SINGING A NEW TUNE: THE REBIRTH OF THE MODERN FILM MUSICAL FROM EVITA TO DE-LOVELY AND BEYOND

Critics the world over have often loudly lamented that the movie musical is a dead art form. However, while it is true that the musical no longer occupies the cherished place of prominence in American cinema that it once did, the old razzle-dazzle has had a comeback. Author and film expert John Kenneth Muir faces the music in Singing a New Tune, a rollicking study that traces the rebirth of the film musical from the dark days of the early 1990s - when all the musical numbers were cut from the film I'll Do Anything due to preview audience hostility - to the current heyday of Moulin Rouge, Chicago (Academy Award winner for Best Picture 2002), and Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. Examining over a dozen musical films from the last decade, Muir explains how first-class artists have marshaled everything from spectacle (Evita) to humor (South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut); tragedy (Dancer in the Dark) to Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost); and even psychology and sexuality.