Grease 1978
Grease is a classic musical made in 1978 long after movie musicals had mostly disappeared. Watching it again in 2018 I realized there are parts of this movie that I love (Summer Nights) but so much that is just unimaginably bad. John Travolta is great in this, with great comic ability, acting, dancing, and reasonable singing. Olivia Newton John looks great and does well with her role along with Didi Conn, Jeff Conaway, and then a really great performance by Stockard Channing. That core group elevates the whole thing from what could have been something much worse. All of them are entirely too old to be playing high school students, mostly in their late twenties and Channing in her mid 30s. But the other side characters are terrible, poorly played stereotypes. The story is pretty good and a couple of the songs are very good (and some are horrible, which I had forgotten, like Travolta’s solo). Even the dancing is kind of uneven, sometimes good, sometimes just not really impressive (I was disappointed with the dance contest, which should have been better), though energetic at least. Maybe in some ways this was a feature length music video before we realized how much more was possible. It is still a fun movie, but overall it does not live up to the quality of some its most iconic moments.
Written: 08 Sep 2018
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital