IslandGuru Who payed the critics

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Michael_Elliott Can't Stop the Music (1980) ** (out of 4)Jack MOrell (Steve Guttenerg) is a struggling writer with the help of his friend (Valerie Perrine) manages to strike up a band called The Village People. Their attempt at getting someone to take them serious is a challenge but soon the whole world is going to catch on.CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC was a notorious flop when it was released and there have been all kinds of reasons given. It was supposed to hit during the disco craze but it turned out to be released as that music genre was quickly dying. Another problem is that the film itself got horrible reviews and this just helped keep more people away. Over the past decade or so the film has gained a strong cult following due to how campy it actually is.I honestly didn't think the film was too bad but there's no question that there are some major issues here. For starters, this was meant to show off The Village People but it doesn't do that. In fact, the film paints them as pretty boring people all around. Whenever they aren't singing they basically just stand around watching things so seeing their "success" story doesn't really hit us because they're so boring. If you don't like their music then you're even deeper into the "I don't care" thing. Is the film campy? Sure but aren't The Village People kinda campy now? The film has a really silly vibe to it as if the director was simply trying way too hard to make the characters and situation seem cool. Another problem is that some of the song clips are pretty much done in a video format and they are embarrassing. This is especially true for Y.M.C.A., which has to be seen to be believed.The performances from The Village People really aren't that good but there are a couple catchy songs. Steve Guttenberg is always fun to watch but he's not given too much to do here. I did think Perrine was quite good in her role. Then there's Bruce Jenner who is quite embarrassing here but his silly and over-the-top performance does add a few laughs.As it stands, CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC isn't nearly as awful as its reputation would make you believe but at the same time it's a pretty big embarrassment that fell well short of where it wanted to be.

Jeffrey Welch Whenever this movie is on, I simply cannot turn the channel, so wretched it is! I think the thing that I love about it the most is the fact that the "band's"(and I use that term VERY loosely,) target audience seems to be lonely, middle aged women. All throughout the movie, those are the people that are helping them along the way and they are the ones who are joining them onstage for their dance numbers. Now I realize that the disco movement in music was a very safe form of artistic expression. I mean, you wouldn't find women such as this helping out the Dead Boys or Ramones. I am also sure that since the director, Nancy walker, was a middle aged woman herself, she probably reasoned that she was "hip" and therefore all women of this age were just as much into the disco scene as she was. The other thing that I found just astounding was the totally unrealistic portrayal of the music industry. One moment these guys are "practicing" in a makeshift, backyard set-up with car speakers for a PA system, the next they are in the recording studio. Not only are they in said studio but, wow, there just happens to be pre-recorded music for them to sing to for these original compositions. I know that lightening does occasionally strike and a smalltime band is discovered and launched into their careers very quickly. But for this to happen to the Village Persons after practicing a total number of...hmmmm...how many times according to the movie? Oh yea.....ONCE? Well, all I can say is realism must not have been a priority for Ms. Walker.There are also a few things that are just downright irritating about this movie though...the first being the fact that Steve Gutenberg has a smile that NEVER leaves his face! OK, a person that is THAT happy ALL the time was just, well, annoying. The 2nd is the fact that there is a man that dresses in a Native American headdress wherever he goes...and this is before the Village Persons came together as a "band." As a Native American myself I was a little put off by that...and I am not the type to get upset over such trivialities either. For instance, I don't get upset about the Cleveland Indians logo or the Washington Redskins name. But a man who wears that garb as a meaningless costume is a bit much. Finally, Bruce Jenner's acting is well beyond bad. I got a chill every time he appeared on the screen because I knew that I was going to feel embarrassed FOR him, on his behalf! Where as other people yell at their televisions when their sports team is doing badly, I was screaming for him to EMOTE, REACT, or merely LOOSTEN UP! It was simply painful!For pure, unadulterated and wide-eyed terrible movie watching pleasure, you simply cant beat this film! It has everything required for such label: simplistic and unconvincing plot, acting so bad that wood and ham are embarrassed to be compared to the cast, atrocious dialog - both in writing and in it's delivery, and, sadly, direction that has no ambitions of being the least bit complex or challenging. It is like watching a movie through a very long, very fast viewmaster, but without the 3-D stereo vision!

John Esche One has to admit objectively that if you ignore the highly fictionalized plot, the script and the acting, there's a lot of fun to be had in 'CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC. The supposed story of hit disco group The Village people (blatantly, satirically "Hollywood cleaned up") was laughed off the screen when it first came out for picturing one of the most obviously successful (and successfully obvious) gay singing groups as having been brought together by their (literal) girlfriends.Yeah, right....and yet, there is all that music. It's actually pretty darned good in a disco ball meets Busby Berkley fashion.Producer Alan Carr, who effectively captured the cartoon style of the Broadway hit GREASE in a smash cartoon of a movie, gave Broadway, movie and TV comedienne Nancy Walker a chance to direct her first big budget Hollywood film in a day (not yet passed) when the number of major women directors could be counted on one hand - with several fingers left over. Sadly, the commercial fate of the film Carr wanted set the cause of women directors back another decade or two. The producer wanted a cartoon - it had worked with GREASE - and Walker gave him one - presumably trying to satirize the old movie bios (remember the factually ludicrous but musically satisfying NIGHT AND DAY or 'TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY?). They ignored the well known and reported facts of The Village People and expected their music to carry the film. Had they caught the peak of the group's vogue it might have worked, but the wave had already crested and the Post-Stonewall audience was ready to demand TRUTH, not obviously silly Hollywood myth.The only real ongoing sin of CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC is the continuing involvement of its lead, the presumably straight but 8trying to be "enlightened" Steve Guttenberg, in gay associated projects which he has managed to "clean up" with an almost CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC-like, arguably homophobic, distortion. Note how when the play P.S. YOUR CAT IS DEAD (a flawed but enjoyable novel and play by CHORUS LINE writer James Kirkwood about a supposedly straight actor who finds a gay burglar in his apartment on New year's Eve and ultimately reaches an improbable rapprochement with him) that had a modest Broadway run and a successful life in stock was finally filmed in 2002 with Guttenberg in the lead and directing, he managed to leach almost every visage of legitimate gay "threat" or "edge" out of the actual staging! It became another dishonest cartoon and lost most of the target audience which was eagerly anticipating it.In both CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC and P.S...., it just doesn't work when straight or closeted film makers try to play with "trendy" gay themes but can't bring themselves to do so honestly. It's also a recipe for commercial disaster on projects that could have offered so much honest entertainment for modern open audiences.What a pity. There's still a LOT of fun to be had here, but you do have to ignore a lot to get to it.

larry Schafer This movie was backed by the company that I worked for. They talk about 10 million used to promote it----10 million perhaps of other peoples money not there's Ill bet. When the movie came out Allen Carr contacted us (Fotomat in St Louis) and misrepresented the movie to the point we backed it and we paid for the advertising to promote it---we backed it up to the point we saw we viewed the movie. How did it ever get a PG rating. After my knowledge of the "fibbing" on the promotion I would have to doubt the rest of the claims made by the movie itself. It really was the worst I had ever seen and my boss, A deacon at his church, was almost kicked out of the church when the members all showed up for the grand opening. Should be titled "Should Stop the Music"