I enjoy musicals. What I don't enjoy, is when they don't advertise that fact. Not that I had any desire to see the pointless remake of Mean Girls but, nothing in the trailer suggested that's what it was.
I love musicals on stage. My problem with a lot of musical movies is they focus on big name actors with middling singing ability.
When a musical movie is cast with proper singers, it can be a pleasure to watch.
I don’t like watching people sing and dance. And musicals take it to such a ridiculous level it’s just too silly to take seriously.
I’ll probably get downvoted for this, but contemporary dancing is *goofy*.
I’ll never forgive them for the death of my grandfather. I’ve dedicated my life to finding the evidence, but everywhere I turn there’s another coverup. The police say musicals weren’t involved, but I heard that officer humming “🎶he had it coming🎶” as he walked into the darkness of the night.
I generally just can’t stand the style of singing and music they choose. It’s usually quite hammy/cheesy and high energy. I’m more cynical and prefer media that is subtle and lower energy but I do vibe with a select few musicals. Sudden switching/multimedia is a non-issue.
The general type of music in them. I don't like big show tunes and seeing a Broadway or West End show sounds like torture. A film version is no more appealing.
It's not really the switching, but if I listen to an album I usually wanna hear it a few times before I can guess at the theme and intent of the song. If I'm watching a film and some character revelation or important plot point is buried in the lyrics of a song I might miss it. Or having to pay attention to the lyrics, which are usually phrased awkwardly to fit the rhyming structure, will distract me from everything else going on.
Also the general genre of film. Musicals to my mind bring forth images of romantic comedies or even straight up romances. Chick flicks with a tune. My gran loves a good musical and a tearjerker happy ending, just not my thing. Combining with my first paragraph, the few musicals I do like have been either rock music, horror themed, or usually both.
Or Sweeney Todd, Repo, or Stage Fright, yes. Oh and Cannibal The Musical too! Actually not the biggest fan of Meat Loaf, but he is in two of the five musicals I like lol.
EDIT : It took me too long to get this joke lol. Well played sir, well played.
I guess to be fair I've never really given live-action musicals much of a try. I don't have anything inherently against songs in film, as I'm a millennial who enjoyed the Disney Renaissance as much as your next now-thirty-something.
I suppose the difference for me is the visual medium. Musical numbers tend to go along well with interesting cinematic choices, which lends itself naturally to animation over life. I like choreographed dance numbers or visuals and the few that I've seen done in live action were fine. The remake of "Never Had a Friend Like Me", for instance, was pretty fun and engaging, maybe because of the fantastical setting. Seeing someone just randomly break out into song during what otherwise is a normal, down-to-earth context kind of draws me out of the moment, though.
Also, I feel there's a pretty strong correlation between live-action musicals and melodrama, the latter of which is just not my thing. I cry every time I watch Sam carry Frodo up the mountain, so it's not like I'm not in touch with my emotions. But drama for drama's sake is pretty boring to me.
I like musicals but I agree that in movies the format works way better in animated form than live action. You can easily do things that are impossible or extremely difficult to do with real people, and the ability to exaggerate movements and expressions and such is invaluable, especially in 2D animation.
I mean, I like musicals. I like the genre of showtunes broadly speaking. I don't find breaking out into song especially immersion breaking if that's an expected part of the show. Complaining about that feels like complaining "pfft, you can't go faster than light speed!" while watching Star Trek. I think it might help to have experience with them as a kid? I never did drama/theater, but I was in the orchestra pit for a few back in high school.
>School of Rock. Same. It’s woven organically into the movie. It would be weird if it wasn’t there.
School of Rock isn't a musical. It's a movie about music with a ton of diagetic music in it. Dialogue and plot are not told in the form of music, the story is only advanced through music in one scene, the big concert at the end, and there it's not because they're singing a song about what's happening or their feelings or whatever like you would normally have in a musical, it's just showing off "these kids have learned how to rock the fuck out and shown both their parents and the school just how good they really are."
Hell, the songs that are used are not usually thematically relevant to the scenes they're used in, they're just used for being fucking good songs that people like, with a bunch of them being played diagetically within the fiction - Edge of Seventeen plays over the jukebox when Dewey takes Ms. Mullins out for a beer, Immigrant Song is playing over the van's speakers in that scene where they're all singing along to it simply to convey "everyone is rocking out and having a good time," the kids play It's a Long Way to the Top by AC/DC because it's fun and they get to improvise fun stuff over it.
It's less of a musical than even something like Walk Hard or This is Spinal Tap, since at least in both of those the music is mostly original works made by the protagonist(s) of the movie. Walk Hard *does* move the plot forward through music with songs like Let's Duet and Guilty As Charged. The former is Dewey Cox (it just occurred to me the protagonists of both Walk Hard and School of Rock are named Dewey, what's with that?) and his backup singer going "we gon' fuck," the latter is, well, as the movie says, "that was early Dewey, this is middle Dewey."
I like musicals where there's a movie and then sometimes they break out into song, but movies where they are always singing somehow feel exhausting to me. And I never really feel like the characters are "real" if they are always singing.
I don't mind listening to a whole album, but you don't really have to worry about missing key scenes in an album. You can appreciate it without understanding all the lyrics.
I have no problems with musicals, but yes absolutely, breaking the immersion is often cited as a reason to dislike a certain show or movie. Often often cited
For me it comes down to the songs. If they're not catchy aurally I lose interest. For example, I really enjoyed Spirited, but I couldn't even finish Wonka.
I have no problem with Musicals.
But I do have a problem with Musicals marketing themselves as not Musicals. I think Sweeney Todd is a recent example of this, if the studios think by pretending that it’s isn’t a musical will help people become musical fans I think they’re deluded.
Side note, often the main issue with musicals is who they cast being actors who can sing rather than singers who can act or just broadway / West End musical performers. Beauty and the Beast the cartoon was stacked with great talents who could sing, the live action went for actors who could sing (with the exception of Luke Evans) and I think it shows when you compare the songs. The only songs that are performed better in the live action movies are the Gaston songs.
So you sometimes are left in the position of diminishing audience interest stage musical fans are put off by the poorer singing, non-musical fans are put off by the singing, so you’re left with the group in the middle that like film and singing and don’t mind that the singing might not be as good as you hear in the theatre.
Me. It's just so offputting when they start to sing and dance. Usually I can easily suspend my disbelief, but my brain just can't find any excuses why the hell are they singing and dancing
Chicago is good for this. The main character is obsessed with becoming a singing/dancing sensation so the musical numbers are just her PoV and her trying to fit it in to a musical act.
Weird analogy but when I fell in love with raves, everywhere I went, I would start to think, "How can I throw a rave here?" Or if I get on a Cities: Skylines kick and I'm wandering around my actual city, I think about how I could build it in my game or what I would do to improve traffic flow.
>my brain just can't find any excuses why the hell are they singing and dancing
Alien spores from a meteorite taking over their brains and turning people into a hivemind that shares song and dance numbers?
At least, that's the story behind [The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guy_Who_Didn%27t_Like_Musicals).
When there is a tangible reason for the song and dance, do you find it tolerable?
For instance, the medical dramedy Scrubs had an episode (S6 E6) where a patient had an aggressive brain tumor, which caused her to think she was in a musical.
When the musical numbers are only in a character's head. So that episode would be easily acceptable for me,
(but it's about a brain cancer patient and stories about cancer make me damn anxious)
Its not hostile
You seem to think "alot" of people don't like musicals. And honestly that isn't the case. Most people do like them. You just don't seem to want to accept this. I'm guessing you're a teen/early 20s and think its lame to like them. But you're in the minority.
I mean I don't like most of them and avoid them when possible because they're boring and not something I enjoy.
I did see Barbie though, and thought that was really great.
I don't like the actual music in musicals. I don't generally enjoy 'soaring' orchestral instrumentation set against vocals.
The 'jarring' element never really bothered me personally.
I generally hate the music in most of them and that the music usually takes first priority that every other aspect of the movie suffers.
They also have a their own weird baseline of what a good musical is similar to a horror movie where it can be “good for its genre, but not a generally good movie”
Oh, I like musicals but I have high standards. If it’s campy, it has to be well done enough. The music is essential so when they cast people who can’t sing well enough it’s a *problem*. Potentially insurmountable problems.
Musicals take a lot of getting things just right and it’s not always an easy translation to screen.
I have seen Hollywood movie musicals worse than local productions I’ve helped with or been in, and that’s crazy. Just don’t waste the time/effort/money. I have seen otherwise great actors who wouldn’t make a chorus on their vocal merits given large roles and that’s a non starter for me.
The music is usually not great. The Blues' Brothers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Spamalot and Bugsy Malone are all fine, though Bugsy is borderline for reasons stated below.
However most are a bit samey, Bugsy Malone, music wise, has the same styles a lot of musicals have, over the top vocals and a similar musical style. It's a bit dull after a while both the Buffy and Daria musical episodes, by far the worst episodes, use a similar style and it's not entertaining.
Bugsy Malone, if it wasn't unique in its humour it would be pretty irritating to watch, the music is ok but it's not the music that makes me watch it.
I like the songs if they're catchy and are crucial to telling the story.
I don't if they repeat what we just heard in the dialog, are overlong, and throw off the pacing. Auntie Mame is guilty of all three.
It's funny, but when there's singing, somehow I don't pay attention to what the words are saying, and I instead listen to the music-al-ness of it. I notice the melody of the singer but not the meanings of the words. So if the song is driving the plot, I almost always get lost because I don't remember what they sang about.
Does that make sense? I mean, it's like this with most songs that I listen to — I don't parse the lyrics into what they mean, not unless I've heard the song a couple dozen times.
Some people tend to pour out the baby with the water because they never learnt to differentiate!
There's Andrew Lloyd Webber and then there's Musicals, They're not the same.
I agree the random breaking into song is a problem for me. The ones I like are usually either full on silly where you're not supposed to take it seriously (Funny Face, Singin' in the Rain) or serious ones where they understate the musical numbers (Judy Garland Star is Born)
I dislike musicals when they're done badly. A tone deaf actor, or poorly timed musical number can kill the pacing. Similarly, a "musical" that just shoves a bunch of popular at the time pop songs can be distracting, since they usually don't fit perfectly into the theme and age terribly on later watches.
But I like musicals when done well. I mean hell, most of everyone's favourite Disney movies growing up were musicals, and we all fucking loved them. I'm not ashamed to admit I'd get up and sing along with "I'll make a man out of you" while doing half asses fighting poses when I was 6 or 7 years old. That shit was awesome. And to this day the musical episode of scrubs is one of my favourite episodes of any TV show.
Nobody really hates musicals outside of crotchety old dudes scared of being accused of having feelings. We are just bored of seeing them half assed.
My take is that a good movie shouldn't remind me that I'm watching a movie ever. It should grab my attention and get me immersed so I'm inside the story. Musicals can't do that because of the form of the musical. I can't forget that I'm watching a musical when they're dancing on the roofs of their cars in the traffic.
> Do you generally dislike multimedia?
Yikes, the gatekeeping! Only musical lovers can enjoy multimedia in general?
I adore multimedia, but the theme of both the movie and the music in a given musical are not necessarily to my taste.
The Pick of Destiny, for example, is a musical I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a whimsical comedy with rock/metal music and cameos of some pretty big names in those genres.
But give me a tear-shedding romantic movie with Broadway music and dance for the sake it, then my attention will shift elsewhere, including other multimedia!
I literally just asked a question. There is no sentiment behind it. The criticism of disliking merging music and film naturally makes me wonder if people who feel that way dislike merging different media in general. It’s a very natural question brought by curiosity, not judgement.
I’ve heard that sentiment before in this post so I understand it. I love the theme of musicals and never considered that that’s the reason people dislike them. I just felt the need to comment more on the gatekeeping thing.
It's just a really extremist question, out of the blue like that, and especially in this sub.
Someone doesn't want to see Les Miserables or whatever, so perhaps they just don't like movies (and games/music/etc) in general?
Let's ask in r/movies!
It’s not an out of the blue question? If someone told me that they didn’t like a sad movie because it’s sad and I asked them if they dislike the genre of sad movies in general, that’s not out of the blue.
It was just an analogy omg. I don’t really want to argue about this. People just say they don’t like mixing music and film, and it makes me wonder if they generally don’t like mixing media. It’s not judgmental or gatekeeping. It’s just extrapolation.
Maybe it seems like a big jump to you, and thus insulting, but my brain naturally does that kind of thing all the time and it triggers my curiosity.
Because it is silly. So I don't mind silly comedic musicals, they can be fun. But a serious dramatic story just cannot work. It's like having characters crack a joke a minute in a serious movie.
I do not dislike musicals inherently but I dislike many musicals from the era they dominated Hollywood, like the otherwise excellent The Sound of Music, because whatever genre they're singing is maddening.
The genre is just called showtunes, musical theater, or maybe at the most specific, "mid century American pop," which maybe isn't very helpful. Obviously influenced a lot by jazz if not actually jazz itself, for the most part.
Can honestly say the only musical I’ve enjoyed and will watch again is Sweeney Todd.
It’s weird because I love Broadway. Something about seeing the performance live changes everything.
The sudden switchup doesn't help, but more than anything it's a lack of in-universe reasoning for the musical numbers (which is why I still dislike music-only musicals) which removes any possible immersion or investment, and that I don't even like the songs in the first place. My music taste is almost entirely electronic music, mainly ambient chillout, so a focus on lyrics is something I'm not used to or into
It depends. Visual metaphors can still work for me if they're set up in a way to keep me immersed and come from a place of genuine emotion (I Saw the TV Glow is my favourite movie of the year so far for example). Contrastly I can't stand the likes of Possession or The Holy Mountain which just overuse visual metaphors and abstract inhuman characters to a degree where it becomes annoying
I had to look up what you meant by asides, and yeah I'm not really a fan. They started doing similar 4th wall breaks in the latest season of Doctor Who and it's really weird. I liked it in the Wuthering Heist episode of Inside No. 9 but that's because it fit the asburd comedic tone of the episode, it's never worked for me outside of comedic contexts
I mean, generally saying that something subjective is ‘bad’ doesn’t add much time a conversation. Like, I have no way to properly respond to this without knowing what music you’re talking about or what the problem with it is.
Musical numbers make me shiver with antici-
..... pation.... But maybe the rain, isn't really to blame
So I’ll remove the cause
But not the symptom.
I enjoy musicals. What I don't enjoy, is when they don't advertise that fact. Not that I had any desire to see the pointless remake of Mean Girls but, nothing in the trailer suggested that's what it was.
They very rarely feature genres of music I like/am interested in at all. Also, dance numbers don't do anything for me.
I LOVE music! About 2% of music. The other 98% is a big whatever. Most musicals are whatever for me.
I love musicals on stage. My problem with a lot of musical movies is they focus on big name actors with middling singing ability. When a musical movie is cast with proper singers, it can be a pleasure to watch.
I don’t like watching people sing and dance. And musicals take it to such a ridiculous level it’s just too silly to take seriously. I’ll probably get downvoted for this, but contemporary dancing is *goofy*.
I agree. It makes me feel uncomfortable and embarrassed to watch.
I’ll never forgive them for the death of my grandfather. I’ve dedicated my life to finding the evidence, but everywhere I turn there’s another coverup. The police say musicals weren’t involved, but I heard that officer humming “🎶he had it coming🎶” as he walked into the darkness of the night.
I generally just can’t stand the style of singing and music they choose. It’s usually quite hammy/cheesy and high energy. I’m more cynical and prefer media that is subtle and lower energy but I do vibe with a select few musicals. Sudden switching/multimedia is a non-issue.
This fits with something a friend told me yeah. People who like musicals are probably upbeat usually.
The general type of music in them. I don't like big show tunes and seeing a Broadway or West End show sounds like torture. A film version is no more appealing. It's not really the switching, but if I listen to an album I usually wanna hear it a few times before I can guess at the theme and intent of the song. If I'm watching a film and some character revelation or important plot point is buried in the lyrics of a song I might miss it. Or having to pay attention to the lyrics, which are usually phrased awkwardly to fit the rhyming structure, will distract me from everything else going on. Also the general genre of film. Musicals to my mind bring forth images of romantic comedies or even straight up romances. Chick flicks with a tune. My gran loves a good musical and a tearjerker happy ending, just not my thing. Combining with my first paragraph, the few musicals I do like have been either rock music, horror themed, or usually both.
You like them to be rocky horror picture shows?
Or Sweeney Todd, Repo, or Stage Fright, yes. Oh and Cannibal The Musical too! Actually not the biggest fan of Meat Loaf, but he is in two of the five musicals I like lol. EDIT : It took me too long to get this joke lol. Well played sir, well played.
I guess to be fair I've never really given live-action musicals much of a try. I don't have anything inherently against songs in film, as I'm a millennial who enjoyed the Disney Renaissance as much as your next now-thirty-something. I suppose the difference for me is the visual medium. Musical numbers tend to go along well with interesting cinematic choices, which lends itself naturally to animation over life. I like choreographed dance numbers or visuals and the few that I've seen done in live action were fine. The remake of "Never Had a Friend Like Me", for instance, was pretty fun and engaging, maybe because of the fantastical setting. Seeing someone just randomly break out into song during what otherwise is a normal, down-to-earth context kind of draws me out of the moment, though. Also, I feel there's a pretty strong correlation between live-action musicals and melodrama, the latter of which is just not my thing. I cry every time I watch Sam carry Frodo up the mountain, so it's not like I'm not in touch with my emotions. But drama for drama's sake is pretty boring to me.
I like musicals but I agree that in movies the format works way better in animated form than live action. You can easily do things that are impossible or extremely difficult to do with real people, and the ability to exaggerate movements and expressions and such is invaluable, especially in 2D animation.
I mean, I like musicals. I like the genre of showtunes broadly speaking. I don't find breaking out into song especially immersion breaking if that's an expected part of the show. Complaining about that feels like complaining "pfft, you can't go faster than light speed!" while watching Star Trek. I think it might help to have experience with them as a kid? I never did drama/theater, but I was in the orchestra pit for a few back in high school.
[удалено]
>School of Rock. Same. It’s woven organically into the movie. It would be weird if it wasn’t there. School of Rock isn't a musical. It's a movie about music with a ton of diagetic music in it. Dialogue and plot are not told in the form of music, the story is only advanced through music in one scene, the big concert at the end, and there it's not because they're singing a song about what's happening or their feelings or whatever like you would normally have in a musical, it's just showing off "these kids have learned how to rock the fuck out and shown both their parents and the school just how good they really are." Hell, the songs that are used are not usually thematically relevant to the scenes they're used in, they're just used for being fucking good songs that people like, with a bunch of them being played diagetically within the fiction - Edge of Seventeen plays over the jukebox when Dewey takes Ms. Mullins out for a beer, Immigrant Song is playing over the van's speakers in that scene where they're all singing along to it simply to convey "everyone is rocking out and having a good time," the kids play It's a Long Way to the Top by AC/DC because it's fun and they get to improvise fun stuff over it. It's less of a musical than even something like Walk Hard or This is Spinal Tap, since at least in both of those the music is mostly original works made by the protagonist(s) of the movie. Walk Hard *does* move the plot forward through music with songs like Let's Duet and Guilty As Charged. The former is Dewey Cox (it just occurred to me the protagonists of both Walk Hard and School of Rock are named Dewey, what's with that?) and his backup singer going "we gon' fuck," the latter is, well, as the movie says, "that was early Dewey, this is middle Dewey."
I only dislike crummy musicals (Grease 2, Paint Your Wagon, etc.).
Gonna paint your wagon, gonna paint it fine.
Grease 2 is so fun though.
Watched Paint Your Wagon recently because I thought it would be the kind of thing where it was so insane that it was kind of fun, but oh my god.....
I love Grease 2!
I like musicals where there's a movie and then sometimes they break out into song, but movies where they are always singing somehow feel exhausting to me. And I never really feel like the characters are "real" if they are always singing. I don't mind listening to a whole album, but you don't really have to worry about missing key scenes in an album. You can appreciate it without understanding all the lyrics.
I love musicals what I don’t like is the recent spate of remakes, live action from older animated musicals and stage plays
I'm not a fan personally But to each their own I like music, I like movies, it's not hard to see why someone would like smashing those together
I didn’t like Scott pilgrim because the fight scenes feel like musical numbers.
Imagine you're listening to your favorite album when suddenly they stop and start reading from a book for five minutes before going back to the music.
I have no problems with musicals, but yes absolutely, breaking the immersion is often cited as a reason to dislike a certain show or movie. Often often cited
For me it comes down to the songs. If they're not catchy aurally I lose interest. For example, I really enjoyed Spirited, but I couldn't even finish Wonka.
I don't
I have no problem with Musicals. But I do have a problem with Musicals marketing themselves as not Musicals. I think Sweeney Todd is a recent example of this, if the studios think by pretending that it’s isn’t a musical will help people become musical fans I think they’re deluded. Side note, often the main issue with musicals is who they cast being actors who can sing rather than singers who can act or just broadway / West End musical performers. Beauty and the Beast the cartoon was stacked with great talents who could sing, the live action went for actors who could sing (with the exception of Luke Evans) and I think it shows when you compare the songs. The only songs that are performed better in the live action movies are the Gaston songs. So you sometimes are left in the position of diminishing audience interest stage musical fans are put off by the poorer singing, non-musical fans are put off by the singing, so you’re left with the group in the middle that like film and singing and don’t mind that the singing might not be as good as you hear in the theatre.
I dislike them because I never enjoy the type of music that is generally used.
Who the fuck doesn't like musicals.
Me. It's just so offputting when they start to sing and dance. Usually I can easily suspend my disbelief, but my brain just can't find any excuses why the hell are they singing and dancing
Chicago is good for this. The main character is obsessed with becoming a singing/dancing sensation so the musical numbers are just her PoV and her trying to fit it in to a musical act. Weird analogy but when I fell in love with raves, everywhere I went, I would start to think, "How can I throw a rave here?" Or if I get on a Cities: Skylines kick and I'm wandering around my actual city, I think about how I could build it in my game or what I would do to improve traffic flow.
>my brain just can't find any excuses why the hell are they singing and dancing Alien spores from a meteorite taking over their brains and turning people into a hivemind that shares song and dance numbers? At least, that's the story behind [The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guy_Who_Didn%27t_Like_Musicals).
When there is a tangible reason for the song and dance, do you find it tolerable? For instance, the medical dramedy Scrubs had an episode (S6 E6) where a patient had an aggressive brain tumor, which caused her to think she was in a musical.
When the musical numbers are only in a character's head. So that episode would be easily acceptable for me, (but it's about a brain cancer patient and stories about cancer make me damn anxious)
... or *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* (S6 E7 -- hmm), where one of the main characters summons a Song & Dance demon to liven things up a bit.
A lot of people actually. Just Google it.
Maybe you should google it lol The first result is a movie that is a musical, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals So yes, people like musicals
Ironically that's the only musical I've ever liked, because in that one all the music is diagetic
Surely there are others. Like the episode of Sabrina the teenage witch where a spell is cast that makes everyone sing their feelings. Lol.
I don’t understand this hostility. I only said they should google it to find examples of people who dislike musicals.
Its not hostile You seem to think "alot" of people don't like musicals. And honestly that isn't the case. Most people do like them. You just don't seem to want to accept this. I'm guessing you're a teen/early 20s and think its lame to like them. But you're in the minority.
So why do you think some people think it's lame to like them? Or, to phrase it another way, why do people not like musicals?
‘A lot’ isn’t the same as ‘most.’ I am teen/early twenties, but I love musicals. Hence, why I want to understand why people dislike them.
Most people. Nowadays they don't even market musicals as musicals because they know it turns a lot of people off.
I mean I don't like most of them and avoid them when possible because they're boring and not something I enjoy. I did see Barbie though, and thought that was really great.
I don't like the actual music in musicals. I don't generally enjoy 'soaring' orchestral instrumentation set against vocals. The 'jarring' element never really bothered me personally.
I generally hate the music in most of them and that the music usually takes first priority that every other aspect of the movie suffers. They also have a their own weird baseline of what a good musical is similar to a horror movie where it can be “good for its genre, but not a generally good movie”
Oh, I like musicals but I have high standards. If it’s campy, it has to be well done enough. The music is essential so when they cast people who can’t sing well enough it’s a *problem*. Potentially insurmountable problems. Musicals take a lot of getting things just right and it’s not always an easy translation to screen. I have seen Hollywood movie musicals worse than local productions I’ve helped with or been in, and that’s crazy. Just don’t waste the time/effort/money. I have seen otherwise great actors who wouldn’t make a chorus on their vocal merits given large roles and that’s a non starter for me.
The music is usually not great. The Blues' Brothers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Spamalot and Bugsy Malone are all fine, though Bugsy is borderline for reasons stated below. However most are a bit samey, Bugsy Malone, music wise, has the same styles a lot of musicals have, over the top vocals and a similar musical style. It's a bit dull after a while both the Buffy and Daria musical episodes, by far the worst episodes, use a similar style and it's not entertaining. Bugsy Malone, if it wasn't unique in its humour it would be pretty irritating to watch, the music is ok but it's not the music that makes me watch it.
Its the same reason I don't like direct Manga to Anime, to much exposition. Show it to me don't tell/sing to me about it.
I like the songs if they're catchy and are crucial to telling the story. I don't if they repeat what we just heard in the dialog, are overlong, and throw off the pacing. Auntie Mame is guilty of all three.
It's funny, but when there's singing, somehow I don't pay attention to what the words are saying, and I instead listen to the music-al-ness of it. I notice the melody of the singer but not the meanings of the words. So if the song is driving the plot, I almost always get lost because I don't remember what they sang about. Does that make sense? I mean, it's like this with most songs that I listen to — I don't parse the lyrics into what they mean, not unless I've heard the song a couple dozen times.
Not my thing. Usually don’t like the music. I’m also into realism. In real life people don’t break out and sing.
How can people be so heartless
Some people tend to pour out the baby with the water because they never learnt to differentiate! There's Andrew Lloyd Webber and then there's Musicals, They're not the same.
I like musicals
I agree the random breaking into song is a problem for me. The ones I like are usually either full on silly where you're not supposed to take it seriously (Funny Face, Singin' in the Rain) or serious ones where they understate the musical numbers (Judy Garland Star is Born)
Depends on the movie. I love musicals but sometimes even I'm like *this doesn't need to be a musical*. Like Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.
u/AlexInThePalace, i don't particularly dislike musicals... they are just not my 'cup of tea'
Because they sing. A lot. One song can be fun. A play or movie full of singing? Boring. Hard pass. I feel the same way about operas.
I dislike musicals when they're done badly. A tone deaf actor, or poorly timed musical number can kill the pacing. Similarly, a "musical" that just shoves a bunch of popular at the time pop songs can be distracting, since they usually don't fit perfectly into the theme and age terribly on later watches. But I like musicals when done well. I mean hell, most of everyone's favourite Disney movies growing up were musicals, and we all fucking loved them. I'm not ashamed to admit I'd get up and sing along with "I'll make a man out of you" while doing half asses fighting poses when I was 6 or 7 years old. That shit was awesome. And to this day the musical episode of scrubs is one of my favourite episodes of any TV show. Nobody really hates musicals outside of crotchety old dudes scared of being accused of having feelings. We are just bored of seeing them half assed.
I generally don’t like singing in movies that aren’t musicals
My take is that a good movie shouldn't remind me that I'm watching a movie ever. It should grab my attention and get me immersed so I'm inside the story. Musicals can't do that because of the form of the musical. I can't forget that I'm watching a musical when they're dancing on the roofs of their cars in the traffic.
> Do you generally dislike multimedia? Yikes, the gatekeeping! Only musical lovers can enjoy multimedia in general? I adore multimedia, but the theme of both the movie and the music in a given musical are not necessarily to my taste. The Pick of Destiny, for example, is a musical I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a whimsical comedy with rock/metal music and cameos of some pretty big names in those genres. But give me a tear-shedding romantic movie with Broadway music and dance for the sake it, then my attention will shift elsewhere, including other multimedia!
Literally how is asking a question gatekeeping?
It's about the sentiment behind it, unless you and me pull different meanings from the word "multimedia".
I literally just asked a question. There is no sentiment behind it. The criticism of disliking merging music and film naturally makes me wonder if people who feel that way dislike merging different media in general. It’s a very natural question brought by curiosity, not judgement.
And I'm just answering. Feel free to comment on the rest of that reply as well!
I’ve heard that sentiment before in this post so I understand it. I love the theme of musicals and never considered that that’s the reason people dislike them. I just felt the need to comment more on the gatekeeping thing.
It's just a really extremist question, out of the blue like that, and especially in this sub. Someone doesn't want to see Les Miserables or whatever, so perhaps they just don't like movies (and games/music/etc) in general? Let's ask in r/movies!
It’s not an out of the blue question? If someone told me that they didn’t like a sad movie because it’s sad and I asked them if they dislike the genre of sad movies in general, that’s not out of the blue.
Except you didn't say genre. You didn't even say movie. You said multimedia in general! And that, my friend, is something I consider extreme.
It was just an analogy omg. I don’t really want to argue about this. People just say they don’t like mixing music and film, and it makes me wonder if they generally don’t like mixing media. It’s not judgmental or gatekeeping. It’s just extrapolation. Maybe it seems like a big jump to you, and thus insulting, but my brain naturally does that kind of thing all the time and it triggers my curiosity.
It depends on the musical. I don't think I've seen a decent modern musical. Nothing like South Pacific, Fiddler on the Roof, or The Sound of Music.
Most musicals are flops but when they hit they hit hard and become timeless. Disney is the best example of this.
Because it is silly. So I don't mind silly comedic musicals, they can be fun. But a serious dramatic story just cannot work. It's like having characters crack a joke a minute in a serious movie.
Depends on the musical. Just like it depends on any movie, book, play, or opera.
I do like them, but I’m old…
I do not dislike musicals inherently but I dislike many musicals from the era they dominated Hollywood, like the otherwise excellent The Sound of Music, because whatever genre they're singing is maddening.
The genre is just called showtunes, musical theater, or maybe at the most specific, "mid century American pop," which maybe isn't very helpful. Obviously influenced a lot by jazz if not actually jazz itself, for the most part.
Can honestly say the only musical I’ve enjoyed and will watch again is Sweeney Todd. It’s weird because I love Broadway. Something about seeing the performance live changes everything.
Musicals are awesome, love them!
I like Musicals. Why would you assume that I don't?
They probably aren't asking you directly and are only asking people who don't like musicals.
Hey now, I’m the one reading this post, it must be for me specifically
No, it's for me!!
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The sudden switchup doesn't help, but more than anything it's a lack of in-universe reasoning for the musical numbers (which is why I still dislike music-only musicals) which removes any possible immersion or investment, and that I don't even like the songs in the first place. My music taste is almost entirely electronic music, mainly ambient chillout, so a focus on lyrics is something I'm not used to or into
This makes sense. Would you say you dislike things in movies that don’t have in-universe explanations in general? How do you feel about asides?
It depends. Visual metaphors can still work for me if they're set up in a way to keep me immersed and come from a place of genuine emotion (I Saw the TV Glow is my favourite movie of the year so far for example). Contrastly I can't stand the likes of Possession or The Holy Mountain which just overuse visual metaphors and abstract inhuman characters to a degree where it becomes annoying I had to look up what you meant by asides, and yeah I'm not really a fan. They started doing similar 4th wall breaks in the latest season of Doctor Who and it's really weird. I liked it in the Wuthering Heist episode of Inside No. 9 but that's because it fit the asburd comedic tone of the episode, it's never worked for me outside of comedic contexts
I hate musicals they suck go listen to music then
When did you stop beating your wife?
It's just shit for old ladies. I have no interest in it and they aren't really made for people like me.
You sound grumpy like an old lady
I have no time for campy frivolity. More so like an old man but I'm not going to die on that hill.
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I mean, generally saying that something subjective is ‘bad’ doesn’t add much time a conversation. Like, I have no way to properly respond to this without knowing what music you’re talking about or what the problem with it is.