Bad Movie Club: Can't Stop the Music (redux)

1980 masterpiece

Bad Movie Rating: 5/5 (Josh: 5/5; Fred: 5/5; Libby: 5/5; Johnny: 5/5; Kristen: 5/5; Jeremy: no rating; Bryan: didn't watch--just sort of taunted us because we weren't watching Iron Sky)

Plot: An origin story that never got the sequels the public craves, this movie deals with the formation of the Village People.

I already wrote poorly about this movie here, the first time I became a gay man.

God, I love this movie. Love! The songs are infectious. Seriously, regardless of what your musical preferences are, try watching this and not having the songs invading your every thought for a week. The performances are off-the-wall and terrible from top to bottom, but it's all so enthusiastic. It's a ridiculous slab of entertainment from a ridiculous time between the 70's and 80's, a piece of pop culture that doesn't really seem to fit comfortably in either of those. There's a video for a song about milkshakes and a YMCA montage that are among my favorite things I've ever seen in any movie ever. Seriously, the YMCA sequence ranks up there with the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark and a myriad of other scenes that make me giddy just thinking about them. The movie's delirious, filled with all these what-were-they-thinking-here moments, and there's a surprising lack of plot for a movie that is as long as this one is. It's all just so beautiful. Heartily recommended, an absolute bad movie musical classic. You'll wonder why this didn't destroy careers. You'll wonder how that penis slipped into a PG-rated movie. You'll wonder how anybody can watch Leather Man without falling in love. You'll wonder why you're foot is tapping. And you'll wonder how you even thought your life was close to complete before you brought Can't Stop the Music into your life.

Why did the Bad Movie Club rewatch a movie? Well, that was our way of celebrating movie number 100. That's right--we've done 100 of these now. And instead of feeling like I'm completely wasting my life away, I'm instead weirdly proud of this accomplishment. Can't Stop the Music, as Fred said, might even be more fun during a second viewing, and it was fun to watch Bruce Jenner doing his thing in this with the recent news of his transformation. No, I don't really want to joke about a thing like that, but when the first line in this movie directed to his character is "What's in your box?", you almost have to.