I feel exactly the same way. Musicals evolved because throughout history music, singing & dancing were performed in the exact same venues as plays. So it was perfectly natural to combine them. In fact, it was the rule, not the exception, performing was performing.
But by the late 60s/early 70s cinema had finally come into its own. Plus the baby boomers, who were the first young generation raised primarily without ever seeing things performed live but rather only on TV & film, found musicals to be decidedly ‘establishment’. It helped that the small, B&W TV screen simply did not work for grand song & dance spectacles.
I’m a Gen-Xer but I was fortunate (I think) to have been raised with at least an early appreciation for musical films like My Fair Lady, The King & I, Jesus Christ:Superstar etc. I also got to see some famous Broadway productions, Pippin, A Chorus Line, Beatlemania, The King & I (w/ Yul Brenner!) and I definitely could see & feel the ‘magic’ of live theater. And importantly, how live theater is simply much more conducive to characters suddenly ‘breaking out into song’ than television or film was. With a stage, you know you’re watching a ‘performance’, that the people are actually there in front of you ‘play-acting’, not recreating a documentary.
As I got older though I, like you, found the combination of drama & singing hard to take seriously. But every so often there were musicals that I felt just ‘worked’, watching All That Jazz on HBO being an early example. As others have already mentioned I also found Moulin Rouge to be a wonderful film. The video version of Cats I also really enjoyed, particularly because it’s a pure musical (i.e. there is not one word of regular dialog).
Still, in today’s modern media world the musical is an incredibly unforgiving double-edge sword. Get it right and you have The Lion King. Wrong and you get Viva Laughlin (or Cop Rock…)
I was going to recommend Chicago for the same reasons listed above: all the musical numbers (except for one?) are simply the imagination of one or more of the main characters of the movie. It’s also a lot of fun.
The Phantom of the Opera is one where almost the whole thing is sung, with very little dialog, so it’s hard to see or complain when they go from speaking and acting “normally” to singing.
As others mentioned, Cats and so forth are completely sung-through, so maybe those might work for you.
In short, I have nothing to add.
Avoid Guys and Dolls though. You’ll hate that one.
I’m definitely not a big fan of musicals, but I would highly recommend Sweeney Todd. To me, it felt more like an opera or a really long music video from the heyday of MTV.
Musicals are tough. For the most part they don’t translate that well to film. I saw The Producers on Broadway with the original cast. Brilliant. My favorite Broadway experience. The film which was identical to the play was flat and boring.
Probably my favorite movie musical is 1776. I don’t know why but it just works in movie form. And I have seen a great Broadway version of the play live.
How about the romantic comedy “Enchanted”, staring Amy Adams as an animated Disney Princess who finds herself in modern 3D New York City? It sort of lampoons the classic movie musical by having Patrick Dempsey standing around confused and embarrassed every time Adams not only break into a typical Disney flm song and dance number, but also has random people and animals on the street seamlessly join in as if they had been rehearsing for months.
Yeah, I think it’s a lot easier to suspend disbelief and get into the spirit of things with live musical theater. In that setting, you’ve also got stagecraft that demands a strong agreement between viewer and performers that we’re going to play pretend as well - puppetry, sets, backdrops, and scenery can be mind-blowing, but they never look like real life.
I just saw Book of Mormon and briefly mused about whether they’d make it into a movie. Immediately, I decided it would never work - it would come across as horribly racist, mean-spirited, and generally preposterous. It’s a fable best presented with a nod to its own imaginary status. (Which fits perfectly with its themes!)
I read this the thread waiting to bring this one up. Beaten to it, but I’ll agree with the choice. The “meta-magic” of Adams’ character is what makes it ‘plausible’ (provided you accept the premise of the whole film). People start singing around her when she sings for the same reason that animals help her clean or sew – because she’s a magical princess and surrounded by an aura of magical princess-ness even in New York City. Everyone didn’t spend forever choreographing, they just knew what to do because she’s magic.
Not, of course, a *movie *musical, but in Once More With Feeling, the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the characters are confused and upset that they keep breaking into song and dance numbers.
If you can handle the profanity, yes, it truly is a genuinely professionally written, great modern-day musical! After I saw it I went out and bought the soundtrack CD just for Uncle Fucker! And Team America was almost as good!
And of course if you get the DVD one of the commentary tracks is an entirely different musical. In fact Commentary!: The Musical has several absolutely killer songs (and a few duds, to be fair).
Anyone who does not feel the urge to get up and dance during “Shake Your Tail Feather” has no rhythm in their soul. I pity such people.
Love the musical and the soundtrack, but the film really gutted the stage show in the interest of time.
I specifically came in to either mention or to find this one - this is the perfect not-a-musical musical. There are songs all over the place, but no one just randomly breaks into song on the street. It’s about musicians who play on the street, sing together at home, and record in the studio. Absolutely fantastic, IMO, though I didn’t care as much for the stage musical version.
I’m going to recommend a film that pretty nearly exactly matches the description of what you don’t like, except that in another way it doesn’t: The Music Man. First, the time and place are so out of joint from what we’re used to (small-town Iowa in around 1912, I think) that you can easily believe that people would sing and dance at the drop of a hat. Second, most of the musical numbers seem to arise quite naturally (with a couple of notable exceptions - “Being in Love” and “Shipoopy”). If you’re all modern and hipster you’ll probably hate it, but most of it is very enjoyable on its terms.
Roddy