Grease

John Chard

Feb 1, 2020

8/10

You're a fake and a phony and I wish I never laid eyes on you! Grease is directed by Randal Kleiser and stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing & Jeff Conaway. It's co-written by Jim Jacobs, Warren Casey (Musical), Bronte Woodard & Allan Carr. 1958 and Danny (Travolta) has a holiday romance with the pretty and virginal Sandy (Newton-John). She ends up going to the same high school as he, but he's under peer pressure to stay cool and uphold a tough guy image. They fall out, argue, make up, their friends are equally unstable. Oh and there's the small matter of some truly memorable songs and dances too. As full of gusto as it is cheese, Grease is the musical that's hard to dislike. The acting is so-so, the direction one dimensional and the plot could have been written on a 50s beer mat. Yet we love it because of its faults, the kooky charm that sidles up alongside those roaring tunes. We care not that these actors are too old to play high schoolers, the fun is watching them have fun being teens again. Hell there's even innuendo unbound and cheeky lyrics for those of an adult mind. A truly great fun movie that's longevity shows no time of ending any time soon. Watch it, enjoy, sing along, pick a favourite tune and character, and then salute it; for Grease is the word baby. 9/10

Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/gvGcY-PMazg I don’t even know when I added it to my watchlist, but working through my backlog, the musical Grease suddenly became the next movie to watch. This is of course a classic and I cannot name one person who does know at least one song from it. So, deep in your brain somewhere, you’re probably aware generally of what this is about, but here is the official description: Good girl Sandy Olsson and greaser Danny Zuko fell in love over the summer. When they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance? Made in 1978 but set in 1958 this is a whole lot of toe tapping fun. Almost all of the songs are instantly recognisable, and although I will never admit it, I may or may not have slid across our kitchen tiles on my knees after watching it, yelling “it’s ELECTRIFYING”. What’s interesting watching this now is how lewd this is. So much of this went way over my head when watching this as a kid. Condoms breaking, calling cars pussy wagons, singing about chicks creaming and swimsuits getting damp, I forgot how much double entendre and innuendo there is in the song lyrics and the movie as a whole. What’s even more interesting is the theory of how Sandy in fact died on the beach in the opening scene and that the rest of the film is the dying, oxygen starved fantasy of her brain. Think about it - in the song “Summer Nights” from Sandy’s point of view, Danny says that when he met Sandy, “I saved her life; she nearly drowned.” What if I told you that, in reality, she did drown hence why on the beach Sandy, as she enters the alternate plane asks him “Is this the end?” He replies, “Of course not. It’s only the beginning.” She then has the dying brain fantasy of a year of high school romance with Danny, the visions get more and more outlandish as the time passes, before, at the climax of the movie she and Danny drive off in a car that leaves the ground and drives off into heaven, in what we can only speculate are her final moments. Anyway that’s something to think about next time you watch it. Either way it’s a good fun movie and always worth a watch.

SoSmooth1982

May 20, 2023

7/10

This oddly enough is the one and only Musical I like. I like a couple of the songs too. It's a classic, everyone in the world knows this movie.