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    While some geeks might be uncomfortable saying they are a fan of certain genres of film, I have no troubles saying that I love musicals.  I have been a fan of musicals as long as I can remember.  I love music and film so naturally musicals are dear to me.  I want to share some of my favorite “twisted” musicals with you today.  These are by no means the ONLY musicals I like but these have really meant something to me through the years.  Hope you enjoy.

The Phantom of the Paradise

 What happens when you cross Faust, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, and pepper in a smattering of Frankenstein and a discotheque?  You get an early Brian DE Palma film that will blow your mind.

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show

The first time I watched this film I had no clue what I was watching.  A friend of mine and his sister introduced me to this movie and I have seen it once a year every year since my pre-teens.  The Evil Dr. Frank N. Furter an alien from the planet Transylvania in the Galaxy of Transsexual has found the secret of life itself.  Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon steal this twisted show.

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The Wiz

I love The Wizard of Oz.  I always have.  When I saw this movie I felt like I was seeing it all over again.  It’s terribly dated now and chock full of what to me seems like some nasty ethnic stereotyping, but if you can suspend belief in the real world you will be in for a treat.  The talent assembled here is almost unmatched.  The late Michael Jackson is just icing on the cake.  There’s no place like home.

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The First Nudie Musical

I first saw this movie on Showtime back in the late Seventies or early Eighties, and tried to find it on tape for years afterwards. Very funny, and I LOVED seeing Ron Howard (uncredited) and Cindy Williams in the same film pre-Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley. I have frequently tried to describe this film to my friends, and been frustrated. Even singing “Lesbian Butch Dyke, you can call it what you like” didn’t convey the hilarity.

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Cry Baby

John Waters is a genius.  Johnny Depp does some early work here mixing songs with some seriously good 50’s retro props, costumes and scenery.  Not the greatest acting, so be prepared to laugh a lot at this camp fest extraordinaire.

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Earth Girls Are Easy

Those of us that grew up in the REAL MTV eighties will remember this film.  Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carry, and Damon Wayans make this musical a MUST see.  It’s really only somewhat a musical since the songs are sparse.  When aliens fly off course and accidentally land in an valley girl’s pool all hell breaks loose getting them back home.  While I have always thought of Gina Davis as some what a horse faced actress, in this film she is SMOKING HOT.

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Little Shop of Horrors

I’ve loved this movie for years and never get tired of it. It’s entertaining and funny without needing to go for cheap or raunchy jokes (which I have nothing against). The songs are fun, and everyone in this movie can really sing. The jokes are clean and smart even if they are a little dark and twisted.  This was done by the great Frank Oz. I’m a big Muppets fan, so it makes sense that I love this too.

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Popeye

If you can find enjoyment in critically panned movies such as The Wiz, you can find corny enjoyment in this relatively same plateau of a production with catchy songs, and memorable characters.  Distance yourself from cartoon which it’s based, and think of it as a real life community of oddball people with their own rules for living. There was a lot of work drawn on this production and it’s not second rate including sets, music, costumes, and performance. It actually has tender moments from the transition of Popeye being the lone outcast to Olive Oyl discovering her love for this man soon after they find sweet pea lost in a basket. It is that chemistry which pulls the movies weight.

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Scrooge

I have reviewed this movie before on the site but it makes my list here just because the thought of a musical based on the ghosts of Xmas story is amazing.

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The Nightmare Before Christmas

Nightmare Before Christmas is wildly original, full of great songs, great lines (“nothing’s more suspicious than frog’s breath!), and great animation.  Between Tim Burton’s freaky/funny vision & Danny Elfman’s songwriting (& splendidly haunted, poignant singing) what imaginative forces we have at work here.

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    I was looking into the  origins of the word “nerd”.  It seems that in 1950 the term “nerd” was first used by Dr. Seuss in the book “If I ran the Zoo”.  It was a description of a little creature and had little to do with the common term we all know today.

    Just thought you all might enjoy that bit of info.  It made me laugh.

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Chickens are decended from jungle birds that originated from southern Asia in what is now India.

The chicken is the closest living relative of the tyrannosaurus-rex.

There are more than 24 Billion chickens in the world right now.

Alektorophobia is the Fear of chickens. 

Over 80 pounds of chicken is consumed by an average American every year.

Most commercially produced chicken eggs intended for human consumption are unfertilized.

    I enjoyed learning more about chickens, hope you learned something too!

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    It is also striking in my mind as I read the comments attached to this article how one person opened my eyes to another fun “fact”.  See if you can find this post amongst the comments.

“Can we draw the Christian God next? The second Commandment pretty clearly says that it’s a no-no to draw God or Jesus or the Devil. But I don’t think that it will get as much press since Christians have no problem ignoring their own Commandments.”

  I did some further research only to find the commenter is quite right.  Here is the second “commandment” just for the record :

You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them [i.e., the graven images]; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6, adapted from the NASV)

Just so there is no confusion, in Deuteronomy, the character Moses makes clear that god’s commandment was intended to forbid folks from making graven images of the xstian god himself:

So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb [i.e., Mt. Sinai] from the midst of the fire; lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. (Deut. 4: 15-18, adapted from NASV)

    So there, you get a bible “lesson” today from an Atheist.  Cheers!

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  Ah, the middle finger, also known as the long finger or bird finger, and usually the longest finger, is the third digit of the human hand, located between the index finger and the ring finger. It is also referred to as digitus medius, digitus tertius, “digitus infamous”, or digitus III in anatomy.

    In many Western countries, extending the middle finger (either on its own or along with the index finger in the United Kingdom & Australia) is an offensive and obscene hand gesture, colloquially known as the highway salute, the bird, “flipping the bird”, “flipping someone off”, “giving the finger” (as in giving someone the finger), often meaning the phrase “fuck you” or “up yours.” It is performed by showing the back of the hand, extending the middle finger of the hand upwards while bending the other fingers down into the palm.

    Giving someone “the finger” is one of the basest violations in modern culture, but its origins date back over 2500 years. The first written record of the insult occurred in ancient Greece, where the playwright Aristophanes (the Adam Sandler of his day) made a crude joke in an ancient Greek comedy mixing up the middle finger and the penis. Even back then, the bird was considered an aggressive, phallic put-down.  Greeks began calling upon their substitute wieners by raising their own hands to mock, threaten, and humiliate others.

    The widespread usage of the finger in many cultures is likely due to the geographical influence of the Roman Empire and Greco-Roman civilization.  When the Romans imported the art, music, and culture of the Greeks, the finger came along, too. The Roman Emperor Caligula, a pioneer in perversity, frequently shocked his citizens by forcing them to kiss his middle finger instead of his hand. One of his subjects, Cassius, who Caligula often taunted as being too effeminate, finally had enough humiliation and assassinated him. Clearly, the bird was not to be taken lightly.

     During the Middle Ages, the finger went underground. It was still known, but the Catholic Church frowned upon its use, as the middle finger was supposed to be holy in the Mass. The unholy insult lurked deep within the hearts of filthy- minded folks everywhere, hiding from sight until the 19th century when it began to crop up again thanks to a new invention -photography.

    In 1886, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn slipped his little finger fastball into the Boston Beaneaters team picture. The split-second art of photography could turn the once-boring painted portrait into a spontaneous work of rebellion, humor and spunk. Americans everywhere quickly got into the act.

  The finger is a near universal insult that we can all use.  Men, Women, children, old folks, Farmers, bankers and even computer nerds like me can use the finger with virtually perfect understanding of its meaning.  In this fast paced day and age, who has time to formulate real, meaningful insults?

 We should embrace the finger since it is truly part of our culture and something to be respected.  So here’s to you.  Up yours!

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