Saturday, April 25, 2015

What's Your Favorite Musical Number in Movies?

Tonight This weekend is what it means to be young.

I often tell myself that I don't much care for musicals, but then I remember that at least three of my all-time favorite movies are basically musicals (four if I let That Thing You Do! sneak in there). I've said before that I like movies that just happen to include musical numbers more than movies that are full-on musicals, but that's just semantics -- a musical number is a musical number. What are your favorites?





31 comments:

  1. make 'em Laugh from Singin' in the Rain. Bar none one of the greatest things ever commited to film. The song is excellent and Donald O'Connor's moves are amazing.

    Also, since you bring up That Thing You Do, I don't think this actually counts as a musical number, but one of my favorite scenes in any movie is that when they hear there song on the radio for the first time. There's a genuine sense of joy that fills that scene that I love.

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  2. I'm don't really watch too many musicals (because I'm a man, obviously. A man's man.....but not like that.....not that there's anything wrong with that) but I do love Grease, and Summer Nights is far and away the best number.

    And I don't really consider it a musical, but more of a movie about music (much like That Thing You Do!), but I'd like to throw song love out for the criminally underrated Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. And just about every original song is stellar, from the titular Walk Hard, to Take My Hand, to Let's Duet, to You Got To Love Negro Man. It's just great. I even love their cover of That's Amore.

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    1. Seconded on Walk Hard, Brian. Great choice. My personal favorite is Take My Hand and the ensuing riot that instantly breaks out. Hilarious.

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    2. It's great. It was on the constant HBO rotation my senior year of undergrad, and me and my roommates would watch it just about every friday and we pregamed in our townhouse.

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  3. Southpark the Movie, Bigger, longer, uncut is pretty amazing

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    1. Do you have any favourite numbers? Blame Canada is just great

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  4. Silencio! No Hay Banda! There is No Band!

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  5. Silencio! No Hay Banda! There is No Band!

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  6. Camelot Song(Knights of the Round Table) from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

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    1. One of mine too. I find this endless hilarious. 'Tis a silly place' and I want to go.

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  7. I don't know if your counting this, but the battle at the Roxy between the New York City Breakers and Rocksteady in "Beat Street" still gets me fired up.

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  10. "It Don't Worry Me" from the end of Nashville is pretty awesome. Not to kiss up to Mr. Bromley, but if I'm being honest it's probably Johhny B. Goode in Back to the Future.

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  11. Always look on the bright side of life from Life of Brian is worth a honourable mention

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    1. Our unoffical national anthem. Any year now it will be offical

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  12. "Take Off With Us," from Bob Fosse's All That Jazz.

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  13. Differentiating between musicals and musical numbers is not just semantics, Mr. Broms, it's a legitimate difference. Not to say there aren't movies or numbers that fall somewhere between the two - episodes of Glee, for example, regularly included both performances that are "really happening" and imagined performances (and many "really happening" numbers involved imagined enhancements), but there's a real and non-trivial genre difference between Walk the Line and West Side Story.

    Now, as for the question at hand, I of course love BttF's "Johnny B. Goode" and Captain America's "Star-Spangled Man", but my favorite might just have to be "Cabin Fever" from Muppet Treasure Island. So much wonderful, wonderful crazy.

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  14. Billy Boyd's song in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

    Pimps don't Cry from the Other Guys

    And pretty much all of Inside Llewyn Davis

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    Replies
    1. And "You've Got the Touch" from Boogie Nights

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  15. Prince songs "Darling Nikki" in Purple Rain.

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  16. I really dig Justin Timberlake lip-synching that Killers song in Southland Tales. That movie is a huge mess but that bit always stands out to me.

    I also unironically love the new-wave update of Gilbert & Sullivan in The Pirate Movie, a cable staple of my youth that I still put on every now and again for a warm nostalgia-hug.

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  17. Pretty much every number from "Inside Llewyn Davis."

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  18. My favorites come mostly from comedies. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. Big Bottom and Sex Farm from This Is Spinal Tap. All the tracks played by the core band in Blues Brothers. The Bob Dylan parody in Walk Hard. Uncle F***er from South Park. And Johnny B. Goode from BttF goes without saying.

    As a die-hard Whedon fanboy I of course have to mention Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and the Buffy episode Once More with Feeling. I pretty much know both by heart and every tune is epic. The Dr. Horrible DVD also includes a musical commentary track with a couple of amazing bits.

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    1. Mikko you have great picks! I do love Stone henge as well. The Blues brothers is just fantastic. Shake your tail feather, Tawhide, Think and everything at the end for me. Once More with Feeling is one of my favourite musicals. I like you know it pretty much by heart by now! I never get tired of it. I think every song is a win.

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  19. Laurel and Hardy's synchronized dance in Way Out West (1937). Possibly their finest moment.

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  20. "Llorando" from Mulholland Drive brings me to nightmare tears every time.

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  21. "Wise Up" from Magnolia.

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  22. "my forgotten man" from gold diggers of 1933
    "i only have eyes for you" from dames
    "dancing cheek to cheek" from top hat
    the final rendition of "maybe this time" from cabaret
    the sequence with all the watermelon umbrellas in the wayward cloud
    "sugar daddy" in hedwig and the angry inch
    "good morning" in singin' in the rain

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  23. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeRBu-sTZaI

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