Because Everyone Loves a Good List...

Theater Afficionado posted this link of "11 Movies That Should Be Musicals" from totalfilm.com. This list, for them what don't feel like clicking on all kinds of links, is as follows:

Eraserhead
Blade Runner
The Big Lebowski
Army of Darkness
There Will Be Blood
The Thing
Dazed and Confused
Clerks
Heathers
Up in Smoke
Predator

It's hard to tell if they're actually being serious about this or not, and regardless, I don't think it's really all that great a list (HEATHERS is the only one I'd really be all that interested in). BUT it does bring up the question: Is there something all that wrong with making musicals out of movies? It seems like a fairly logical medium to steal from, especially as people don't write plays like GREEN GROW THE LILACS anymore, and the rights to novels get snatched up by Hollywood the moment it goes into 2nd printing. (Note: I know absolutly nothing about book publishing or screen rights to novels. I don't even watch ENTOURAGE.) And nowhere has it ever been stated that musicals "should" come from original ideas; musicalizations of one sort of another have always made up a large part of any post-OKLAHOMA theatrical season.

The key is in finding source material that brings out new and interesting musical and theatrical ideas making it an entirely new experience for a potentially completely different audience, as opposed to using derivative music to hit plot points and recycle jokes from "Branded" material in an attempt that attract that movie's audience.

With this in mind (and the fact that I am covering phones for most of the day today and need something to think about), here is MY short list of movies that could be musicals. For the record, all of these would be legitimate musicals, not ironic, exclamation-pointed, FringeNYC shit-shows. Also, some of these are movies I haven't seen in a looooong time, so they might be really bad.

PHENOMENON--you know, that John Travolta movie (that kinda feels a little Scientologisty) about the guy whose brain is so super awesome that he can do crazy shit like make Kyra Sedwick fall in love with him. The first (and, admittedly, only) time I saw the movie (in theaters) I felt like it should be a musical. Partially because it's not a great movie--fairly pretictable and maudlin--but a good score could give it a depth the original lacked. Alternately, one could musicalize POWDER, which is the exact same thing, but with a younger leading man who is albino.

RADIO FLYER--I don't really remember this movie all that vividly, just that it was a coming of age story involving child abuse that I watched a couple of times at my Grandparents and really liked. But, reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, it still seems like a good idea, and a musical version might be able to resolve some of the issues critics had with the movie's treatment of fantasy as an escape from abuse. This would be a bleak one...

THE BOY WHO COULD FLY--again, I haven't seen this movie in forever and don't remember specifics so much as the fact that I watched it on a VHS my Grandpa made a bunch of times. But again, judging by the wiki plot synopsis it could be lovely.

Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments section, or tweet them! Because Twitter is cool.