bmadigan wrote:I just watched the Newsies DVD and was puzzled by something on one of the extras. They talk about Christian Bale haveing to learn to do some cowboy-style rope tricks and even have a clip of him twirling the lariat, bit I don't remmeber it in the movie itself. It looks like it would have fit in the Sante Fe number.
Does anyone have any info on this?
It was deleted from the final number. In the same featurette, it shows additional filmed lyrics for Carrying the Banner that wasn't in the final number either.
(And it must've pissed Bale off that he had to learn those extensive rope tricks...then have it cut from the film!)
Escapay
WIST #60:
AwallaceUNC: Would you prefer Substi-Blu-tiary Locomotion?
WIST #61:
TheSequelOfDisney: Damn, did Lin-Manuel Miranda go and murder all your families?
i couldnt afford to buy the dvd.even if i could its not on sale in my country.so i downloaded the movie and found it to be pretty interesting but the songs do fare better on its own. its more akin to the kind of music menken did for king david and hercules. which is not top notch but still good. im not saying hercules' music is bad.its just...not classic enough. still a fav album of mine tho.
the movie is typical disney 90's.ive recently started watching back old the original walt disney films from the era when walt is alive and compare them to the latters ones..yes disney is losing something that they need to rekindle. heck lately i've been watching mary,pete's and bedknobs again and again. in part influence by the fact that the mary poppins musical on youtube seems like fun!
so i'd give the newsies album a 7/10 and the movie 5 1/2
btw, i just saw return to oz and its underrated!!fairuza balk was great as dorothy.
OMG I can't believe I forgot this movie. I really love this movie. I saw this at my middle school. We watch it in music class. I use to confuse it at first with Oliver and company. Mainly for the boys and the somewhat similar time period. The music was great.
I'd never heard of this movie before my high school English teacher made my class watch it. It was actually pretty good, but, like most everyone else's said, a bit on the predictable side.
Listening to most often lately:
Ariana Grande ~ "we can't be friends (wait for your love)"
Ariana Grande ~ "imperfect for you"
Kacey Musgraves ~ "The Architect"
I used to do the high school musicals (not to be confused with the Disney Channel Original Movie of the same title) and my freshman year, many of the cast of the play I was in was constantly singing "Seize the Day" and talking about "Newsies." When I asked what it was and they told me it was a Disney film, I was completely confused. I guess this came out in 1992? I never remembered hearing anything about it, but then again I was 7 and live action musicals that didn't include lands over the rainbow or big green animated dragons didn't appeal to me (he he he). I think it was a year later or so that Disney decided to release it on DVD and I bought it as a blind buy seeing as I liked what I had heard of friends singing "Seize the Day." I was expecting the music to be great once I found out it was Menken, and the story didn't fail to dissapoint. I really love period films and this one does a great job with it. I think of "Newsies" every time I ride Spaceship Earth where the boy is on the corner with a stack of papers yelling "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" lol.
This is a wonderful film (saw it at least twice in theaters, something I rarely do) with a huge fan base nowadays. Of course, it's mainly teenage and college girls who are obsessed with Christian Bale that make up the fanbase. Which actually makes it surprising that it isn't constantly being run on today's Disney Channel. I agree with what was said earlier, that the cliches were probably on purpose, because they fit the style of the movie, and definitely the amazing music is what really sells the whole thing! I have both the movie and soundtrack, but, unfortunately, just in tape format (in both cases). Badly need to upgrade to DVD and CD. I LOVE this film, but upgrading can be difficult if you never find some fantastic price. I have upgraded a lot from VHS, but usually when I find great deals. I've been terrible about upgrading my audio cassettes.
Newsies!!!!!!!!! I first saw "Newsies" when it first came to the Disney Channel when I was 7 or 8 years old. I loved it! I hadn't seen it in years, and I bought the DVD maybe 3 years ago. I used to watch it at least once a day before I moved 2 years ago. And I did a presentation on it in my public speaking class (complete with pictures and the soundtrack). I love the music, and the dancing, and the story. It's so underrated. It is by far my favorite Disney live-action-with-no-animation movie. It's so great. "Santa Fe" was my favorite part of the movie when I was little (it was all I remembered until I bought the DVD), and it's still my favorite song.
Awww... I just saw this for the first time right now. The credits are rolling. I loved it!!! I think I might go buy it. Christian Bale just gained some hottie points from me, hehe.
Oh, and I thought for a split second that the lady who played Meddy, Ann-Margret, was Paige O'Hara.
"Hip hop frightens you, doesn't it....Hmmm...Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate. Hate leads to endlessly posting threads about stupid white people. Hmmmmm....."
myneighbor is doing a dance from newsie so she rented a copy of the DVD and im gonna go watch it with her sometime. im really pumped cause i love Broadway plays!!
~Ryan~
Escapay wrote:
Though I do get a kick out of the occasional pelvic thrusts in nearly every song they sing. It's like, "what was the choreographer thinking???"
- I find those enjoyable...
I'm so surprised that I haven't written in one of the 2 "Newsies" threads- it's only one of my all-time favorite movies! I first saw it as a 7 or 8 year-old when it first hit the Disney Channel, and I loved it. Then, I hadn't seen it in years, but I bought the DVD a few years ago and used to watch it at least once a day from then on, until July 2004, when I moved. I keep the soundtrack in my car- I love it!!! Since I was 7 or 8, I've always loved "Santa Fe", because that (and "Belle") kind of explain how I feel sometimes. But, "King of New York" has grown on me more and more and more over the years. It's such a good movie. And, hello- Christian Bale!
"Hip hop frightens you, doesn't it....Hmmm...Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate. Hate leads to endlessly posting threads about stupid white people. Hmmmmm....."
littlefuzzy wrote:However, has anyone heard of the movie Blood Drips Heavily on Newsies Square?
Starring Mark David (Specs) as Don Knotts and featuring far more cursing on a Disney movie set than you'd expect?
(sadly, I've never seen the movie in full, only the scenes available at their site, but I plan on buying it on DVD eventually...)
Anyways, glad to see my topic is back up again, hehehe. I was actually watching Newsies last week, to commemorate the 15th Anniversary (which was April 10, so I was only two weeks off...).
Favorite song is still "King of New York".
Favorite character is probably a tie between Les and Spot. Les because you can't help but like the little guy, and Spot because he's got a cane! Can't go wrong with a cane!
Escapay
WIST #60:
AwallaceUNC: Would you prefer Substi-Blu-tiary Locomotion?
WIST #61:
TheSequelOfDisney: Damn, did Lin-Manuel Miranda go and murder all your families?
littlefuzzy wrote:However, has anyone heard of the movie Blood Drips Heavily on Newsies Square?
Yes! During the peak of my "Newsies" obsession, I saw it online (it probably was just the clips, like Escapay said). Wow. It's great that the boys had fun on the set! I should watch those clips again- I think it's bookmarked on the computer, I think...
I have never seen Newsies, but from what I can gather from this thread, it must be a solid film. Critical reviews are not encouraging, however. Here's what Maltin and Ebert have to say about it, as taken from my Microsoft Cinemania 97 CD-ROM:
Newsies
US (1992): Musical
Leonard Maltin Review: 1.5 stars out of 4
125 min, Rated PG, Color, Available on videocassette and laserdisc
Or, Howard the Paperboy. Ambitious (up to a point) musical about the 1899 strike by urchin peddlers of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's Journal. Brazenly risky box-office venture is done in by lackluster score, and cramped production numbers that seem cheap despite the film's hefty production budget. Duvall, looking like one of the Smith Brothers, plays Pulitzer; Ann-Margret needlessly pads the film's bloated running time as a musical performer who inexplicably befriends the lads. Score by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman. Directing debut for choreographer Ortega. Panavision.
Newsies
US (1992): Musical
Roger Ebert Review: 1.5 stars out of 4
125 min, Rated PG, Color, Available on videocassette and laserdisc
NEWSIES, we are informed as the movie opens, is based on actual events. I do not doubt this. I am sure that shortly before the turn of the century, newsboys organized a strike against the greedy Joseph Pulitzer, and were cheered on by a dance-hall madam with a heart of gold. Nor do I doubt that the lads, some of them boys of nine or ten, hung out in saloons and bought rounds of beer while making their plans, or that the proprietor of an evil city orphanage made himself rich by collecting fees from the city. I don't even doubt that the newsboys printed their own strike paper on an old flatbed press down in the basement of Pulitzer's building. Of course I believe. Yes, Virginia.
What I find it hard to believe, however, is that anyone thought the screenplay based on these actual events was of compelling interest. NEWSIES is like warmed-over Horatio Alger, complete with such indispensable clichés as the newsboy on crutches, the little kid, and, of course, the hero's best pal, who has a pretty sister. Nor does the movie lack the standard villains, including Oscar nominee Michael Lerner as the hard-hearted circulation manager.
In the role of New York publisher Joseph Pulitzer, Robert Duvall, wearing a beard that makes him look like one of the Smith Brothers, plays a standard fat-cat industrialist, with none of the wit or insight that the original Pulitzer employed while selling the first mass-circulation newspapers to the unwashed masses. The real Pulitzer, who was one of the inspirations for CITIZEN KANE, must have known something about ordinary people; here he seems to despise them.
Ann-Margret, who plays Medda, the dance-hall star, has a role whose purpose is all but incomprehensible. She acts as a sort of big sister and confidante to the striking newsboys, chucking some of them under the chin while talking to others in terms of fairly alarming intimacy. Are we to guess that her dealings with some of the lads have gone beyond buying a paper for a penny? She performs onstage in her music hall, which functions in the movie primarily as a transparent device for getting an Ann-Margret number into the show.
The newsies themselves are up in arms because Mr. Pulitzer has cut their take by a tenth of a cent. They organize, form a union, and agitate for workers' rights with such articulate energy that we can only wonder what these kids could accomplish if they were high school graduates, instead of street waifs. They sing and dance a lot, too, on olde New York street sets that stretch unconvincingly for hundreds of yards down studio back lots. The music is by Alan Mencken, whose material for THE LITTLE MERMAID and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was unforgettable. Here he achieves the opposite result.
I saw the movie at a Saturday morning preview attended by hundreds of children. From what I could see and hear, the kids didn't get much out of it. No wonder. Although the material does indeed involve young protagonists, no effort is made to show their lives in a way today's kids can identify with. This movie must seem as odd to them as a foreign film. The fact that old man Pulitzer once tried to screw newsies out of a tenth of a cent must represent, for many of them, the very definition of underwhelming.
Julian Carter wrote:I have never seen Newsies, but from what I can gather from this thread, it must be a solid film. Critical reviews are not encouraging, however.
Their assessments of the film are spot on, but that's probably why I like it so much. While it strives to be that next great Disney musical, it isn't, so I simply enjoy it for the two-hour romp in 1899 New York that it is.
Plus, you can't go wrong with a singing and dancing Vinnie Delpino! Or snickering at the fact that Jack Kelly is gonna turn out to be both Patrick Bateman and Bruce Wayne in the years to come!
Escapay
WIST #60:
AwallaceUNC: Would you prefer Substi-Blu-tiary Locomotion?
WIST #61:
TheSequelOfDisney: Damn, did Lin-Manuel Miranda go and murder all your families?
Escapay wrote:Their assessments of the film are spot on, but that's probably why I like it so much. While it strives to be that next great Disney musical, it isn't, so I simply enjoy it for the two-hour romp in 1899 New York that it is.
That makes perfect sense. The critics disliked the film, but you liked it. I once remember reading a Roger Ebert article (probably on my Cinemania CD aswell ... I'll dig it up if I can) that says that just because he, the critic, doesn't like the film, doesn't mean you won't. He says that you must be able to identify from the review (be it positive or negative) whether the film will appeal to you or not.
Escapay wrote:While it strives to be that next great Disney musical, it isn't, so I simply enjoy it for the two-hour romp in 1899 New York that it is.
I disagree. The music is amazing (hello- Alan Menken!)...I guess I can see why some people wouldn't think that the story isn't perfect, it still is a compelling story (and more compelling thanks to the casting choices ). Not only was it the next great Disney musical, it was the only new Disney musical for quite a while.
Escapay wrote:While it strives to be that next great Disney musical, it isn't, so I simply enjoy it for the two-hour romp in 1899 New York that it is.
I disagree. The music is amazing (hello- Alan Menken!)...
Oh ITA about the music, it's terrific and it's Menken! But for me a musical is only as good as its story, and very rarely can the song and dance portions be enough in a film that people can overlook the weak story. Also, sometimes the music will not be as engaging or as enjoyable as the story, which ends up being the strongest part of the film. For example, The Band Wagon has a very broad and cookie-cutter story (a glorified "let's put on a show, but our leads have to resolve their differences" plot), and the film is better remembered and saved by the choice of songs and dance numbers ("That's Entertainment", "Dancing in the Dark", and the Girl Hunt Ballet). Then when you look at a film like My Fair Lady, it's a very strong story that seems to be expanded upon by a few excellent songs, but for me, the rest are only so-so.
Concerning Newsies, I found it to be a fairly decent story about unity and overcoming the monster, but is not strong enough to stand on its own (had the film been a non-musical like originally planned). The song-and-dance parts are great "enhancers" to the plot, and goes with a quote I once heard about musicals: "When you've got nothing left to say, break out into song". However, in the end, the songs still weren't enough to "sell" me to the story and genuinely care about the plot.
Escapay
WIST #60:
AwallaceUNC: Would you prefer Substi-Blu-tiary Locomotion?
WIST #61:
TheSequelOfDisney: Damn, did Lin-Manuel Miranda go and murder all your families?
Synopsis
Starring Academy Award winner Robert Duvall and screen favorite Ann-Margaret, here's the true story of a courageous group of newsboys who become unlikely heroes when they team up to fight an unscrupulous newspaper tycoon. Determined to make their dreams come true, they find the courage to challenge the powerful! Critically acclaimed from coast to coast - if you're looking for must-see, feel-good entertainment, Newsies delivers.
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I'm not sure what to make of 'Newsies' and I think that's probably because I don't think 'Newsies' knows what it wants to be. It's set up as a drama, based on real events and outwardly seems to want to portray the struggles of a bunch of striking news boys. It aims to be a true to life, "proper" film, telling the story in a realistic way.
The only problem with this being that the movie is scattered with moments of ridiculous slapstick and seems full of almost movie cliches, such as for example after seeing Medda sing, David's little brother, half asleep begins to drowsily sing the chorus and he falls off to sleep in what was I expect. supposed to be an "aww" moment. When people get punched the straight acting turns into bizarre comedy pained faces and 4ft foot kids manage to take down big muscled adults single handed. Simiarly Robert Duvall is at times bordering on painful in his acting, there are some moments when I expect him to tip his head back and give an archetypal "mwah ha ha ha" villain laugh and proclaim he is the fairest in the land.
Another bugbear was the accents, at time the "Noo Yoyk" accents were bordering on something from a Looney Tunes cartoon. Even Christian Bale varies the levels of his accent. For example throughout the film he uses the word 'nothing' many times, pronouncing it "nuthin", yet for some reason when he shouts his speech at the theatre, he shouts "nottin" which irks me, because it's so different from when he pronounces it throughout the rest of the film, and probably did so at someone's request.
Song wise, there are some good tunes here from 'The Little Mermaid's' Alan Menken, but two things do annoy me about them. The first being the abrupt way in which some of them end. Particularly "Seize the Day" and "King of New York" which seem to end short of finishing, if you get my meaning. Also the need to have an instrumental dance sequence in the middle of every song also irritates me.
The film seems to fly between realism and cheese, which I think is it's main problem. At the end of the song "Santa Fe", Christian Bale steals a horse and sings as he gallops down the streets, and it seems so ridiculously odd and cheesy, it seems more like a parody of a musical at times. If it had been an out and out historical drama, that would have been fine, also if it had been in the vein of "Bugsy Malone" and gone for the comedy for kids route, that too would have been fine, but this hovers between the two and just doesn't feel right. Whilst watching the film I had no idea who directed it, then when the film ended and the first credit came up "Directed by Kenny Ortega" (The director of High School Musical), well let's just say it made a lot of sense.
- I find those enjoyable...
