With the Jersey Boys movie coming out this weekend, I started thinking a lot about movie musicals. Musicals are touchy for me. Sometimes I love them, a lot of the time I hate them. I recognize the classics for the brilliance that they have, but they're not necessarily my first choice movies to watch. So when I started thinking of what my favorite musicals would be, I had to be honest. This is less about which musicals I think deserve to be thought of as the greatest of all time. This is my personal top three musicals, my three that I can pop in any time and love, and that meant something to me growing up.
The Lion King
My mother told me that one of the most defining moments of my personality was when she left me alone in the living room as a kid watching The Lion King. Mufasa's death passed by, and when she came into the room she saw me crying, but was surprised to learn it wasn't the scariness of the scene that had me upset. Rather it was the fact that Scar was blaming Simba, telling him to run away. That always stuck with me. It tells me that Lion King was a movie that was successful at communicating very dark thematic material to young children. I still love the idea that Simba was brought up by two male role models. I also love the thematic material borrowed from Hamlet, just different enough to let a new story shine through but similar enough to show an update perfect for anyones enjoyment. Then there's the cinematography. I don't think I'll ever forget the stampede scene, engraved in my mind as one of the scariest scenes from my childhood. All in all, The Lion King is an enormous success of filmmaking on every level, and I absolutely love it.
Prince of Egypt
This is an often forgotten movie from Dreamworks animation, although it's definitely more popular than any of the other movies dream works made at that time. It tells the story of Moses saving his people from the tyranny of the Pharaoh enslaving them. It's a beautiful movie, one that beautifully shows us the magnitude of the story at hand while never forcing overzealous religious beliefs down our throats. It's easy to take in and believe for the run time. And there are some beautiful scenes in the film. One that always stuck with me is a scene where Moses talks to his new wife about the incredible experience he just had with the burning bush, a scene with no talking and explosively beautiful music. The movie is an underrated masterpiece, often forgotten to the piles of Disney movies that overshadow it. But it actually had a pretty profound effect on me, even as an atheist today.
The Wizard of Oz
This is one of my earliest memories of movies, and I still remember watching the movie transform from black and white into color. It was a magical moment, and a significant one for me. The Wizard of Oz defines a lot of how I think about movies. The character interactions set my original standard growing up, the amazing performance of the wicked witch was another defining moment, as I now look for villains who manage to create a fascinating character in the same way, sometimes never coming close with an enormous amount of screen time compared to her shocking 12 minutes. The sense of transportation to a new magical world has only very rarely been matched by any other movie, and most of them still don't even come close to the magic I experience watching this movie. It's pretty obvious to see what makes it one of the greatest and most important movies of all time.
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