What the Hell Were They Thinking?!
I’m willing to give my left nut if they do.
Cast of Characters:
Alex the G.I. – Alex Briley
David the Construction Worker – David Hodo
Glenn the Leatherman – Glenn Hughes
Randy the Cowboy – Randy Jones
Felipe the Indian – Felipe Rose
Ray the Policeman – Ray Simpson
Samantha Simpson – Valerie Perrine
Ron White – Bruce Jenner
Jack Morell – Steve Guttenberg
Steve Waits – Paul Sand
Sydney Channing – Tammy Grimes
Helen Morell – June Havoc
Norma White – Barbara Rush
Alicia Edwards – Altovise Davis
Lulu Brecht – Marilyn Sokol
Director – Nancy Walker
Writer – Allan Carr & Bronte Woodard
Producer – Allan Carr, Henri Belolo & Jacques Morali
Distributor – Associated Film Distribution
Running Time – 124 minutes
Rated PG
Aspiring songwriter Jack Morell (Steve Guttenberg) has had it with his dead-end job and, with the help of his supermodel friend Samantha Simpson (Valerie Perrine), is finally pursuing his dream of getting a record deal. “It’s practically life or death.”
‘Cause as he puts it to his mean old, demanding boss, he’s a composer, not some schlepper salesman. His time is now, Mr. Dickweed boss, and the next time your counting inventory, you’ll be counting the albums of Jack Morell.
Okay, easy there, shooting star.
But if it doesn’t work out, he’ll “just go back to dental school like his father wants”, despite being such a tool-bag that I wouldn’t even trust him to pick out my toothpaste, much less work on my teeth.
Feeling that Jack’s voice isn’t fit to sing – ’cause he’s STEVE FUCKING GUTTENBERG – Samantha ventures out into Greenwich Village to recruit Indian-dressing go-go boy Felipe (Felipe Rose), construction worker model David (David Hodo), singing cop Ray (Ray Simpson), leather addict Glenn (Glenn Hughes), G.I. Alex (Alex Briley) and cowboy Randy (Randy Jones) as singers.
So this is essentially a Village People biopic… and a ghastly one at that.
Can’t Stop the Music, which plays out like a threat more than an inability to stop the music, is notoriously awful. How awful, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you just how awful. Its horrid stench of failure was strong enough to convince American copywriter and publicist John J. B. Wilson to form the Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies. But first, that poor, poor bastard had to endure a double feature of this film and Xanadu.
Not even Dante’s journey through hell was as cruel and twisted a fate.
This film is brought to us by Allan Carr, the man who gave us the 1978 hit musical Grease. It would never get any better for him as his career would eventually hit rock bottom somewhere around verse two of Rob Lowe and Snow White’s duet of “Proud Mary” during his production of the 1989 Academy Awards.
That tacky son of a bitch was also responsible for doing away with “And the winner is…” and replacing it with “And the Oscar goes to…” I bet he’d dish out 8th place Oscar ribbons if he could. It’s a change that has now become the norm for award shows ’cause I guess everyone’s a winner.
Well, that is everyone except those involved in this film. Everyone loses here.
Even us viewers.
Especially us viewers.
Let’s put Can’t Stop the Music’s crap-tasticness into perspective.
It’s so bad Grease 2 could actually be considered a return to form for Allan Carr.
It’s so bad God punished Steve Guttenberg with great vengeance and furious anger by sentencing him to do four Police Academy movies.
It’s so bad it scarred Bruce Jenner into getting a sex change 35 years later just to hide from the shame of starring in this film.
It’s so bad, even as one of the few non R-rated films to feature full-frontal – yes, FULL FRONTAL – nudity, parents have found themselves more concerned that they’ve been subjecting their kids to a shitty excuse for a musical than exposing them to hairy, naked adult men.
Get a good look at all those swinging dicks, kids!
At its core, this film is another one of those “follow your dreams” films tha unfortunately will ’cause every viewer that suffers through it to give up on theirs. Guttenberg’s Jack Morell (not-so subtly named after producer and Village People creator Jacques Morali) dreams of becoming a big music star, and for being as shitty of a songwriter as he is a singer and dancer, I say his chances are quite strong.
Though Stevie boogying it up in NYC on roller skates is tragically the film’s high point
And following that gaudy intro, this shameless affront to cinema slams on the gas and goes from worse to holy shit in six seconds. Gaudy’s not even the right word. Allan Carr shits out an exploding septic tank’s worth of glitter and disco lights all over the screen. And even with the gay identity completely removed from the Village People, Helen Keller herself could sense the homoerotic subtext. Wait, did I say subtext? I meant to say this film is so flamingly, fist up the ass, flamboyantly homoerotic it would disconcert even Boy George.
Here’s the most glaring problem with Can’t Stop the Music… among many other glaring problems. See, there are two kinds of musicals. There are musicals like The Wizard of Oz and The Sound of Music where both the story and musical segments are timeless. Then you have musicals like Jersey Boys where the music is fantastic but the story is a major letdown. Can’t Stop the Music amazingly breaks the mold by being absolute shit at both. Of course, it doesn’t help that the Village People are essentially sidelined to playing tertiary characters in their own movie, while we instead get to focus on Jack’s wildly bi-polar mood swings, Samantha fucking her way through every record exec to help Jack reach his dreams, and Jenner playing a narratively useless, uptight, stick-up-the-ass asshole.
Just like on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
The issue, though, is that when Can’t Stop the Music decides to actually start the music it’s supposed to not stop, it’s – uh… see, it’s… well, I can’t really think of a good way to describe the Milkshake song other than the Village People joyously singing about sucking down some creamy white… milkshakes.
The issue, though, is that when Can’t Stop the Music decides to actually start the music it’s supposed to not stop, it’s – uh… see, it’s… well, I can’t really think of good way to describe the Milkshake song other than the Village People joyously singing about sucking down some creamy white… milkshakes.
…
Dear God, that’s too easy.
Yes, they literally spend an entire plot thread’s worth of time pushing milk, centered around an advertisement where Samantha gives six little boys glasses of milk and promises them that one day they’ll turn into Village People. I mean, if your dream is to grow up to become a flamboyant frontman, why aim for piano maestro Elton John, “Bohemian Rhapsody” author Freddie Mercury or heavy metal icon Rob Halford when you can settle for the guys that sang “Macho Man”?
On the plus side, for those that have been dying to see Valerie Perrine bare her fun bags for all the world to see, your wish comes true during the choreographed song and dance number to “YMCA”. That’s right, Superman fans. That there’s “Miss Tess-MACHEEEER!!!!” gallivanting it up with the Village People.
“Ugh… is that acutally what you think of me?”, Samantha says back to the artist formerly known as the dude that fucked the best friend of the woman O. J. Simpson murdered when he confronts her on her alleged seductive ways with the music bigwigs.
No, sweetie. That’s what your own movie thinks of you.
Meanwhile, in Hackensack, New Jersey, Miss Tessmacher’s mother is unable to go cavoring around herself, ’cause while her daughter was occupied playing naked hot tub as the Village People’s beard, she was a bit occupied herself getting blown up to bits by another one of Lex Luthor’s nuclear missiles.
And to think she’s surprisingly the wholesome one of the film’s female stars. Oh, yes, the sex-craved MVP goes to Marilyn Sokol’s Lulu Brecht, who wins it by a mile. This is most evident by this choice bit of dialogue from her that actually is spoken in the movie.
“Oh, the Indian is hot! I go for the exotic types, especially when they’re half-naked… You tell him I’ll make up for all the indignities they suffered in Roots.”
…
????????
…
Yes… Roots… ‘Cause why embarrass one race when you can embarrass two?
Once the film was over, I was left with so many questions, the first being how this film ever got green-lit. If Samantha is as famous of a model as the film says she is, why the hell is she hanging out with a schmuck like Jack? You don’t see Michael Jordan hanging out with the water boy for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the NBA D-League. Why is Bruce Jenner in this film? His character serves no real purpose. Is it so he can make Guttenberg’s performance look respectable? I mean, for Jenner’s sake, that would explain why the Village People show up. And speaking of the Village People, is there a reason they dress up like their stage personas all the time as if it’s their daily wear? I have a feeling I’d get a few more raised eyebrows than just Jenner questioning my outfit choice if I decided to walk around all day with an Indian headdress the size of a wedding train.
Also puzzling, this disco-themed film was done no favors being released in 1980. Saturday Night Fever, released in 1977, benefited from a release that came at the height of the disco craze. Can’t Stop the Music inexplicably came a year after the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago, a day that would become known as “the day Disco died”. Either strike while the iron’s hot, or wait at least 15-20 years to capitalize on the nostalgia factor. Coming out right in the thick of “Disco Sucks!” isn’t exactly the brightest marketing strategy.
Although who are we kidding? Hold off another 50 years for all I care; I doubt anyone would give a frog’s fat ass about a Village People biopic.
To this film’s credit, though, one could consider Can’t Stop the Music way ahead of its time thanks to one passing moment where a woman walks by Jenner and says, “Nice box.”
Judgment: Laughably inept from start to finish, Can’t Stop the Music fails as a rags-to-riches tale, fails as a comedy (well, intentionally at least), fails as a biopic, fails as a musical – hell, this couldn’t even pass as a cheap, 2 a.m. Pure Disco CD commercial. This atrocity may not have killed disco, but it certainly did a hell of a good job in making sure the era remained dead and buried.
Sentence: Strap on those leather chaps, young man. There’s a place you can go. I’m sure you will find many ways. to. have. a. good. time.
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM – it’s fun to stay at the…
Just kidding – you know what? Jenner has to deal with being genetically linked to the Kardashians and Guttenberg has had to deal with his entire film career post-1990, so I’ll grant mercy and consider that time served. Instead, I’m ordering you to serve two years community service attempting to search for the irony lost on a disco-themed film released a year after the genre’s death.
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