Hairspray trailer

Wassup wassup GBD!  I apologize for the weekend absence.  A few of you sent me some great content to post, but I just didn’t have time to set them up.  I will work on that today.  But look!  superkurre came through like I knew she would with yet another great movie review!  Thank you superkurre!  You have saved my takamus.    (I hope that makes sense.  It’s what the Finnish translator said.  If you’re not Finnish, then consider me embarrassed.  lol.)

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Society today seems to demand that we are all beautiful and thin in order for our lives to be of any value.  For those of us who were not born this way, life has at times been hard.  Not that it takes a lot to be different or bullied in school.  The upside of this is that you will get to know who your true friends really are and you’ll most likely push yourself further and harder to achieve your dreams.  Adding on other pressures society seems to drop on us, it is a wonder anyone ever broke barriers and changed the world, but they did.

Despite its cheery trailer and toe-tapping songs, Hairspray has a strong, serious message.  I’ll get the heavy stuff out of the way first and then move on to more fun things.  Set in 1962, the world of Hairspray is set in the middle of racial segregation in the US.  In this day and age it might be hard for us to imagine what the United States was like back then, that African-Americans and whites were not allowed to mix in school and in other public places, and that interracial marriage was illegal.  Only the issue of gay rights today is something we can compare it to.  Tracy, the bubbly and chubby main character in Hairspray seems sometimes oblivious to the illegality and injustice of the things around her, almost as if she couldn’t quite understand it.  She never mentions to anyone that her new friends from detention are black, as it doesn’t matter to her if they were blue or green.  Her friend Penny is equally open-minded, only finding it very exciting that she and Tracy were invited to a black neighborhood and that a hot, black guy seems to like her.  Another issue in the movie is the fact that Tracy is a bit on the chubby side.  The mean girl, Amber, seems to find great pleasure in making fun of Tracy because of this, but despite all this Tracy never loses her positive attitude towards life and her dreams.  She fights for her dream to dance on the Corny Collins Show and eventually gets there just by believing in herself.  She even finds time to swoon over the handsome lead singer of the Show.

Now to the fun part!  Despite its serious subtext, or perhaps because of it, the tone of the movie is cheery.  The songs are a wonderful mix of today’s sounds with a base of the unbeatable 60’s grooves.  If it doesn’t make you want to dance and sing then I don’t know, maybe go to the doctor or something.  The cast is superb and it’s amazing to realize that this is Nikki Blonsky’s, who plays Tracy, first ever acting job!  She sings like a powerhouse and gives the professional dancers a run for their money.  From beginning to end the beat never stops and just the sight of John Travolta playing a female character is enough to keep you entertained.  This was my favorite movie of 2007, and that’s saying a lot during a Harry Potter movie year.  And although I would normally never promote the buying of anything, I have to say that the DVD has the BEST documentary of any movie ever.  It gives a very in-depth history of Hairspray, which is longer than one might realize.

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Whoohoo to superkurre!  Tune in next week when we’ve got the Bloke named Danny reviewing Goodbye, Mr. Chips!  I tried to find a trailer, but couldn’t find a real one because it’s an old movie.  But it is a classic, so I’m sure you can find it at your local video store or library.  I love libraries because they let you borrow things for free.  lol.  Anyway, Danny loves this movie, so give it a watch.  It was nominated for a bunch of Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, and Robert Donat (who plays Mr. Chips) won for Best Actor, in a field that included heavyweights Clark Gable (Gone with the Wind), Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights), and James Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington).  So that should tell you something, huh?

Danny did say that you can watch the whole movie on YouTube.  There are 11 parts.  The first part is below, or you can click on this link.  You can find the rest on YouTube.