I’m kind of an on-again, off-again Society member (because sometimes I just don’t have time to hit the video store), so I’ll go along with anything. I don’t mind you being bossy. 
Do I still get to write my OP? (see, I’m conscious and aware at this point; it just took a long time to wake me up ).
Oh, and yeah, if you have specific films you want to discuss, I’m all for having y’all make a master list.
I do feel like it goes a bit slow… for those of us space cadets three weeks is more than ample time to watch a movie and then completely forget that we watched it to discuss it here. But, maybe having the whole list at once, as you say, would help to facilitate shorter turn-around time between movies.
Eonwe – yes, you’re definitely on for doing the OP on Fiddler on the Roof early next week. (I watched it Saturday as my own little shiksa nod to Passover.) I’m raising these issues now so we can decide which direction to go in after that.
I bow to the more knowledgeable members and would like to see the list. Does it include Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?
Hm, how did you guess? 
I voted for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (I think not as one of my top 15, but one of my next 15) – but just sent my most-recent ballot to ArchiveGuy last night, so we’re waiting for him to tabulate the results on that.
I vote for Moulin Rouge! Hell, I’ll even write the OP and lead the discussion, even though I’m (comparably) unqualified to do such a thing (I’m not at all knowledgable in Broadway/musical traditions).
As somebody who has moderated discussion groups (online and RL) for the past 10 years, one truth always comes to the forefront: The group has to have a leader, somebody willing and passionate enough about the subject to keep it going. Else it dies.
Ever since ArchiveGuy commented on the lack of inspiration of some of the recent choices, I’ve been tempted to ask for at least a partial list of more inspired choices. I’m glad to see that this list has been compiled without my intervention.
3 weeks generally seems like a reasonable amount of time between musicals to me. If there is interest in moving things along faster, that’s fine too. My movie watching time is about to expand hugely- if only temporarily. On the other hand, if the musical isn’t available through a local library on VHS, I’m unlikely to pursue it further. I’ve watched more than one almost immediately after I saw the OP describing the movie.
I’ve never gotten around to getting my name put on the choosers list, so I’m open to starting the new list whenever it suits the choosers of the new list (although those who had choices coming should be allowed to make a choice if they want.) I do recommend a new thread when you are ready to announce the new list.
Well, the easy question first - no. I don’t think we need 3 weeks. In fact, that may be too long. I keep forgetting when we’re to watch the next film and what it’s supposed to be…
To the other question… I’d like to know what your criteria are/were for the list of 20 or so films. What films were you guys hoping to see (Please not Gigi)? Are you looking to see certain films because you like them? Because they’re important? Because they’re by specific directors? Starred specific actors? Had certain songs, scenes, ideas, or themes? Really rarely seen stuff? Really widely known stuff? What are you going for with your list? What makes an “inspired” choice?
And could it be that the three week wait between films is one of the reasons that we haven’t come across some of those films yet? After all - it’s only been 12 films. While not all of those 12 would ha ve come up on my list of top 20 movie musicals to see, most of them come up in my top 50. Could quicker turnover solve the problem? Or perhaps not having the nominator write the OP? (I know my OP sucked - it prompted no discussion whatsoever. Someone else would have done a better job of it).
Yeah, the four non-choosers absolutely deserve the chance to choose, if they want. (Reviewing the thread, I see Tracy Lord mentioned Brigadoon.) We may mix those choices into The Master List, depending on how those people feel about it. Archive Guy suggested we post The List about six titles at a time, so we can tweak it in response to … whatever eventualities might need to be responded to.
I’ll email the four of them tonight (if there are active email addresses for them) to point them to this thread.
And starting a new master thread makes sense as well.
One of the interesting things in reading these threads has been how much it varies in terms of how much discussion there has been of themes mentioned in the OP, I remember seeing this in the theater way back when, I saw this live and they did X differently, etc.
I suspect that won’t change. Though it still fascinates me how much commentary Little Shop of Horrors inspired.
amarinth snuck in there while I was posting (obviously).
Sounds like there’s general agreement on this. Cool!
Each of the three of us nominated 30 films we’d like to see discussed, each of us from our own prejudices and enthusiams. (My list was very dance-heavy, Lamia had a bunch of rock-oriented and Disney films, and ArchiveGuy had more of an academic overview). Archive Guy (who’s a total freakin’ genius at organizing stuff like this) put together a master list from this (75 titles total), noting overlaps – the only movie that all three of us included was Cabaret. We then responded to each others’ lists by creating two lists of 15 each – our top 15 picks and our second-tier picks. From these three lists, AG put together a list of 20 films, which we’ll fill out to 24 by each picking a “nyah nyah nyah you can’t stop me” pick (AG getting two, since he missed his pick in the original system).
Nope, no Gigi. No Singin’ in the Rain. No Oliver! (phew!). They talked me out of Top Hat and Gay Divorcee – we’ll be doing Shall We Dance for the Fred and Ginger film. There are a couple of, uh, non-mainstream choices (my nominees of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Ken Russell’s surreal version of The Boy Friend both made it), and a couple of films that we’ve probably all seen more than once (Music Man and All That Jazz). And other cool stuff as well.
Let’s try this, with anyone who wants to write OPs volunteering (so it doesn’t totally turn into the TwickyArchive Show). Like Eureka, I’m not entirely sure the quality of the OP had a huge amount to do with the amount of discussion – sometimes more people or fewer actually watched the film, and sometimes there just wasn’t a whole lot to say about it. We did try to pick films that we thought people would want to see and have plenty to say about.
We can wait and see what happens after we go through this list – we may all be tired of musicals by then, or we could decide to go off in some whole new direction.
I’ve sent out emails to the “haven’t picked yet” folks – well, three of them; the email to singersargent came back as undeliverable. They’ll either post here or email me if they want to pick.
And Archive Guy has put together a set of six themed films that … well, tune in next week, this is going to be a lot of fun.
I’m all for the coup. Consider my pick surrendered, Capitano!
I bowed out a couple of pages ago. I just haven’t had the time to watch any of the movies.
Great! So far this has been a pretty bloodless coup…
Got an email from Kizvrvexious, who said:
I’ve passed that message on to Archive Guy, who’s putting the final touches on The List.
Fiddler OP to arrive sometime this evening; I’m on overload with work today, so I don’t have time to type it out until I’m done tonight. Have no fear!
Yoo hoo, Eonwe …