Show(tunes) time! (AM)

My mum introduced me to musicals when I was very young. It started when we would listen to her Barbara Streisand tapes in the car on the way to drop my brothers off at school. One of Mum's favourite cassettes included Babs' rendition of Somewhere from West Side Story and Papa, can you hear me? from Yentyl. I would listen to those songs and feel special feelings in my heart, feelings I didn't feel when we would listen to the Men At Work cassingle Elderbro sometimes made us play. Then I saw Annie and I guess it's safe to say that everything changed after that. I realised that the special feelings could last for 90+ minutes when you hear them in situ. And magically, the more you watch them the more you feel special. Unlike the work of M Night Shyamalan which is really only good for one watch. I watched Annie on a weekly basis for much of my childhood and as such it is is stuck in my head in a way that the prayers of the catholic mass are stuck in my head. Every time I walked past/down Fifth Avenue while we were in NYC I would think "We found Fifth Avenue! Number one Fifth Avenue!". And every time I saw the Chrysler Building I would think about what an asshole Miss Hannigan was.*

But Annie was just the start. From then on I gobbled  musicals up in a way that would make Pacman look like a fussy eater. I watched everything I could get my hands on. Everything. All the Disney musicals. All the old timey musicals. Movies with music and singing in them like Bugsy Malone and Labyrinth.  I even watched Yentyl, you guys.

But there was one truly great musical that I didn't get to see until I was about 20, and that's Singing' in the Rain. My Mum hates Gene Kelly, you see, and I thought Fred Astaire was a bit of a twerp so I figured I hated Gene Kelly too and I avoided Singing in the Rain. Then it was on the syllabus for 'Introduction to Hollywood Cinema A' which was the kind  of thing I studied at university. I saw it because I had to and I loved it so much. 

Seeing that movie was instrumental in me cutting the apron strings, as they say because I thought Gene Kelly was great and that maybe my Mum didn't know what she was talking about. Thinking about that just now makes me think I should not let on to KB how I feel about Bradley Cooper, so he can just make up his own mind.

But now I see that Singing in the Rain is coming to Melbourne and I'm kind of excited about taking my Mum to see it, so she can experience it without having to experience her Bradley Cooper.

*i trust you all know what I'm talking about.