Xanadu

Caught this one late one recent night, on TCM of all things, after having not seen it in decades. The verdict, upon re-viewing so much later in life: it's weird. Very weird. It's also probably ill-conceived, overly ambitious, rather clueless, and ultimately a failure. And it probably deserves a HISS, but...There's someting in its strangely innocent ambition--trying to tie together big band and classical musicals to the roller-disco era, among other things--that elicits a certain amount of sympathy. The presence of an absolutely radiant Olivia Newton-John aids the proceedings immensely; she's a dream girl in every frame of the thing, where as her co-stars look profoundly unimpressive in comparison (Michael Beck is a nobody, and even Gene Kelly just looks foolish through most of the proceedings). Ultimately, the whole thing is preposterous, but just entertaining enough that you don't want to find every extant reel of the film and burn it. But I can't exactly say it's recommended, either.