Certainly one of the best/worst movie musicals ever made, Can't Stop the Music makes Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" video seem not gay. Like the Village People's music, the film is so infused with winking queerness, despite a surface of straight, family-oriented "fun," that it ends up coming off much more like a foggy night in a dark bathhouse than a cotton-candy day at Disney World. Guttenberg plays "Jack Morrell," a wannabe DJ (based on Jacques Morali, of course, retaining the fluffy hair but removing the promiscuous gay lifestyle) who, along with his former-model roomate (Perrine), assembles the colorful VP crew and takes them to stardom. The film tries to provide a subtextual commentary on music-business craziness (a la Josie & the Pussycats), though this element is mostly lost in jittery, scattered energy and an almost total lack of flow. By the end I wasn't even sure what the plot had been, nor who most of the characters were. Several in-references are made to Morali and Neil Bogart's Casablanca Records (here called "Marrakesh Records"), and there are many entertaining moments, including some Scanimated gymnastics (?), leatherman Glenn Hughes (who is sort of the "hero" of the film) auditioning—with "Danny Boy," loads of corny dialogue ("Tonight belongs to you, and the Village People"), and The Ritchie Family in what I can only assume was their sole cinematic appearance (too bad there was not a sequel focusing on their origin myth). Ultimately, though, it's waaaaayyyyyy too long, and feels too much like a bad cocaine bender. That this movie would be bad was inevitable; that it's not bad enough is still rather disappointing.
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