Dear Gossips,
Lots of back and forth in my email this week about my stance on musicals—chiefly, “no” and “stop”—and you know who agrees with me, at least in one instance? Andrew Lloyd Weber, creator of Cats. He says he hasn’t recovered from Cats. Me either, Sir Andrew, me either. Of course, I didn’t claim I needed an emotional support dog because of it, but I do love the image of Andrew Lloyd Weber so distraught over the wreck of his singing cat death cult musical that he immediately ran out and got a dog. Cats is so bad it made Andrew Lloyd Weber a dog person! One thing about all these musicals coming out this year, I highly doubt any of them will be as bad as Cats. Not one of them has looked remotely that insane.
Someone emailed to ask if I can review a movie when I so openly declare a hatred for the source material, and yes, I can. For one thing, I don’t necessarily hate the source material. I love Cyrano de Bergerac, for instance. It’s one of the great literary romances. And also, the jokes I make about a trailer have no bearing on the film itself, especially since it’s not unusual for trailers to have material in them that ends up cut from the final film. You always have to separate one from the other. Also, I don’t care for musicals as a genre, it’s true, but I do like some musicals. La La Land, Guys & Dolls, Grease 2 (Michelle Pfeiffer is cool, okay?), among a few others. Will any of the upcoming musicals this year win me over? Maybe! But judging by the sheer number of you that delight in my pain, I’m betting most of you hope they don’t. You want another Cats, I can tell. None of the 2021 musicals look that wild, but hey, I can always be disappointed.
Live long and gossip,
Sarah
