Universal has posted the remastered finale of "Xanadu" on Youtube

Yup, even remastered, it’s as stupid as you remember

It's certainly no Roller Boogie.

They sure managed to pack a lot of awful in under 7 minutes.

Livvy is at her sexiest.

There, I said something nice.

[quote]They sure managed to pack a lot of awful in under 7 minutes.

There is another four or so minutes.

Yikes. It's still awful!

The whole boring sequence before Livvy comes on is a snooze! Whenever the camera grabs the dancers' faces they're not attractive people at all. The choreography is totally missing, and Olivia can't dance or skate at all. It's still a hopeless hodgepodge of clothes and hair...on wheels.

I saw it the day after it opened in an all but empty cineplex. Once the credits rolled I knew where they were, not ever coming to see "Xanadu"!

40 years later, Xanadu was obviously ahead of its time. Audiences couldn't appreciate a forward-thinking music--

Fuck that.

It's still shit.

When my son was young, and misbehaved I put him in time-out by making him sit and watch this in its entirety. I'm not kidding

Truly horrendous.

The. “Roller disco” genre is really overdue for a revival

That's my friend Larry in a salmon colored sweater behind Livvy when she starts singing

Was there ever such a bad movie with such a good soundtrack?

R11, I just watched the whole thing so I could see your friend Larry, and I found I couldn't tell what you meant by "salmon." Was he the one behind her on the left of the screen in the dark pink, or one of two guys directly behind her in lighter pink?

ONJ really did look fantastic in this. Also, good for Gene Kelly. I think he was over 65 in this appearance, right?

No wonder Streisand had to take the reins and low-key direct Hello, Dolly! herself.

Gene Tierney was a terrible director.

*Gene Kelly

Watching this video again made me realize that those 20-something year old dancers are now in their 60's!

Gene Kelly didn't direct Xanadu, you moron.

Why?

r16, Olivia is 72!! Can't believe it.

Maybe it's nostalgia but I'm sadly enjoying the clip. The movie is awful but the music holds up. IMHO

My favorite part is when Mr. Newton-John hair-dances behind Olivia at the beginning of her part.

Matt Lattanzi was at his height of beauty in this. Talk about a fine ass!

How he and Olivia could have produced a creature as hideous as Chloe is really mind boggling.

Hmm, it's very crisp and clear - except in Livvy's close-ups, which have a distinct air de Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting about them.

I'm a forty year old gay, and I've still never seen "Xanadu".

R24 I've never seen it all the way through. I've tried, but it's just too awful to sit through from beginning to end.

She’s an anti vaxxer freak like her plastic surgery riddled daughter. Funny how the daughter gets the kardashian basement surgery special but scrams about “vaccines are dangerous and not real to put in your body” yet nothing in or on her body is real. Da fuck?

Skin tones very waxy. Lots of DNR scrubbing going on. No film grain at all!

I've never seen this film. I don't think I realized until just now that it takes place inside of a mall.

I just re-watched it about a year ago with some friends, 2 of them fell asleep it was so boring. News Flash, it still sucks. It's what killed Olivia's career after Grease.

I love Xanadu. I love the wrongheadedness, the terrible dialogue, and the flat acting, as well as the hopelessness of its timing in 1980 as a Greek mythology roller disco movie. It’s all wrong but it’s all right.

ONJ is fantastically gorgeous, Gene Kelly is a blast of misplaced nostalgia, and the musical numbers are outlandish and emblematic of the dawn of the eighties.

I love this video. I think it’s cheesy, but still a lot of good innocence

I love bad movies but I’ve tried watching Xanadu several times over the years and can never get through it. It’s not so-bad-it’s-good it’s just bad. Great soundtrack though.

What the fuck is wrong with you tasteless assholes?? Xanadu is a CLASSIC. It's an absolute miracle that makes me happy every time I watch it. You dumb fucks are all too busy trading Golden Girls quotes to know real quality. Well, I say FUCK the Golden Girls. They suck!

R23 Ms. Newton-John borrowed my "Mame" lens.

This, Can't Stop The Music, and Sgt. Pepper are the Terrible Trifecta of pop musicals.

The spoofy Broadway version of Xanadu was fun, unlike the movie.

And still they wont release the soundtrack with ALL the songs on cd or digital.

What's missing? Fool Country and You Made Me Love You. Both can be found on YouTube.

Omg HORRIFYING and fascinating all at once. TERRIBLE choreography and blocking. Not nearly enough of the glorious Olivia. The song and her performance are genuinely iconic and she’s at her absolute peak, but we’re stuck with d level acrobats while she’s barely in frame? GARBAGE. They should have just shot a concert with her in millions of costume changes.

As balls out bad as this is, it still puts a smile on my face. And 70 year old Gene Kelly on roller skates. Yeah its a hot mess but in the best way possible.

Olivia and Chloe have a new single out.

It's Chloe's chance to break big into the business after her big dance hit reworking of Magic two years earlier.

You Made Me Love You

Fool Country

I love Xanadu. I saw it at least 7 times. In the cinema. It’s total cheese but I love the music and the sheer oddity of it.

It’s at least 100x better than Cats.

I love the movie as well. It's a mess, but it's a lovable mess. It would have been much better in the hands of a Stanley Donen.

Olivia was one of the biggest stars in showbiz at the time. She was in between Grease (which was one of the top grossing movies of all time at that point) and Physical. There was a big PR blitz prior to the films opening. Olivia got the pre-Oscar timeslot slot that year with her Hollywood Nights special and Gene and her presented later on at the actual show.

Clearly, they had high expectations for the movie.

Couldnt even make it to the end of the sentence, could you R38? Aa new ADD low even for DL.

What was that whole "groups in matching outfits" thing about in the 1970s? You see it in a lot of movies of questionable quality. The only good movie I can think of seeing it in is The Warriors, where the gangs all had gimmicks and matching outfits.

[quote]The. “Roller disco” genre is really overdue for a revival

Ask and you shall receive. We're halfway there already.

They should have included the rest of the finale!! The 40s tap number, the country number with ONJ in that fringed white jacket and cowboy hat, and her final glittery rise out of the center of that platform!!

[quote] Couldnt even make it to the end of the sentence, could you [R38]? Aa new ADD low even for DL.

Well, you ungrateful fucking cunt, you DID say digital, did you not? So fucking make a goddamn Xanadu playlist with the added songs I went out of my way to post for you.

Xanadu like American Gigolo, also released in 1980, basically shouted: "Welcome to the '80s" because they both featured what would be the '80s aesthetic.

You can see so much of what it is to come. Even in this clip, you can see the late Shabba Doo doing some locking and popping. So even Xanadu has a little breakdancing.

This clip is so ridiculous, though. It's so over the top. It's like they threw everything but the kitchen sink. The club seems tiny yet there's hundreds of dancers. And poor Olivia can't dance for shit, so they try to find her things to do. It's a mess.

**sorry, that's not Shabba Doo in Xanadu but damn, it looks like him. Still, the point remains - breakin' was featured a little in the film.

Fuck the haterz! There are plenty of appealing, fuckable chorus members in that number! Little hard to believe it had a $20M budget though - those Dress Barn fashions her sisters wear have aged really, though, considering. :) Keep in mind all of those dancers did what Ginger Rogers did only forwards and on skates! That's right.

Olivia met Matt on the set of this, and they fell in love!

Matt was a hunk back in the early 80's. Livvy liked them hot!

thx for sharing! So many old movies look terrible since they're copies of VHS copies (which is was super shitty fuzzy medium that lost so much detail and color). I enjoyed watching this just for the clarity alone

Sometimes its great to watch older movies you love that have been remastered. You can see incredible details in the sets and costumes that have been totally invisible/fuzzy on previous viewings.

God but Livvy’s hair was gorgeous in this! I was a teenager when it came out and I tried to grow my hair to be exactly like hers.

My Men’s Bible Study Group HATED me.

That was fabulous.

A lot of changes in the sound/ music mix that are pretty modern and fun.

How about ROCKY HORROR, r12?

Or its sequel SHOCK TREATMENT. Or SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. FLASH GORDON. TRON: LEGACY is an awesome score/soundtrack, P.O.S. film. MARIE ANTOINETTE.

Olivia Newton John had a huge success with "Physical" and the TWIST OF FATE soundtrack after XANADU, r29.

TWO OF A KIND soundtrack.

r35 is obviously not Bimunized.

I suggest you familiarize yourself with the preferred trifecta of XANADU, CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC and the Yoram Globus-Menahem Golan craptastical APPLE, all released in 1980 and each historically awful.

And here is Olvia Newton John's reflections on the 40th anniversary last year, in case you missed it:

And here are Michael Beck's:

This movie is where Olivia met Matt Lattanzi, right? I thought he was the hottest thing. I assumed he's gay and just used Olivia. but I heard he's really a pusshound?

Yes, Lattanzi is straight. They have a daughter.

It's a headache inducing film. The characters are unappealing, the costumes are hideous, it seems like a vanity production for Gene Kelly and it's every bit as ridiculous as The Apple and Roller Boogie but less compelling.

I recall watching this at a movie theater and kept waiting for it to get better and make sense.

Well, R50, I'll overlook the fact that you introduced the "c word" into a perfectly charming Xanadu thread to remind you that UNIVERSAL/MCA has NOT released a complete soundtrack on cd or digital which includes those tracks as well as "Drum Dreams" and the complete "Fool Country" containing the tap dancing instrumental or the opening overture. Tracks some youtube user has thrown on don't count, you abandoned cumdumpster.

I don't remember any reviews before the movie came out. The audience I saw it with had not idea what to expect and at the end people silently just got and left, as in "what did I just watch?"

[quote]I don't remember any reviews before the movie came out. The audience I saw it with had not idea what to expect . Despite its fame, the Roller Disco craze was extremely short-lived. It was actually dead in some areas before it even caught on in others. It was gone and buried by the time the film was released and Universal was anxious to keep quiet that the film's finale was a tribute to last year's fad.

^ Sorry, I'll try that again.

[quote]

I don't remember any reviews before the movie came out. The audience I saw it with had not idea what to expect....

Despite its fame, the Roller Disco craze was extremely short-lived. It was actually dead in some areas before it even caught on in others. It was gone and buried by the time the film was released and Universal was anxious to keep quiet that the film's big finale was a tribute to last year's fad.

^ And I still fucked it up!

[quote]Watching this video again made me realize that those 20-something year old dancers are now in their 60's!

Only the women and straight men. Beginning of the AIDS crisis.

For those who like the film., I give you the Xanadu Preservation Society.

And always remember, "Tuesday is Wednesday!"

[quote]She’s an anti vaxxer freak like her plastic surgery riddled daughter.

She's not anti-vaxer, her daughter may, be but Olivia is in stage four cancer and doesn't want to put a foreign chemical in her body. Her choice.

It's the awful cinematography that makes it so bad.

I loved this number including the drag queen in the center of the 40's trio......

Did anyone see the Broadway show with Cheyenne Jackson?

My first three movie theater experiences were Moonraker, Can't Stop the Music and Xanadu. My family really knew how to pick them.

Is it possible any of you queens can do what the people on skates are doing. Screw all your criticism of the movie. Yeah, bad awful cinematography. So what!

Except for Gene Kelly, they all look pretty good on skates. I don't blame ONJ for not skating in the movie. Gene looked like he had his first and only skating lesson and then filmed the scene. Olivia knew better.

Especially liked the guy that does a 90 degree spin in the air while rolling. For me, the movie was about roller disco not all the crap you all are bitching about.

I was doing that stuff on the skate floor back then. It was a whole lotta fun.

I was -- and remain -- hopelessly devoted to Olivia but even as a kid I knew this was terrible moviemaking. Still, she looks and sounds amazing, and some of the songs are great.

It's still better than Two of a Kind.

That's what finished her movie career for good.

I have no memory of why it was, but I knew I didn't want to see this movee when it came out. I was right.

Did this film lead to Gene Kelly's immediate death?

As a kid, I remember my grandmother wondering why John Travolta and ONJ didn't get married. She used to say, "You can clearly see how much he loves her when they do interviews together. I don't know why they don't get engaged. What's wrong with him?"

Clap-clap..HO!

The songs are great! Magic, All Over The World, Xanadu, Suddenly, all charted - the first three were Top 10, Magic was No. 1 for weeks and the album was Top 10.

But it didn't translate into ticket sales which is interesting. I would think just listening to the music would make one curious about the film. The curious was sated pretty quickly, I guess.

One of the problems, I think, was that the film was pushed last minute from a June release to mid-August. The soundtrack had already been released and, while hit singles were still charting from it when the film came out, the initial press push for the soundtrack, as well as its most successful single (Magic) had come and gone three months prior.

The I'm Alive number is kind of cool until Olivia shows up and "dances".

That sucks, r86. Mid-August is right when American youths go back to school and the box office drops precipitously every year.

That's the Electric Light Orchestra's "Magic" for you, r85.

I was surprised to learn that

[quote]From 1972 to 1986, ELO accumulated twenty-seven top 40 songs on the UK Singles Chart, and fifteen top 20 songs on the US Billboard Hot 100. The band also holds the record for having the most Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hits (20) without a number one single of any band in US chart history.

R77 thanks for that clip. I saw the show and loved it.

The stage show was a modest hit and received positive reviews. Poor Cheyenne injured his foot or knee, I forget which, and his understudy had to take over for the rest of the run.

No, Cheyenne took over for James Carpinello, who injured his knee during rehearsals.

[quote]No, Cheyenne took over for James Carpinello, who injured his knee during rehearsals.

Yeah, amazing when a skate wheel hits one lone BB on the floor.

I saw the Broadway version three times, I even saw James Carpiniello in an early preview who was good, but I have to admit, nutty CheyJack was better.

This was a formative moment in my development as a gayling. The movie's a hot mess, but an engrossing hot mess, much like the men I like.

You can practically see the cocaine sparkling out of the screen. I can't imagine the mountains of Bolivian marching powder snorted in the process of making this piece of crap.

I feel bad for Carpinello. He either left or was replaced as Link Larkin during the Seattle pre-Broadway run of Hairspray, then he loses out on Xanadu because of an injury. And the one show he does manage to keep the lead in is Saturday Night Fever. Poor guy. Way more talented and hotter than Cheyenne Jackson or Matt Morrison.

you sad, dull, infinitely boring creatures. Xanadu is glorious, bonkers, gonzo filmmaking, the kind of movie that can only be made by people who are truly creative and want to see something unique and magic. Give me the neon-soaked, cocaine-glowing, sex-on-skates spectacle of Xanadu any day over today's dour musicals.

Thank you, R98. I was beginning to think the world had gone mad.

I saw this when it first came out and spent the whole movie wondering why they got somebody nobody ever heard of to play Olivia Newton John’s love interest. Especially someone so dull.

Fuck that anti-vax goody two shoes high-strung bitch!

Michael Beck plays it so angry like he already knows Xanadu is going to ruin his career.

It’s sucks.

[quote] Yeah, amazing when a skate wheel hits one lone BB on the floor.

Cheyenne must have watched Showgirls to get that idea.

R98 that article is genius

The blonde around 1:57 caught my eye. Way better looking than Michael Beck. The one with the Jewfro looks like he'd be exhausting to know.

The curly haired guy on the tightrope is hot as hell. And he aged wonderfully.

That was terrible.

Really, really terrible.

So insubstantial it keeps evaporating before our eyes.

Chessy doesn't even begin to describe it.

It falls flat on its face because the premise is so ludicrous and like The Whiz it's desperately stylish without having any style.

Far from being a "a miracle of rare device" this is a disaster of common occurrence a poorly directed, ineptly edited, badly photographed bundle of celluloid.

The director should look for another line of work,

Michael Beck shows no discernable talent for musical romanticism, Olivia Newton-John is tepid and Gene Kelly deserves a medal for keeping a straight face.

Typical critical response.

Well, it wasn’t “gonzo.”

[quote]Chessy doesn't even begin to describe it.

Another Broadway show completely.

MIchael Beck turned into the Undertaker from Phantasm!

[quote]Fuck that anti-vax goody two shoes high-strung bitch!

Hey R101 Watch your mount, asshole! She has stage 4 cancer.

^^watch your mouth no watch your mount

R101 has me so pissed off... I can't spell

[quote] Chessy doesn't even begin to describe it.

[quote] It falls flat on its face because the premise is so ludicrous and like The Whiz it's desperately stylish without having any style.

There are so many places to say "Oh dear" here, I don't even know where to begin.

How about rook to knight 6 to start, R115?

Meant R116

The musical numbers are fun in a cheesy way, but the minute it goes back the story, all you can hear is "thud".

Xanadu, The Bodyguard and A Star is Born(Streisand version) are all examples of terrible movies with amazing and huge-selling soundtracks. The actual films were merely vehicles to sell records, and sell they did, by the millions.

Don't forget Saturday Night Fever.

Saturday Night Fever is an excellent film, you dunce.

I was bored to tears. Sorry.

I didn't forget SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, r121.

It's right there at r58, eons before you and r120 chimed in.

And now for a set of Neo-Xanadu influences.

Here's Goldfrapp with "Alive."

Kylie Minogue's videos were some of the only good things about 2020:

R25 I always thought I'd find things to appreciate, if I ever saw it, given my training as a costume designer. But sometimes, films really can be THAT dreadful. So, we'll see. I'll have to seek it out, and get back to you.

R26 If O.N.J. truly is an anti-vaxxer, I'm genuinely sorry to hear that, because I've always liked her.

It wasn't supposed to be Citizen Kane (another draggy film) but a sweet romcom that was meant to be nothing more than eye-candy and summer fluff with a nod to the musicals of the 40s and 50s.

Don Bluth who did Don't Walk Away went on the animate Fivel, Land Before Time and more films.

R116 Begin by finding a worthwhile purpose in life.

R106 He's also at 1:38 wearing a different costume. He's cretinous looking as well as familiar looking.

^ R106 make that at 0:48

R122 Even a dunce can see that Saturday Night Fever is a mediocrity. The filmmaking lacks rhythm and lurches forward with a variety of irrelevant subplots and the soundtrack is used to smooth over the gaps. Karen Lynn Gorney is unappealing and she and Travolta have all the chemistry of noise and a hangover.

RIP

R132 Gorney seems much older and is coiffed and dressed like an elementary school teacher.

J'adore Gene Kelly's slight cuff adjustment at 00:22.

Matt Lattanzi remains the only person in this sequence who isn't irretrievably trapped in 1979-80. He looks timeless; with that hair and lips he could be in Renaissance Florence or classical Athens. But all the backup dancers seem like they're in a dress rehearsal.