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Apr 2021
Well the title pretty much says it all. What's your opinion on this flick?

This musical came out in my birth year and I remember at primary school 4th grade doing a Grease tribute, 6th grade something Star Wars like and me and my classmates being in 5th grade did some dance at the song "Straight Up" from Paula Abdul. One of the Kindergarten classes did a Ghostbusters theme on the well known song.


Anyway about Grease it didn't really trigger me checking out the movie until recently. Sure I had seen something in that period with my family that reminded me of the story with different songs and a guy falling for a popular gal in school but she wanted a biker as lover. Much later I found out that was Grease II.

But the original Grease with John Travolta and Olivia Newton remained a unknown even though I had heard most of the songs thanks to various revivals and them being played on parties. Organising a 70s movie challenge however was a chance to give myself the challenge to finally tackle this classic. I mentioned this to Onyx she promptly gave me the heads up reaction saying she found it overrated. Well I can understand the frustration when you got promised to watch a horror movie and they decide to play Grease instead emoticon

Well I wouldn't actually call myself a Travolta fan but than again it's not that I have seen that many movies. While most people probably remember him as the 'cool' Danny in Grease I remember him mostly as dickhead Billy Nolan in Carrie. And actually thinking about it he plays pretty much an ass in Grease as well. The other cast members well I possibly have seen them in other movies but just like Travolta not any of them showed me a memorable performance.

I don't say the acting was bad. There is only so much you can do with a weak script. It doesn't allow for deep characters, it all remains pretty shallow and stereotypical. The only character who seemed to have a bit more depth was the girl being called a slut lying to her boyfriend she was pregnant.


I'm not so fond of the SJW's and feminists but I wouldn't blame them for criticising the movie severely. It's an all white movie, there is a few homophobic comments and the girls are portrayed as being helpless without a man. Ok this fictional story took place in the 50s so we are supposed to accept that's how it was. Still this is sending a rather weak (and not really hopeful) message to girls and is viewed a bit too much from a male perspective.


Now wait Danny did an half-assed attempt to get Olivia's attention and love back after giving her the cold shoulder because he didn't want to come across as a sissy towards his hyperkinetic friends who somehow were convinced their silly walk was supposed to look cool. He tried a few sports which I have to admit was a bit amusing. The only other time I could express a smile was the monkey face he made when he proposed to Olivia with a cheap ring which was just an excuse to get into her pants. That Olivia actually fell for this little trick and would believe Danny being a good boy (as in not having sex) until marriage, it's hard to take serious and not wanting to bash her head against the wall for such naivity. Again not her fault but the ones writing such nonsense.

Another good example of this weird script is during the dance contest. It's easy to predict that Danny and Olivia would win the contest not because they are the best dancers or have the best chemistry. They are the protagonists you know. But towards the end some other girl shows up to push Olivia away and stupid Dany so full of himself (as he remains throughout the whole movie) didn't even notice even didn't seem to mind.


You wonder after all these stupid actions from Danny's part how he can win her love back. Oh yehaw he won a race against the school's biggest macho man (he wasn't supposed to do the driving but surprise surprise his friend was unable so Danny got a chance to impress his driving skills, huh what where did he learn that?). Ok his rival was possibly even a bigger ass and womanizer than Danny but if he tuned his own cars I gotta say respect. Of course Danny wins and Olivia noticed. Will they fall into each other arms, apologies I was such a dick and oh you are my hero, nope.

The movie reserves the reconciliation for the final scene at graduation day. Danny surprises everyone presenting himself as a jock (now hey didn't he suck at sports). Anyway he could just have borrowed a jacket from a friend. If the viewer didn't endure enough silliness the last and biggest insult came when Olivia showed up having transformed into a supposedly cool girl. Of course she needed to drop the nerdy girl act so Danny would love her again. And so we are back to where we started if you want your dickhead boyfriend back just change in something you are not. Because even if he is a jerk it's better than having no boyfriend. A tribute to shallowness...


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Tommix says:
#13

May 2021
I have read somewhere that Grease was never exactly intended to be taken seriously, in the way that I think you might be trying to take it. It was supposed to be a musical mockery or a parody of teen movies from the 50s and early 60s, in which everyone was supposed to be squeaky-clean, morally upright, chaste, and possibly members of some kind of real world, actual Upright Citizens Brigade.


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Tommix says:
#16, Reply to #15

May 2021
I pretty much agree with you Johan. Grease really doesn't work for modern mvoie-watchers, there is really a hell of a lot of offensive stuff. My brother wouldn't let his kids watch it. Wait a sec, here, this Wikipedia article mentions the kind of thing I was trying to remember. I do not know how popular the movies it mentions ever were. Dammit, this is not gonna be clickable, and I have to go do stuff right now. I will come back and clickify it later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_(film)#Critical_reception



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