Continuing my personal ranking of the 25 movie musicals deemed essential by the American Film Institute…
#23. West Side Story – 1961
(#2 on the AFI list)
I’ve written about a handful of these movies already, so in those cases I will just link to my original post. West Side Story represents the biggest gap between my ranking and AFI’s.
Continuing my personal ranking of the 25 movie musicals deemed essential by the American Film Institute…
#24. All That Jazz – 1979
(#14 on the AFI list)
Director Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical musical drama is one of a few tragedies on this list. It depicts the death bed memories and fantasies of a womanizing choreographer played by Roy Scheider.
As this is a film about a Fosse-like character, it features a ton of Fosse’s signature dance routines — lots of hats and jazz hands.
Two and a half months ago, I wrote about my quarantine goal of watching the 25 movie musicals deemed essential by the American Film Institute. I had 11 under my belt then, including five I had already seen and six I had watched in recent weeks.
I am happy to announce that I have now accomplished my goal of watching all 25. And that includes revisiting the five titles I had already seen. Over the next month, I will present my countdown of those musicals from worst to best.
This song, by the “indietronic” New York band +/- (pronounced plus/minus), appears on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Wicker Park. A co-worker gave me a copy of that soundtrack many years ago and it has languished in my iTunes library unheard until now.
Based on the YouTube comments of this (highly annoying and forgettable) song, a lot of people really like Wicker Park. More than a few YouTube commenters call it one of their favorite movies of all time.
Elvis Costello’s 2010 album National Ransom was a return to the country rock/Americana sound he employed so winningly on King of America 24 years earlier.
I can’t say I’ve revisited this album much since it first came out, but every time I hear one of its songs I’m reminded how much I like it.
Meet Me In Montauk 