Top Ten Tuesday (November 15, 2016)

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Visit the hosting blog to see lots of other lists.

Today's topic is a movie freebie, and I chose to list my 10 favourite musicals and music movies.

I love musicals, especially the song and dance kind, but I also love a good music movie. The difference between a music movie and a musical is that while the former contains music that’s integral to the plot, it is presented in a realistic manner, i.e. with musicians performing, while in a musical people are liable to burst into song (and often dance as well) at the drop of a hat and no-one blinks an eye. In fact the spectators often join in. I am only including fiction, i.e. no documentaries or concert movies.

I think I’ll start my list with one of my all time favorite movies:

The Commitments. Music movie. To me, this is the ultimate “let’s get a band together” movie, and one of the things that makes it so good is that it could have happened. Familiar songs: Just about every song.

Með allt á hreinu. Music movie. This is an Icelandic cult film about two rival bands, one all female and one all male, battling it out in the small live music market in Iceland. It was made in the eighties, but nearly all of the music is still frequently heard on Icelandic radio, and several catchphrases from it are still used, even by people who have never seen the film.

The Band Wagon. The ultimate backstage musical with a theatre setting. A has-been Hollywood hoofer played by Fred Astaire is paired with a prima ballerina played by Cyd Charisse. Many good song and dance numbers ensue, both in a stage setting and as fantasy scenes. Most famous song: That’s Entertainment.

Singin’ in the Rain. Another brilliant backstage musical, this time with a movie industry setting, that mixes stage-produced music scenes with fantasy scenes. Stars Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds as the love-birds, Donald O’Connor as the best friend, and Jean Hagen as the villainess (stealing every scene she’s in). Familiar songs: Singin’ in the Rain, Good Morning, Make ‘em Laugh.

Gigi. A rather wonderful musical based on a questionable story. Leslie Caron is luminescent as the titular character. Familiar songs: Gigi, It’s a bore.

Guys and Dolls. Musical starring Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons as one pair of love-birds and Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine as another. Familiar song: Luck be a Lady.

High Society. Musical. Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm star in a musical remake of The Philadelphia Story. Most famous song: True Love.

Yellow Submarine. The classic Beatles album as a surrealistic, psychedelic, mostly animated movie.

The Nightmare Before Christmas. Great story and wonderful characters and you can watch it as a cheery Halloween movie or as a dark Christmas movie.

Fantasia. Wonderfully imagined and animated scenes set to famous pieces of classical music.

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...

Meme: Top Ten Tuesdays: Top Ten Book to Movie Adaptations

This meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish . To see more favourite book-to-movie adaptations, head over there to see which movies the other participants have nominated. I am going to cheat and interpret ‘movie’ as ‘film’, so I can include television adaptations. Oscar and Lucinda , from the book by Peter Carey. Apart from the changed ending it is an incredibly faithful adaptation, with every character perfectly cast. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , from the book by Stieg Larsson. This one actually improves on the book, which is well plotted but badly written. Cold Comfort Farm , from the book by Stella Gibbons. Perfect casting and quite faithful to the original. High Fidelity , from the book by Nick Hornby. Moving the story to America didn’t hurt it one bit. Fried Green Tomatoes (at the Whistle Stop Café), from the book by Fannie Flagg. Perfect casting and faithful to the story. Pride and Prejudice from the book by Jane Austen, the latest BBC adaptation. Incredibly f...

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