulled herself in and out of time, appeared in a 40 year old photograph, appeared and reappeared on Sonny's album cover, turned herself and her boyfriend into cartoons and animated dancing department store dummies, Kiera reveals to Sonny that she is a muse . . . AND HE HAS THE NERVE TO LOOK SURPRISED!! Oh, why couldn't it have been this Sonny who stopped at the tollbooth?! But the movie isn't over yet . . .Kiera reveals that her work here is done and that she must return home. He misses her so much that he decides to return to the wall from wince she came and skate head-first into it (Geez, what some dopes won't do for love). Instead of the massive concussion that one would expect, Sonny is instead magically transported to Mt. Olympus (yes, Mt. Olympus). Olympus, as represented here, is very large space where the guys who run the fog machine get paid handsomely. There he finds Kiera talking to Zeus and pleads for her freedom. Remember those scenes at the end of 'Mork and Mindy' where Mork reports to Orson about the lesson that he learned? It's kinda like that. Anyway, Zeus refuses, Sonny leaves, Kiera belts out a top 40 hit and Zeus grants parole.And still it's not over . . .There must be a closing musical number and Xanadu provides it at its most stomach churning. It's a roller-skating finale on Xanadu's opening night with hundreds of extras skating behind Olivia and clapping in unison as she knocks off the title tune as we inch (mercifully) to the closing credits. I'm no songwriter but I find it rather damaging when a movie's title song begins with the line 'A place where nobody dares to go'. Wouldn't you say?

Jerghal Talk about an underwhelming picture! You might think that it would be pretty decent -in a bad cheese kinda way- coz it's a well known cult film but that might be only because it's linked to the well known and liked song of the same name. In reality it turns out to be pretty empty and unenergetic. The lead actor is a talentless shmuck who hasn't got the range or capacity to carry the film. Olivia & Gene Kelly are way better but even they can't save the film from mediocrity. Although it's a musical you haven't got much song and dance scenes and you might think that's a good thing -but it's not- coz the story is so thin you quickly begin to long for some uncalled for singing. Anyways, I'm sure it might appeal to a certain audience but as far as musicals go you can do much better. Maybe something for musical completionists I guess :)

SmileysWorld My first childhood star crush was Olivia Newton-John.Pretty lady with a voice like an angel.Then,Grease came along and it further enhanced the crush.Two years after Grease came Xanadu.I have always been one to listen to and read reviews of films.When most of the reviews are not favorable,I tend to steer clear.Not wanting to see this lovely lady,my childhood star crush in a bad light,I did steer clear for 34 years.Finally,I bit the bullet and watched just today.Olivia looked lovely of course,but as for the rest,the critics were right.The story was too surreal for my taste.The special effects were awful.The acting,short of the efforts of legend Gene Kelly and Olivia(I am biased)were worthy of note.Michael Beck looked too much like an Andy Gibb clone because Gibb was who they wanted for his role and couldn't get him.The 40's dance sequences fell flat because they looked too much like the 80's version of the 40's.Perhaps they would have looked better in black and white,but I don't think it would have saved the film.I love Olivia,but all in all,this was every bit the bad viewing experience I thought it would be.