Opening Night

I jumped at this movie because Anne Heche is in it. Unfortunately she's only in it briefly, but that's not a real problem. The real problem is that the story starts as a fun goofy comedy musical and becomes a sentimental love story and the segue is poorly done.

The plot revolves around Nick (Topher Grace) who is the back stage manager for a musical titled One Hit Wonders. The lead singer Brooke (Anne Heche) is knocked out and her understudy Chloe (Alona Tal) must take over and it's opening night with a full house. The rest of the cast is made of 'has-beens', 'hopefulls', 'burn-outs', and 'wanna-bes'. There are some fun musical numbers both on stage and back stage.

We learn that Nick was once a popular singer that gave up singing and he and Chloe are in love. Nick must learn a lesson and take a big step (for him) or he will loose Chloe. In the mean time everything that can go wrong back stage does go wrong and Nick is torn in two directions. Finally he takes his big step to get Chloe back and that moment in this musical comedy is too romantic and sentimental to blend into the previous comedy and screwball humor.

Watch it and judge for yourself!

What happens when a Music Video Director (Isaas Rentiz) gets his shot at making a feature film? Well of course, he makes a musical-ish type movie. Unfortunately, not even the always terrific Topher Grace ("That Seventies Show"), Anne Heche, Taye Diggs and/or NSYNC's JC can make this embarrassing so called musical comedy entertaining. Grace is a failed Broadway star, now stage managing the Broadway Show "One Hit Wonderland". The musical tells the story of many a one hit wonder song, lead by JC, co-starring Heche and directed by the always yelling Rob Riggle ("How to Be a Latin Lover"), all done to the Christmas Past theme. NSYNC joke are a plenty, over the top acting is at its highest, and stage and behind the scene sporadic dance numbers (choreographed by Aakomon Jones) are weak. Writers Gerry De Leon and Greg Lisi just didn't know when to stop, so they didn't (especially with the NSYNC jokes). Luckily for the viewer, a few actors weren't encouraged to "let it fly," thus Lauren Lapkus ("Crashing") and Alona Tal ("Hostages") ground the chaos that encompasses this production. It is no wonder this film (released by Wolfe Video 8/1) is going directly to DVD release. One can only hope that the actors involved here "paid off an outstanding debit" for their involvement and can now move on.

I actually like musicals, but this one just didn't quite work for me. I am a huge Topher Grace fan, and I liked the rest of the cast--it wasn't their fault. The cast delivered what was asked of them. It was a grin hearing all of the "one-hit wonders" again, but some of the arrangements didn't do the music justice--especially for a musical based on popular and well known songs. Of course the story line had all of the usual musical ingredients--love story, boy loses girl, etc. etc. with some fine dancing thrown in. I really should have enjoyed the film much more than I did.

I believe the fault was in the way the story was told--there was simply too much of the "poor me" aspect, and not enough of the rallying, let alone the come back. It's like they emphasized the wrong part of the movie, or else rushed the ending to wrap it up before the story was fully told. It left an empty space where character development/growth should have gone. The uplifting ending was just too abrupt. If it was a song, it would be a three note lullaby.

If you like musicals you should like this. If you don't care about character development, especially in a musical--then you'll like this. It just didn't quite hit the mark for me. Could have been much better with a little more development. It wasn't terrible, or even bad, just- -forgive me, flat and a little "pitchy".

Well color me happy there's a sofa in here for two! This must be one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in a long time. Such an amazing script (all those hilarious lines, all the pop culture references in every other sentence, the light-hearted self deprecating humor...), and such fantastic delivery, I tried to will it not to end. Excluding the cheesy AF unrealistic ending, I loved every scene. One has to be well-versed in the music and celebrity tidbits of the past three decades to get everything, to say the least, though.

There was also quite a bit of soul-searching for quite a few characters, and amazingly, it was all done smoothly and with just the right amount of depth. That's a tough thing to accomplish in such a short time, but they nailed it!

So yeah, I definitely recommend it. "Treat yo self".

I love movies and i love music(being a musician myself) but for me it's a case of "Never the twain shall meet". In short I hate people singing in my movies. But this was bloody well done, just the right amount of singing and it made sense. In an era where most "comedies" try to depress the hell out of you for an hour (with a few scattered chuckles thrown in), before the funny and "poignant" ending. This was funny from the start and kept going all the way through. Definitely worth a watch and very entertaining.