Xanadu (1980)

Xanadu (1980) is really a holdover from the '70s, but since it was released in our beloved ninth decade of the twentieth century, we must discuss it. 

It's pretty well known at this point as a campy cult classic of somewhat insane neon-drunk proportions. The director is Robert Greenwald, a TV/documentary legend who didn't make many feature films. One odd one he did was 1997's Breaking Up, a direct-to-video movie featuring Russell Crowe and Selma Hayak (!!). The point being that Greenwald perhaps doesn't have a big screen sensibility so much as a TV sensibility. 

One nice thing you can say about Xanadu - it is damned colorful. Bold yellows, greens, blues, reds, purples, pinks - they're everywhere. 

One not-nice thing you can say about Xanadu - the dialog is freaking horrendous. When our main character Sonny Malone (no, really) encounters a man sitting on a rock at the beach playing a clarinet (no, really), the dialog contains such pithy gems like "Say mister, what are you doing up there???" and then the mystery man's eventual statement that "They sure don't make rocks like they used to!!" HUH!?!??!?! HUHHHH?!?!?!? Not to mention that the old clarinet man is GENE KELLY. How did this happen?

High octane this film is not. The movie is full of inexplicable and usually accidental moments, most of them unintentionally funny. I love the incredible fake scream Sonny gives when he crashes a borrowed moped off a pier, followed by a glowing orange woman zooming off into the sky. No, really. 

The plot is brain-dead fluff about the nine Olympic Muses (as in Ancient Greece) coming to vibrant neon roller-skating life from a bizarre mural in sunny California. The one that is Olivia Newton-John serves as Sonny's muse (he's an artist). Another dialog gem: "You. I ran into you earlier today. I never set eyes on you before today. Now I've seen you three times today. I don't believe it." Brilliant, Sonny. He doesn't need a muse, he needs an education. At age ~25, he must be the oldest kid in third grade. 

The highlight of the movie, of course, is the music. The soundtrack sold very well, and I actually own it on vinyl (got it free, it's a long story). It's divided up into songs by Olivia Newton-John (including the hit title track) and songs by ELO. It was a worldwide smash, number one in most countries and number four on the Billboard 200 chart. 

Interesting factoid: this is actually a remake of a 1947 movie called Down to Earth with Rita Hayworth and Larry Parks. 

Despite the poor dialog and meh acting, the movie made a very small profit - according to Wikipedia, it cost $20 mil to make and brought home $22 mil - depending on advertising costs, it probably just about broke even. 

Worth seeing? Not really. I would YouTube the songs from the soundtrack, especially the big hits "Xanadu" (provided above) and "Magic," and you'll get a pretty good feel for the tone without having to sit through the rest of the mess.