You say the price of my love's not a price that you're willing to pay

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2020

#14 : Hamilton

Is it a film or not? Either way, it's one of the most outstanding and defining pieces of popular culture of the last decade, Lin-Manuel Miranda turning dry American history into a dazzlingly entertaining tale of bitter personal rivalry, revolutionary war, and the power of words. The songs, inspired by decades of hip-hop, are beginning-to-end sensational – but the real treat of the Disney+ version, filmed with the original Broadway cast in 2016, is getting up-close and personal to its knock-out performances. It's a vantage point that might ordinarily cost you hundreds of dollars. You can see the fire in Leslie Odom Jr.'s eyes as he sings 'Wait For It', feel Phillipa Soo's utter heartbreak in 'Burn', and – yes – almost feel the spray of Jonathan Groff's liberal saliva in the King George numbers. Dropped on the streaming service right in the middle of lockdown, Hamilton was vital escapism – and completely democratised a theatrical experience that everyone should seek out.

Skipping over A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood (#16) and I'm Thinking Of Ending Things (#15), this is another one I've seen - it's like I spent a load of 2020 watching telly for some reason. Weird, huh?

Actually, it is quite weird because this gives me some fond memories of lockdown. The girls heard this was on its way so genned up on the soundtrack beforehand big time (and I mean BIG time!) and we all sat down as a family to watch it. And we LOVED it.

Even if you just listen to the soundtrack, it's a very clever musical (if possibly slightly too long) and adding the visuals obviously only improves matters - particularly because there some incredible moves going on, with there often being a large number of people on stage, which is also often revolving. And the camera really gets in amongst them all - it must have taken quite some planning to get things all worked out.

And the cast are all great - obviously there's a special shout-out to Lin-Manuel for writing the thing as well as singing it, but everyone else deserves props as well. So yeah - did I mention we loved it? So much so that, when those dark days of lockdown were over, we dropped a vast amount of money to go and see it live as a family in some decent seats (with both children being given strict instructions not to sing all the words at full volume) - and we loved that too.

So thank you to Disney+ for making lockdown a little less dreadful and if you've not seen it then it's another strong recommendation from me. Don't be scared off by the hippy-hoppy thang because it's not all hippy-hop - there's some nice singing too and the hippy-hoppy stuff is very literate and understandable. 

Is it actually a film though? Well...

#17 - Maybe too clever for its own good?
#13 - An impressive piece of work

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm not wishing I was back in the USA, coz I come from Morecambe and the skies are grey

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 15/11/24 : Earth To Grace - Massive Wagons I will listen to the new entry at #1, but there's absolutely NO WAY I'm writing a whole entry on it - so instead we have this which I know absolutely nothing about. But it has to be better than the abomination at #1. Well, it's something you don't hear too much of these days - I guess "hard rock" is probably as good a description as any. It’s not going to win any awards for musical complexity but it’s quite catchy - I was r eminded of Gary Moore in his heavier days that teenage me used to like. It also certainly doesn't take itself too seriously - "Free And Easy" tells us "I don't shoot guns, it's not healthy - I drive a Ford C-Max I got off my dad and it's filthy" and "Rabbit Hole" offers up an amusingly sceptical take on conspiracy theories and then abruptly ends "Auf wiedersehen, adios - this song fucking ...
Read more

And she'll tease you, she'll unease you

Image
  A first for me! Cheap tickets often pop up to various All Points East events through work, but it often coincides with holiday time - and the one time I did make an effort to go a train strike prevented me from making out into the wilds of East London. Until now when, for no obvious reason, I went to a day when I had no great interest in the headlining act. It's based in Victoria Park in Hackney and it's a BIG site. The set-up is similar to Reading Festival with two main stages which alternate between acts, involving a lot of audience migration across the site. The distance between the stages might even be bigger than at Reading, but there's also a sizeable tented stage about halfway between so you can always stop off if you're feeling tired - and I did, on several occasions! Also, unlike both Reading and BST Hyde Park, there is a lot of shaded area on site which was also much used throughout the day whilst a LOT of music was being enjoyed, because I saw... Liana Flor...
Read more

Who are ya?!?

Image
A point each for the name, the song and the artist. 1. Her boyfriend’s a dick – he brings a gun to school 2. He took me to the future in the flux thing and I saw everything 3. He lives on the second floor 4. She told my baby we'd danced 'til three, then she looked at me 5. He tempted her with his treacle tart and his tasty wholemeal bread (2 names) 6. He’s stepping through the door 7. His girlfriend's pregnant too - he’s about to be a father 8. She’s gotta be strong to fight them, so she’s taken lots of vitamins 9. She came from Miami, F.L.A - hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A. 10. Her smile is like a breath of spring, her voice is soft like summer rain 11. He’s darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there 12. He was jamming good with Weird and Gilly 13. Two American kids doin' the best they can (2 names) 14. I just act like I don’t remember and she just acts like she don’t care 15. She got a double wide and she rode a plane 16. You could have heard a...
Read more