Tuesday, February 24, 2009

High School Musical 3: Senior Year

It’s a good thing I have no street cred to start with, because tonight I watched HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR. We’d seen the first two, so naturally we had to watch the third one, too. I actually sort of like these movies, although they’ll never achieve the intellectual depth and comedic artistry of my beloved Beach Party movies. I especially like some of the supporting cast, like the girl who plays the piano, and I enjoy watching Ashley Tisdale because she seems to have so much fun playing the villainous Sharpay. Well, Sharpay’s not exactly villainous, I guess, but she’s definitely a troublemaker. The music is disposable pop, but it’s catchy enough, and some of the production numbers are surreal enough to be interesting. I assume there’s going to be a fourth movie, since the script for this one spends a considerable amount of time setting it up. If there is, I’m sure we’ll watch it, too.

(And where else but this blog are you going to read about Orrie Hitt and HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL within a couple of days of each other? Man, now I need to throw in another Gore Vidal post . . . )

17 comments:

Cullen Gallagher said...

I remember in high school I wrote a paper comparing HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI and Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA. More than anything else I wrote back then, I want to re-read it. Sadly, I can't find a hard copy ANYWHERE, and the computer I wrote it on has long since crashed. I was so new to computers at that point that I didn't understand the concept of "backing up" my files. Sigh--I can only imagine what it is I actually wrote. Maybe I'll have to double feature them back-to-back soon...

James Reasoner said...

That's a double feature I'd watch anytime. I'd love to read what you wrote about them.

mybillcrider said...

Yeah, what these movies need is Eric Von Zipper.

Fred Blosser said...

If they remade BEACH PARTY today, they'd probably cast Joe Pesci as Eric Von Zipper and Sir Ben Kingsley as Big Daddy.

Chris said...

I love how on a blog called Rough Edges there's a post about High School Musical 3. You always keep me guessing what you'll post about next, and I always look forward to reading!

Anonymous said...

I wish we had Orrie Hitt novelizations of the High School Musical movies.
Musicals don't work for me, but I'd read those in a second.

John

Anonymous said...

OMG, even my 16 year old daughter loaths HSM. James, you are so busted!

It's interesting that Tinsdale was an average supporting actor on "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" before hitting stardom in the musicals. Her counterpart on the "Suite life" , brenda Song remains working in the coal mine and visibly aging.

Anon. makes a god suggestion -- having Orrie Hitt write the novelization for these movies. WE've seen the Disney version, now it's time to read the "real" version of what happened.

Wasn't Buster Keaton in "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini?" What a waste of a great talent, but at least he finally got some work.

Anonymous said...

Great review. You're right. High School Musical 4 is already in the works. No release date yet.

Fred Blosser said...

AIP snagged a lot of older actors at the end of their careers (Keaton, Karloff, Lorre, Rathbone, Chaney Jr.) -- probably paid 'em peanuts. Speaking of which, if Disney can wait 50 years for the next HSM sequel, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: SENIOR MOMENT would be a natural.

Anonymous said...

Von Zipper would probably use the finger on HSM.

Juri said...

Someone said that Buster Keaton made more money from the crap he made in the sixties than in the preceding decades, including the 1920's.

Word Up: Pulp publisher Herman Zinberg came up with the word "aetro" to describe the adventures of Bimbo Jimbo, the only African-American superhero of the 1930's. Bimbo Jimbo was supposed to appear in his own pulp called Aetro Adventures.

AndyDecker said...

You wonder what Brenda Song and co will do when they are too old for Disney. Trying to be real actors? Playing the junkie whore serial killer on Law&Order? Going the Lohan way? Staring in crappy SciFi original movies? Writing their biography and fading from the view?

pattinase (abbott) said...

I think you are incapable of not finding something nice to say about a movie. Or a book. Or anything.

Livia J Washburn said...

Just ask him what he thought about Napoleon Dynamite.

James Reasoner said...

It's true I didn't care for NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE. It's one of the few movies we've turned off without finishing it. I just didn't get it.

Todd Mason said...

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE was a Disney Channel movie written in one night by Orrie Hitt and Walt Coburn on a mutual bender.

James Reasoner said...

Now there's an alternate universe yarn for you. But I think we should throw Ed Earl Repp in there, too.