Belated Film Review: Xana-oh-no-they-didn't!

"Olivia, just sing the damn song and be done with it."

Some might say that reviewing the movie Xanadu is desperately passé and hardly topical. After all, the Broadway version has been out for nearly a year, and the pun "Xana-don't!" has been used approximately 785,176 times in the Western hemisphere alone. However, I just saw it for the first time last night, and what is news to me is unfortunately news to all of you.

Clearly, I did not grow up watching Xanadu; in fact, I was barely familiar with it until this winter, when my brother made a spur of the moment purchase of an Olivia Newton-John CD (it being an "oh-my-God-it's-so-bad-it's-AMAZING" kind of good). The movie's title track was an immediate standout as a must-add to my ever-growing karaoke repetoire. My brother, with visions of free drinks at karaoke bars, trophies, and Rhino Records compilation albums dancing in his head, quickly set about stage parenting: ensuring I learned the lyrics and making stylistic choices.

Since then, I have been waiting eagerly to see the movie, and finally, last night was the night. And, well...let's just say that 2 hours passed. Oh, and there was a CARTOON INTERLUDE. I've never smoked crack, but I like to imagine that this is how Whitney Houston feels on a daily basis.

The best way to express my reactions is to share the drinking game I made up (but please beware that this game is absolutely sure to land someone in the hospital and we accept absolutely no responsibility for your stupidity).

Players should take a drink each time:

• A light effect is used
• Michael Beck looks inappropriately confused
• You wonder why they couldn't have gotten Andy Gibb instead of Michael Beck
• You wonder why Gene Kelly chose to be in this film

As a final word, I have prepared a pop quiz. Complete the sentence:

This movie did for roller skates ...

a) what Battleship Potemkin did for montage.
b) what The Graduate did for the anti-hero.
c) what The Deer Hunter did for the Vietnam war.
d) what Nell did for linguists.
e) All of the above.