Top 10 April 2020 First Watches

I have a perfect 0% record on New Years' resolutions. Every year I make grandiose wishes, like, "this will be the year I finally write that novel" or "this is the year I lose weight" or "this is the year I learn to ride a bicycle". So far I've written nothing, weigh about the same as I did ten years ago, and still can't ride a bike. So for 2020, I figured, let's aim lower. "I want to finally see Hamilton on Broadway". Easy enough challenge, you just need about $300.00 in liquidity at any one time. The only thing that could stop me is something totally insane, like say, the world ending.

And then it did. So another failed resolution. Maybe I'll have more luck in 2021 when I promise I'll finally see the Beetlejuice musical. No way an asshole producer could ruin that, right? Right?

But while plagues can take away live experiences, they can't take away filmed ones. April 2020's movie theme was therefore Musicals. I started the month out with this ambition to see a huge bunch of weird non-traditional things. Then I realized fairly early on, I haven't seen most of the great musical canon. If I haven't seen The Sound of Music, should I really aim for The Apple? I should really try to get some foundation in. So this month was full of squeaky-clean, mostly white people fantasy from the mid-20th century. And it was wonderful.

Obliviously, "'Musicals" is way too big a topic for just one month. I saw about twelve in April and could have easily seen another forty. We'll be back again. I do also want to say that even though there are some very obvious class and wealth issues with many musicals, this genre should not be as obscure as it seems to be. It seems like "movie culture", especially filmbro culture, has a memory that doesn't go back to before 1980. Blockbusters are fine, they're the workhorse of the film industry. But once upon a time, musicals were that workhorse. So many instead of appreciating Darth Vader and Batman so often, we could take some time to appreciate Gene Kelly and Barbra Streisand? You can do both. We all have plenty of time now.