I'm finally dancing to the old musicals

I was never a theatre kid, and never watched musicals when I was young. They didn't have lasers and robots and time travel, they just had loads of people singing songs. My sisters watched things like Grease a lot, but the first musical I ever fell in love with was the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Rocky Horror legit made me a better person, but was strictly one of a kind, and the musical genre was largely a mystery to me. And by the time I grew up into something resembling an adult, I was more interested in movies about gangsters and serial killers and shit like that.

And then, a few years ago, in a bid to widen my cinematic diet a little, I decided to check out some of the musicals that everybody agreed were the best of the best, and was delighted to find that everybody was right. Singing in the Rain really is very, very good.

I also, unfortunately, watched La La Land a few days after seeing Singing in the Rain, and the modern shoe shufflers do their best, but look like pale imitations compared to the eternal vigour of the old masters.

And now I love watching the old stuff with the kids, and find many of them have dated quite well - the unreality of people bursting into song is strangely eternal, and Donald O'Connor is literally still making 'em laugh, with his goofball antics.

I'm really not inspired to go out and see the Wicked movies or anything, it's just the old films I'm interested in. I feel like there's a strange kind of full stop with All That Jazz, and once you've got to that, what's left? Xanadu? 

I did try Xanadu because I have now become a bonafide Gene Kelly fan, and will watch any of his movies, because even if the plot is dull and predictable, the movies are always full of gorgeous, stylish  people doing remarkable things with their feet

Maybe when I get older I will get more into the modern musical, but will take the original West Side Story over Spielberg's overly slick remake, it's just got more snap, and more pizazz.

After all, we could all use a bit more pizzaz, and movies that were made nearly a century ago sill have that as they tapdance into my heart.