Celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
Director: Michael Gracey
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Keala Settle.
Mathieu Leopold ... circus coordinator/choreographer
Jenny Griffin ... assistant choreographer
Shannon Holtzapffel ... choreographer
Tony Testa ... additional choreographer
Ashley Wallen ... choreographer
16 songs in the Soundtracks, 14 Music and Lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul (including 1 "& Ryan Lewis").
I originally saw this in theatre, rated 7 with these notes; at the time (3Jan18) the IMDb rating was 8.0.) I was watching 1939 back then, and the next film was The Wizard of Oz. Here's a page with TGS at the bottom (earliest) of other consecutive posts. I complained about music video cutting during the dances. Today I didn't even notice that, which means it's much tamer than recent films.
In the c.track, dir. describes a shot as being a model that was 3-D printed and hand-painted then filmed. Seems like they could have just CGI'd it. The BD has an overwhelming quantity of extra material, and I hate the way BD does not display a screenful of choices; this one has only 1 extra shown at a time.
The songs & spectacle are very enjoyable. The story is shrug-worthy, holding this back from being an 8
Wishlist: more full-out musicals like this, more ZE (b. '87) and/or HJ (b. '68) in musicals.
Rated 7.6 (191,884)
Fox & more, dir. Gracey; 7+
