Our problems will still be there tomorrow. Today, we jazzerskate.

Xanadu

After my ill-advised Sinatra safari, I felt compelled to both cleanse my mind and prove a point. The thing to be cleansed was obvious: Sinatra’s grim, lusterless eyes, owl-wide yet full of nothing. The point to be proven was less obvious: that, in spite of what Ol’ Blue Eyes would have you believe, making a movie that is basically watchable requires nothing more than fucking trying.

I would need a certain type of movie to aid me in this quest – one rife with weirdness, filthy with basic storytelling mistakes, special effects that make you look up the definition of the word “special” to see if it means something different than what you thought it meant, and yet… still a genuinely good watch, simply because the people involved are fucking trying.

Many films fit this description, but to the best of my knowledge only one features Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly surfing oceans of blow: Xanadu.

Xanadu is not what you would call a “good” film. I’d even entertain arguments that it’s not a film at all, assuming we’re defining “film” as some kind of visual entity utilizing one or more structural through-lines towards the ultimate goal of generating an emotional response from its audience. I’d describe it more as a gesture, a feeling that passed by at the precise moment a camera crew happened to be in the vicinity to film it. A spontaneous disco-documentary, if you will.

It’s also fucking stupid – every actor is either thoroughly baffled as to what they’re supposed to be doing (Michael Beck), thoroughly baffled as to what they’re supposed to be doing but dancing through it all (Gene Kelly, Olivia Newton-John), or completely confident in what they’re supposed to be doing because all they’re supposed to be doing is juggling bowling pins (various mimes).

But unlike the human manifestation of apathy that is Frank Sinatra, Xanadu is endlessly watchable! Everybody in this faceplant of a film is willing to embarrass themselves for the assignment, and the energy is infectious. Maybe there were just mountains of cocaine on the craft services table, but it’s always a pleasure when no one involved seems concerned with what the final product will look like, because they’re too busy jamming the fuck out.

God save me, I liked this dumb fucking movie, even though if given the chance I’d travel back in time and warn them not to make it.

That’s the power of trying, baby.

The End

There’s a scene late in Xanadu in which the character who would be our hero if this movie was competent enough to know that stories typically have a hero is at what would be the narrative low point if this film were competent enough to know that stories typically have a narrative low point. He receives an uplifting speech from Gene Kelly about the importance of never giving up on love. The speech sucks, both men are dressed like assholes, and nothing about anything works, but damned if Kelly isn’t calling on every ounce of his charisma to try and sell it.

And he doesn’t even have to sell it, because moments later there is a dance number so insane it appears to transcend the physical laws of the universe as they are currently understood. With that much energy on display, being good is almost besides the point.