Xanadu (1980)

I have this wonderful fever dream of a Xanadu remake. It stars Jonah Hill in the Michael Beck role, Amanda Seyfried in the Olivia Newton John role and Elvis Costello in the Gene Kelly role and host of comedians and musicians in odd roles from David Cross and Sarah Silverman as the voices of the gods to Beck playing center stage at Xanadu. Everyone would play the material straight except Jonah who would do a variation of the kind of awkward, socially ambivalent outcast that has made him a star.

Hill's odd rhythms bounced off of a bouncy, trippy, happy musical just seems priceless.... in my head. In reality it likely be as much of a trainwreck as the original 1980 flick featuring the music of ELO, The Tubes and 1940's big band jump.

Michael Beck essays the role of one of the least believable artists in movie history. As Sonny Malone, whose name is uttered as one single word for some reason, Beck is more wooden and laconic than your average computer generated extra in a George Lucas movie. Sonny Malone is an artist in desperate need of inspiration. After scattering his latest failure to the wind he misses it coming to life in the form of nine gorgeous women who light up like Tron motorcycles and fly off leaving rainbow contrails in their wake.

One of these chicks is Kira (Olivia Newton John) who loves roller skating and vague intentions. One day she roller skates up to Sonny Malone and kisses him then skates away without a word. Sonny Malone is intrigued and spends his days stalking her on the Malibu boardwalk, also on roller skates, feathered Andy Gibb do dancing in the breeze.

Not finding Kira, Sonny Malone does stumble upon an ex-big band clarinet player turned construction company millionaire, Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly) doing what construction company millionaires do, playing clarinet on the beach. The two strike up a friendship and find that Kira is a mutual friend except that Danny knew her as the singer in his days with the Glenn Miller orchestra.

Neither seems all that phased by this rather remarkable occurance and instead inspire one another to go into the nightclub business. With Kira's inspiration they build Xanadu, a club that will feature the swinging big band of Danny's youth and Sonny Malone's power pop rock pals like Fee Waybill of The Tubes! How Sonny Malone makes the switch from artist to nightclub owner is something the plot isn't all that interested in so why should we be interested either.

All of this wondrous oddity is set to a score by the very talented Jeff Lynne from Electric Light Orchestra, a band that contributes a couple of dull power pop numbers to this.... let's call it 'eclectic' soundtrack.

Xanadu exists to this day in our pop culture buoyed by its oddity. The star power of Olivia Newton John and it's historic footnote as the last movie in the career of the legendary Mr. Kelly are contributing factors but oddity, bizarre, incomprehensible oddity drive this cultural trainwreck. Directed by Robert Greenwald, Xanadu wanted to be all things to all audiences. It features everything from a 40's dance number for Mr. Kelly and Ms. John to a performance by the pop band The Tubes to a disco/country/punk inspired medley.

Director Greenwald adds yet another weird layer to the cultural history of Xanadu with his career evolution from director of weird wild pop musicals to a liberal documentarian of some renown. His Outfoxed, Iraq For Sale, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices and Uncovered: The Real Iraq War are some of the most affecting liberal muckraking of the past quarter century. To think he is the same man who delivered the astonishing fluff of Xanadu is truly mindblowing.

Final

As cultural artifacts go, Xanadu doesn't have the cache of a Rocky Horror Picture Show but it could if people gave it a chance. As the 30th anniversary approaches next year I could see a renaissance. And who knows, maybe this review could be the muse for some ambitious Hollywood executive to try a remake of this bubblegum pablum with a cast that gets how wonderfully bizarre and humorous it all could be.