I think I saw “Phantom of the Opera,” but really I can’t remember for sure. Wasn’t there some kind of phantom? And an opera?
But I do remember those T.V. ads about one guy with peanut butter running into a guy with chocolate. Nevertheless, I never eat Reese’s.
Wow.
Double wow.
See, some of us can put into words why one of these gets to us…
And no harm, no foul if a particular one doesn’t.
Except if you make fun of my fixation on Spider-man. Then it’s scalpels in the dawn at twelve paces.
I recall reading somewhere once that the two very unlikely comrades in arms George Bernard Shaw and GK Chesterton said something like “If you say one word against Joan of Arc, it’s outside with us for you.”
Sampiro, you’re one of my favorite posters, but if you ever, ever suggest that Julie Taymor get near my beloved Assassins again, I will hunt you down and lock you in a windowless room with your sister on the hottest weekend of the year. 
One of my friends once referred to * Phantom* as a ‘starter musical’. It’s great to get people into musical theatre, but it’s a stepping stone to more sophisticated shows like Follies or Into the Woods or Kiss Me Kate.
E.
Bruno Bettelheim would be proud of you, even sven. You really hit on why Phantom worked for me when I was a teenaged girl and now only works on the level of nostalgia.
Dragwyr, I don’t like The Godfather. Or any Lord of the Rings book past Fellowship. Or lima beans. I don’t think it’s because I’m low-brow or ignorant, nor do I think it’s because I’m superior to others, there’s just things I like and things I don’t. I’m certainly not going to insult people who don’t like the things I do or like the things I don’t. (Except for Jerry Springer and Tang. Some things are beyond the pale.)
That’s the thing. I feel like I AM insulting people when I say I don’t like Phantom and I feel insulted (and feel like crap) when people give me that look like, “what…are you nuts!?!”
I know… I really shouldn’t care, but it’s hard not to.
I spent half of today telling people I don’t like Brahms. Most of them gave me the ‘nuts’ look. A few listened to what I had to say, even though they disagreed with me, and were happy to counter my argument. I have far far far more time for the latter.
I am a musical theatre fan so I usually hang with those circles that are in love with Phantom…I am SO thankfull to find others who dislike it greatly. How overated…I can list about two hundred shows that are far better, including nearly ever other Webber show.
I was taken to Phantom by someone who feels about the show the same way you do, even sven, but it left me flat. I couldn’t really pick out what was happening from the songs, or the set changes. The Music wasn’t unpleasant to listen to, but It was like sitting through a religious service of a completely foreign culture. I didn’t let her know that of course, it would have been, I felt, rude.
I guess if you go in not knowing the songs or story arc, it can be difficult to follow. I sure didn’t.
You’ve gotta love a message board where those words appear in the same sentence. Even if you’re wrong and couldn’t be wronger about what Julie Taymor could do for the surreal sequences in Assassins (the death of Booth and the purgatory bar especially), you wouldn’t believe how few people have even the beginning of a concept of Julie Taymor or Assassins that I know in the waking…
Well actually, you probably would believe it.
I’ve only watched the movie version, but I didn’t like it either. None of the male leads had any sort of charisma for me - I just could not understand why Christine practically had an orgasm every time the Phantom so much as looked at her. The dude was just plain creepy. And **Sampiro’s ** post (#16) pretty much sums up what I thought of the story and tbe other characters in general. So yeah, I wouldn’t feel bad about not liking it.
I’d’ve expected nothing less, darling. 
I got the Phantom soundtrack on audiotape, and later sent away for a booklet containing the full script (then free if you enclosed return postage). I’d never seen the show (and still haven’t) and was motivated mainly by seeing and being impressed by a few scenes on a 1988 episode of Later with Bob Costas in which Michael Crawford was interviewed.
I’m looking at the tapes now. When I got my first car in 1997, I kept them in the car’s central storage bin and listened to them with gradually decreasing frequency. I’d forgotten about them until cleaning out that car prior to having it towed to the scrapyard about a month ago. Now I’m not even sure if the tapes are still playable and my new car has only a CD player, anyway.
Ah, youth.
If your only experience with Phantom is the movie, please don’t consider that you’ve seen the show. The stage production is so much better. I don’t know what went through their minds when they cast the movie- Christine was fabulous, Meg was great, Madame Giry was magnificient, Carlotta was good but Minnie Driver was a bit overrated in the role. But the male leads! An emotionless Raoul but worst of all, a Phantom who can’t sing!
I love Phantom, I listen to the Michael Crawford CD in my car virtually every day and I’ve seen two stage productions. For me, it’s a simple story that for whatever reason gets to me. If it doesn’t pull your heart strings, then we just have different tastes. But for those of us that it does connect with, it connects quite well.
well, the plot is no great thing, and it’s riddled with hioles and illogic. But it has some great scenes and an overall weird atmosphere to it that makes it compelling to watch.
I grew up watching horror and reading magazines like “Famous Monsters of Filmland”, so I had seen many pictures and read articles about all of the versions of “Phantom”, long before I saw any versions. I finally got a chance to see the 1960 Herbert Lom version (played for techniocolor frights, with the story grossly changed – they give the Phantom a hunchbacked assistant!!), the 1940s Claude Rains version (Slow and boring, and it’s the first time they changed the plot so that the Phantom becomes a disfigured composer, rather than a born freak and psychopath), and finaly the 1925 silent version with Lon Chaney (definitely the best of the bunch, but filled with lots of “what the…?” moments of illogic and non-sequiturs). I wanted to read the book but, before the Webber version came out you couldn’t find the book anywhere. You may not believe this today, but before the musical came around the book wasn’t considered a “clasic”, and was virtually unobtainable in hardcover or paperback. I finally managed to locate a used paperback copy from when they released the 1960 version. I waas amazed when I read it. Christine Daeae is a complete ninny. Raoul’s not a lot better. They fall for tricks and illusions hat wouldn’t foool a 5-year-old today. Trapdoors, hidden doors behind mirrors, a "hall-of-mirrors’ “desert” in the basement. I find it hard to believe that, even a century ago, people would be taken in by this. The real Phantom is more interesting than any of his screen or stage incarnations – a former freak and then a priveleged pet of the ruler of Persia, a master of secret doors (and, apparently, music), but twisted. Kinda like Hannibal Lector with a grotesque face. And he’s not stuck perpetually in the Opera House, as in most versions.
Finally, the play came out. I knew a new vrsion was in the works when I was sudden;y able to buy copies of the book anywhere. When I finally saw it (with my futyure bride, a big fan who’d seen it a couple of times already), I was impressed. It was a natural for musicval treatment. The setting gave you a great excuse for many musical pieces, and virtually invited overblown operatic music and style. Webber got closer to the stoery’s roots than even the silent film did.
And I can see why Webber was drawn to it – a musical about an insane, original, underappreciated Composer and his romance for the gifted young opera singer? Damn, it was a natural – he made a musical of his own lifwe, even if it required that he assume the role of disfigured psychopath. It’s telling that this is the most sympathetic version of the tale I’ve seen (even counting the maudlin 1840 and 1960 versions).
It’s not supposed to be “Great Art” – whatever that is. This one’s got a lot of personal feeling in it, I think. It’s music is stirring, and it has great visyuals. Taken as a whole it doesn’t majke a huge amount of sense, but so what?
I have mixed feelings about the movie. It did a lot of things very well – the effects, the settings, the way it told the story. But the shortcomings of the story from the stage version seem too damned obvious in it (why didn’t he just kill erik at the cemetary? Woulda saved a lot of grief.). The Phantom was a serious disappointment – not only did he only look as if he had a bad case of sunburn and nothing more, he had a fatal flaw – his singing is terrible. I can’t stand to listen to him. And they wimped out on one of the true iconic moments of the film – the chandelier crashing to the floor. Every version has this in it. In the latest version, it takes forever to happen, and it doesn’t really crash to the floor. Maybe the guys at Swarovsky didn’t want to have people see their crystal shattered. Bad for business.
There have been other versions – too many, in part because of the success of the musical (the appallingly slow Burt Lancaster TV version. The Freddy Kruger “slasher” version, the pre-webber “Phantom of the Paradise” thaty’s worth watching becausde it isn’t slavishly devoted, and is off the wall.) I heartily recommend the two-disc DVD restoration of the silent version, especially if you’re a fanatic. I also recommend the book version “The Essential Phantom of the Opera”, with annotations by Leonard Wolf, re-released a year and a half ago after being out of print for a long time.
But I agree that, if you’re not ion the right frame of mind, or are only interested in logical stories that make sense, this one’s not for you.
Am I the only one that read this and wondered how on earth Finland had enough famous monsters to justify a periodical?
Eh, we’ll have to agree to disagree;). I like Taymor’s work, to a point. I just don’t think she’d get the heart of Assassins - and I think she’s a bit too showy. I’ll give anyone a shot at it, though, especially if it means a brilliant show like * Assassins* gets another chance on the stage.
(Did you see the ‘revival’ - which is a word I use with disdain in regards to the performance, as it wasn’t technically a BROADWAY revival, and should have been treated as such in the Tony noms - with the last cast? It was stunning - probably my favorite show of the year. I wish I’d gotten the chance to see it twice.)
E.
1.) What, you never heard of Reptilicus? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056405/
Or The Snow People (so obscure it’s nor even on IMDB)
(Yeah, I know they’res Danish. It’s Scandinavian. Close enough.
2.) What, you never heard of the Gay Monster Porno site Kong of Finland?
3.) You’re clearly being obtuse and ignoring that it’s “Filmland” out of a desire to make a joke.
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