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Village People - Can't Stop the Music

Village People - Can't Stop the Music

List Price: $14.98
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good, clean campy fun.
Review: I dinstictly remember when 'Can't Stop The Music' was released in Australia. The popularity of The Village People and disco music in general was at an all time, so it's not surprising that the movie reached number 1 at the Australian box office. I was eight years old, and the Village People were my favourite group. When I got to see my heros on the big screen I was elated - I remember walking out of the cinema feeling so happy and wonderful for days after. I still have my copy of the soundtrack record all these years later....

So it is with saddness that now, rediscovering the Village People once again through CD and DVD, that I read such bad reviews and comments about this movie. Is it a 'good' movie?? Depends on how you define 'good' - sure the movie has hamy acting, a paper thin plot, many continuity errors and a real sense of fantasy about it, but it also has the wonderful theme that dreams can come true. Can't Stop The Music also captures a period in history (1980) where there was still a shred of innocence left before the emotional and financial corruption of the 80's really came into prominence.

The movie will certainly appeal to many gay men such as myself. There are many subtle (and some not so subtle) gay references that Can't Stop The Music could be called the ultimate gay musical! I can certainly relate the overall campiness of the movie, as well as look longingly towards an era where body hair was actually considering desirable on a gay man!

For such a commercially unsuccessful movie, it is wonderful to see that effort has been made to release Can't Stop The Music on a well packaged DVD. Firstly we get a remixed audio soundtrack to take full advantage of home theatre systems, a high quality, clean widescreen transfer and good packaging. However the extras are somewhat disappointing. We get the usual trailer (which is interesting from a historical perspective to see how films were promoted in 1980), a photogallery (which includes not only the usual promo shots, but some candid shots of the Village People on the set) and a 'photoessay' which is a series of static text screens describing the Village People story accompanied by a few photographs. Whilst the extras are interesting (and considering the age and lack of commercial success of the film it is amazing we get anything at all), I think more effort could have been put into providing something extra special to the fans of the movie. The E! Network did a behind the scenes' special about the Village People in 2000 with recent interviews so it would have been nice to get at least an edited version of that. But kudos to the distributors for at least attempting to provide a decent set of extras.

This movie has no drugs, violence, death or negative imagery- just good, clean, campy fun. So try and suspend your belief in realism and sit back and enjoy entering an era of our modern times where music and people were considerably less corrupt.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: UNBEARABLY SILLY, CAMPY TRASH
Review: I was so thrilled to see this on DVD that I bought it the week it came out. (Insert 'of the closet' joke here.) I think that, with the exception of Steve Guttenberg and Valerie Perrine, "Can't Stop The Music" pretty much ended the careers of all involved. The Village People were effectively derailed by this movie, Bruce Jenner was never given another acting role, Alan Carr gave up on musicals (unless you count "Grease 2"), and Nancy Walker folded up her Director Chair for keeps. What you DO get is some hilarious homo-erotic dance numbers and one good concert sequence with the Village People and The Richie Family.

Otherwise, you're forced to endure acting that seems to be given one direction (SMILE AND LOOK GIDDY!), dialog filtered through corn syrup, editing by blowtorch, and Jenner in cut-offs with a half shirt. "Can't Stop The Music" was everything about big budget 70's musicals gone completely over the hay-wire top; a train wreck of a culture clash worthy of a five feathered golden turkey.

"Can't Stop The Music's" extras include a pretty good photo gallery and notations. A must for collectors of B-Grade films and for seventies nostalgists.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: -*- ... and Proud of It!
Review: This movie is horrible. Really really horrible. One big, fat star here. BUT, it is a wild trip to watch. Everything is so bad throughout that it defies description. In other words: ONE HELL OF A LOT OF FUN!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: AN UTTER EMBARRASSMENT.....
Review: The music came screeching to a halt with this turkey. An all out train wreck of a movie meant to capitalize on the very brief popularity of the Village People, the music's not the only thing that stopped. This travesty killed the careers of practically everyone involved in it. Directed by of all people Nancy Walker, it's about efforts to bring the Village People to fame in the name of a struggling record producer played none-too-convincingly by Steve Guttenberg. The normally reliable and luscious Valerie Perrine is wasted as Guttenbergs' girlfriend. Lots of familiar faces including a very confused Bruce Jenner are sprinkled throughout to no avail. This movie is just unbelievably bad. Bad disco and bad acting may make this a camp classic in some circles. Some may even find it so bad it's funny. But I wouldn't sit through it again for anything. So if you must, view at your own risk. But don't say you weren't warned.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: So mind-shatteringly bad it's good
Review: Along with "Xanadu," this is a must-have Generation X cult classic. I laughed until my stomach hurt. You don't have to be gay to enjoy it, but it helps, as there are a lot of nudge-wink references to gay culture amid the blatantly half-hearted attempts to "straighten up" the story. (The handkerchief scene is priceless, as is Glenn "Leatherman" Hughes' audition scene.) Without this arguably unintentional send-up of movie musicals, there could not have been Aphex Twin's Busby-Berkeley-meets-Dr.-Dre-and-drops-acid "Windowlicker" video. All I can do is shake my head at this nasty little gem. It rips holes in space and time. I love it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bring Back Da Disco!!
Review: The only reason to see this movie is because: 1. Nancy Walker directed it. She was a fag hag, and I mean that in the positive way. 2. Allan Carr produced it. Despite the mindless script, he knew exactly what his bros in the community wanted to see: A Gay Musical Made For A Gay Audience. Unfortunately, Hollywood wouldn't allow him to make the kind of gay movie he wanted, so we got this instead. At least he got away with a whole lotta stuff for 1980. Too bad he only made a few musicals with gay men... can you say GREASE? 3. There were some members of the Village People who were/are gay- at least acknowledge the fact that perhaps for the first time in history openly gay men had leads in their own life-story movie.... unfortunately, they had to have girlfriends in the script and not "girlfriends". 4. You know you luved their music and so you get lots of it with this movie and soundtrack. 5. I can't say anything good about the co-stars: Perrine, Jenner, etc., so I will just say that had Guttenberg used this opportunity to come out he wouldn't have had to resort to giving us such movies as Police Academy, Three Men And A Baby, etc., and could've been giving us his versions of In & Out, The Next Best Thing. Oh well, such is Hollywood....

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Leathermen don't get nervous!
Review: This movie kicks unbelievable [booty].

I was stuck with friends attempting to go on vacation when this movie came on late-night cable TV. We died. It became imperative to own this movie. Thank the Village People it is still in release.

The kids in Village People regalia during the milk commercial are priceless...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Campy taken to the Max....
Review: In the early 80's, I was a HUGE fan of the Village People. However, I did not know this movie even existed. I finally saw it recently and was amazed at how incredibly campy this movie was. If you look at the actual movie from eyes of a person in the year 2002, it was a horribly bad movie. But when you look at it now thinking that this movie was released in 1980, with all its gay innuendo's, amazes me this movie made it to the screen with a PG rating.

Yes, I will agree with most, this movie is full of bad acting, and bad actors, but for being campy it is one funny movie.

This would be a great movie for 'Mystery Science Theater 3000', if it was not already 'reviewed' by them.

If you want to see a funny movie ('cause it's so dumb and bad), you need to see this movie.

Besides, it has some good Village People Music...

Keep an open mind, when seeing this movie, consider the fact that yes, it's campy and bad in 2002, but it was groundbreaking in the gay genre in 1980.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not even bad enough to be good.
Review: Movieline wrote: "Like nothing you've ever seen before."
I am not sure about that, but I am sure that it is like nothing I will ever see again. Not if I can help it.

Maybe it was my own fault, because I knew that it was not the sort of film I would like. But from the reviews here, I thought I might get some camp value from it, and I was just curious. Also I was curious about how a band as obviously "gay" as the Village People could become so big in mainstream society. But this film reveals little if anything of that.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: DTS Quality Falls Short of Expectation
Review: They actually did a good job in remastering the video and audio but somehow, the DTS track falls short of expectation though - as in I've seen a lot of better sounding musical DVDs in Dolby Digital only.

Very nostalgic.


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