A piece of popular culture can represent a paradigm shift, even when she has no idea it’s doing it. (The lack of computation is part of the reason for the paradigm shifts.) This is what happened in the summer of 1978, when the film version of “Grease” appeared. It ruled the way “Saturday Night Fever” was just six months ago, with John Travolta’s electric presence fueling both films. But “Saturday Night Fever” was a fiery and engaging movie in a way no one could miss. It was like Scorsese’s disco, with its untamed street vibe, some of the greatest songs – and dances – ever to have appeared in a Hollywood movie, and Travolta’s performance so exceptional in its originality that it jumped off the screen. It was close to a great movie, and no one had any idea what a guilty pleasure it was.
Grease, on the other hand, came to you like a happy pack of retro gum, a sugary flavor of healthy good vibes. Most of the words of appreciation I wrote last week to Olivia Newton-John expressed the overwhelming passion people still had for Grease, and how important the movie was to them. I share the love, even though what’s hard to connect with, unless I was around at the time, is what was against “grease” at the time. It was a pure 1950s musical that landed, like a space shuttle from the planet Brylcreem, in the fragmented mid-late 1970s. Unlike “Saturday Night Fever” (or “American Graffiti”), it seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with what was going on. But that’s why she changed what was going on. Just like Rocky, Grace – without trying – glimpses the future in the past. He has brought us back, in an intentionally rude way, to the model of stylized perfection that the whole culture had lost. (That’s why the movie was on edge.) And we’ve been trying, in various ways, to get back there ever since.
“13: The Musical” is a Netflix children’s musical based on “13,” a show that opened on Broadway in 2008 and has run for only 105 shows. But it was revived several times, and this production in New York launched the career of Ariana Grande. It’s the only music in Broadway history that has had a cast and band made up entirely of teenagers, and the movie version only raises the stakes in that spirit. “13: The Musical” has a straightforward throwback to innocence that seems designed to appeal to anyone who loved the early “High School Musical” films but found “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” with its artistic tradition -life-tradition-art- Soap opera story featuring Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett, to be a bit grim and heavy.
Watching “13,” you see how a certain school of Broadway optimism has descended and zigzagged, from the pastel explosion of “Grease” to the popular musical thriller of “Rent” to “High School Musical” and other Disney Channel movies candy-and-dance straight like “Zombies” Through this saga of powdered sugar from a middle school concern. Is the movie ‘After School Special’ on Happy Cereal? definitely. About a 12-year-old Jewish boy named Evan (Elie Golden) who, after his parents divorce, moves with his mother (Debra Messing) from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to the small town of Walcarton, Indiana (population 2,246), so they can… Living with his grandmother, played by Rhea Perlman as the only person in town who knows the word tuches? You bet on your yarmulke.
Most of the action of ’13’ takes place in William Henry Harrison Jr. High, which as Disney Channel’s teenage Demimond is a racially-balanced, edgy, edgy version of the 1950s and meets today through the glassy look of a world where girls are still ahead, boys are soccer players, and there Exactly a slightly grotesque stranger – in this case, a cheerful girl in gloomy pigtails named Patrice (Gabriella Uhl), who in one of the movie’s first numbers sings that the cartoon is “the lameest place in the world.” The movie might not think so, but she does, and we can’t help but notice what a beautiful song it is.
“13: The Musical” is as synthetic as it can be, but every five minutes or so there’s another number, and damned if they don’t pop. The songs, by Jason Robert Brown, have the irresistible effect of “Rent” Jr., with hip-hop music streaming to many of them, wrapping you up. These kids can sing and truly Dancing, even as they enact a story built around bar mitzvah, first kiss, and the scheme that threatens to undermine both.
As Evan, Eli Golden is one of those actors with an easy-to-listen “ethnic” face. He appears to be starring in the small sections of The Steve Guttenberg Story, and has a winning fidelity and a beautiful voice. Evan, still reeling from his parents’ separation (still doesn’t speak to his father, who has left for another woman), trains at a bar mitzvah, but his heart is mostly on the other end. As the new kid in town, he’s desperate for everyone to come, which is why he’s agreed to be part of a scheme devised by Lucy (Frankie McInellis), the lonely girl in the movie, to stop her friend Kendra (Lindsey Blackwell) from kissing Brett (JD McCrary), The dreadlocks dream boat they both love, in a Friday Night horror movie. Evan sticks to her plan which, of course, explodes in his face.
There are lessons that almost everyone has learned. But as long as you watch songs like the catchy opening number, “13 / Becoming a Man,” or the fan-led “Chance” or “Bad News,” which evokes the rapture rapture in Supertramp’s song “Some Kind of Lady,” 13: The Musical. Attractive enough to make you forget how easy it is.It’s not a greased lighting, but it glides along.
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