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"Xanadu" is a mushy and limp musical fantasy, so insubstantial it keeps evaporating before our eyes. It's one of those rare movies in which every scene seems to be the final scene; it's all ends and no beginnings, right up to its actual end, which is a cheat.

There are, however, a few - a very few reasons to see "Xanadu," which I list herewith: (1) Olivia Newton-John is a great-looking woman, brimming with high spirits, (2) Gene Kelly has a few good moments, (3) the sound track includes "Magic," if you haven't heard it enough already on the radio, and (4) it's not as bad as "Can't Stop the Music."

It is pretty bad, though. And yet it begins with an inspiration that I found appealing. It gives us a young man ( Michael Beck ) who falls in love with the dazzling fantasy figure (Newton-John) who keeps popping up in his life. Beck works as a commercial artist, designing record album covers, and when he tries to include Olivia in one of his paintings he gets into trouble at work.

That's ok, because he's met this nice older guy (Gene Kelly) who's very rich and wants to open a nightclub like the one he had back in New York in the 1940s. Kelly used to be a sideman in the Glenn Miller Orchestra (and also in the Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey bands, having apparently missed the Miller band's fatal last flight). In a quietly charming fantasy scene, he sings a duet with his old flame, the girl singer in the old Miller band-and, lo and behold, it's Olivia Newton-John.

That means both men are in love with the same dream girl, who, we discover, is not of this earth. They team up to convert a rundown old wrestling amphitheater into Xanadu, a nightclub that will combine the music of the 1940s and 1980s. And that is the whole weight of the movie's ideas, except for a scene where Michael Beck visits Olivia in heaven, which looks like a computer-generated disco light show.

Well, Hollywood musicals have been made with thinner plot lines than this one, but rarely with less style. The movie is muddy, it's underlit, characters are constantly disappearing into shadows, and there's no zest to the movie's look. Even worse, I'm afraid, is the choreography by Kenny Ortega and Jerry Trent, especially as it's viewed by Victor Kemper's camera. The dance numbers in this movie do not seem to have been conceived for film.

For example: When Beck and Kelly visit the empty amphitheater, Kelly envisions a '40s band in one corner and an '80s rock group in another. The movie gives us one of each: Andrews Sisters clones in close harmony, and the Electric Light Orchestra in full explosion. Then the two bandstands are moved together so they blend and everyone is on one bandstand, singing one song. It's a great idea, but the way this movie handles it, it's an incomprehensible traffic jam with dozens of superfluous performers milling about.

The Ortega-Trent choreography of some of the other numbers is just as bad. They keep giving us five lines of dancers and then shooting at eye level, so that instead of seeing patterns we see confusing cattle calls. The dancers in the background of most shots muddy the movements of the foreground. It's a free-for-all.

The movie approaches desperation at times in its attempt to be all things to all audiences. Not only do we get the 1940s swing era, but a contemporary sequence starts with disco, goes to hard rock, provides an especially ludicrous country and Western sequence, and moves on into prefabricated New Wave. There are times when "Xanadu" doesn't even feel like a movie fantasy, but like a shopping list of marketable pop images. Samuel Taylor Coleridge dreamed the poem "Xanadu" but woke up before it was over, a possibility overlooked by the makers of this film.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Xanadu (1980)

Michael Beck as Sonny Malone

Olivia Newton-John as Kira

Gene Kelly as Danny McGuire

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Xanadu Reviews

…This may not be Xanadu as Orson Welles or Coleridge imagined it, but it you’re looking for a gaudy pleasuredome with Gene Kelly dancin’ to ELO, you’re absolutely welcome to this one…

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 24, 2022

It was never designed to age well and oddly, because of that fact, it remains relevant to this day. It's this impermanence that makes Xanadu feel significant; a then-product now-relic of the 1970s that celebrates the disco-era long after its demise.

Full Review | Mar 13, 2021

Xanadu offers a wealth of special effects entrancingly strung out along a rather impoverished screenplay.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 27, 2020

The excessive effects and music are the main protagonists in this story where the best part is the choreography. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Aug 13, 2019

Xanadu is total confection. It's 100% ridiculous. Very little of it makes sense.... They really should have nixed the idea of finding a Gibb look-a-like and went with a song-and-dance man instead.

Full Review | Aug 11, 2019

"Xanadu" cannot possibly be described as a good movie, but it can be recommended to those who can tolerate large amounts of intravenous marzipan.

Full Review | Apr 1, 2019

A laugh if only for its mind-boggling awfulness.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 1, 2019

This modern musical with tunes written by Where Are They Now pop band ELO falls flat on its face simply because the premise is so utterly ludicrous.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 1, 2019

Though meant to be a throwback to old-style Hollywood musicals, XANADU merely replaces style and substance with flash and glitz...

Olivia Newton-John's encore-after Grease-is an awkward musical fantasy that dooms the Australian songbird to play a muse, one of Zeus' nine daughters.

Engagingly surrealistic in a pop-glitter way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 1, 2019

What could have possessed the people involved in Xanadu to go ahead with this utter nonsense?

Full Review | Mar 27, 2019

It strives mightily to achieve magic, but for all its sunbeams, mirages and tricky dissolves, it remains humorless and earthbound.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2019

Looks more like a nouveau record album cover come to life.

This is not nostalgia: it's a choreographer's worst nightmare.

The acting is wooden, the direction and cinematography confused, the special effects largely out of place, the dramatic interest nonexistent.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2018

Here's another musical mishap that landed on Creative Loafing's list of The 10 Worst Rock Films Ever Made, taking the #3 slot just under Staying Alive and the champ, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 12, 2016

Yup. This movie is stupid.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 12, 2012

Stupendously bad.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2009

Look at Xanadu with an eye toward storytelling superiority and your head will explode. To appreciate the madness within, one must take in the blinding neon sights with an open heart and at least one nostril-coating line of cocaine.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jun 29, 2008

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Where to watch

Directed by Robert Greenwald

A Fantasy, A Musical, A Place Where Dreams Come True.

A beautiful muse inspires an artist and his older friend to convert a dilapidated auditorium into a lavish rollerskating club.

Olivia Newton-John Gene Kelly Michael Beck James Sloyan Katie Hanley Fred McCarren Ren Woods Dimitra Arliss Sandahl Bergman Lynn Latham Melinda Phelps Cherise Bates Juliette Marshall Marilyn Tokuda Yvette Van Voorhees Teri Beckerman Marty Davis Bebe Drake Matt Lattanzi Michael Cotten Bill Spooner Cynthia Windham

Director Director

Robert Greenwald

Producers Producers

Lawrence Gordon Joel Silver Terence Nelson Brendan Cahill

Writers Writers

Richard Christian Danus Marc Reid Rubel

Casting Casting

Phyllis Huffman

Editor Editor

Dennis Virkler

Cinematography Cinematography

Victor J. Kemper

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Dan Kolsrud Lisa Marmon Venita Ozols-Graham

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Production design production design.

John W. Corso

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Marc E. Meyer Jr.

Stunts Stunts

Jon H. Epstein Richard Epper

Choreography Choreography

Kenny Ortega Jerry Trent

Composer Composer

Barry De Vorzon

Songs Songs

Jeff Lynne John Farrar

Costume Design Costume Design

Bobbie Mannix

Universal Pictures

Releases by Date

08 aug 1980, 22 aug 1980, 19 sep 1980, 08 oct 1980, 19 oct 1980, releases by country.

• Theatrical G
• Theatrical L
• Theatrical 6

Netherlands

• Theatrical AL
• Theatrical 12
• Theatrical PG Originally A
• Theatrical PG

96 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Jeremy Wilson 6

To rate Xanadu is to not "get" Xanadu. It is 5 stars, it is 0 stars. It is the stars and everything in between the stars. Xanadu is not of this world and thus has little time for your Earthly star ratings or your critical analysis or your good taste. Xanadu is nothing and Xanadu is all.

I mean, how many movies have as many WTF moments as this? Should be cherished as the ridiculous cultural artifact it is. How can you hate something so patently ridiculous?

And gosh is Olivia Newton-John pretty. Plus, I could watch Gene Kelly do pretty much anything for 90 minutes. Michael Beck has all the charisma and talent of a wet toad here, but…

Review by demi adejuyigbe 6

Sit through the credits for a fun surprise! (every crew member is credited as “cocaine”)

Review by gal pacino ★★½ 9

happy 4/20! this movie isn’t real <3

Review by feat. dante from the dmc series ★★★★★

you know what? fuck it. five stars.

Review by Carter ★★★★★

We have no choice but to stan-adu

Review by Kat ★★★★★ 8

How dare anyone rate this anything other than 5 stars!

- Neon dreams baby - This soundtrack is amazing - Bring back flare jeans for men - Suddenly resisting the urge to rollerskate to disco - Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John ❤

Review by Colin the dude ★★★★½ 8

The first time you watch 'Xanadu' you're a sponge absorbing the madness. You take it in, ridicule it, spit it out. The second time, if a second time doesn't sound like suicide, the experience is much kinder and the unapologetic sincerity behind it spreads like a contagion. Most are immune, but some get infected. Consider me infected. If you're an ELO fan, the film is wondrous background noise. And when you're watching the screen, there's magical colors, tap dancing, roller boogieing, laser beams, coked up dancers and it's cheez wiz heaven. 'Xanadu' is a beautiful bridge between the old (the Gene Kelly generation) and the new (the Olivia Newtown-John generation). Or more like a rainbow of 70s decadence and the pot of gold at the end is the 80s. The 60s closed with Altamont and the 70s had 'Xanadu'. The end of an era.

Review by celia ★★ 4

split screen gene kelly roller skate tap dancing

Review by stevie 1

Gene Kelly did not get pulled out of the nursing home and put on roller skates for this movie to get panned

Review by laird 5

Stray thoughts:

I strongly suspect that this movie, released in August of 1980, was directly or indirectly responsible for Ronald Reagan winning the U.S. presidential election that November.

I'm disturbed by the ontological implications of a universe in which Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman exist, but Gene Kelly isn't Gene Kelly, he's just a weird clarinetist who can dance really well.

I'm glad I'll be seeing HOLY MOUNTAIN again soon as it seems a fitting double bill.

I don't care what anyone thinks, I really like Jeff Lynne and ELO.

Review by lubchansky ★

cocaine is incredible

Review by Travis Lytle ★★★★ 4

"Xanadu" is nuts. An original musical that blends Greek myth with Gene Kelly and roller skating, Robert Greenwald's film is a slice of early 1980s cheese too committed to whatever it is trying to do to be written-off as the schlock for which it could be mistaken. It is a strange, silly collision of camp and earnestness whose exuberant charm and melodic hooks allow the right audience to completely overlook the goofiness coursing through this oddball cinematic concoction.

The story has something to do with a muse, played by Olivia Newton-John, who winds up meeting Michael Beck's artist and redirects his path. This new path finds the artist enamored with the muse and joining creative forces with Gene Kelly's musician…

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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Xanadu (1980) - quite simply, one of my favorites.

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Xanadu Review

01 Jan 1980

Fresh from co-starring in Grease, the liveliest musical of the post-studio era and the genre's biggest ever commercial success, Olivia Newton John made the mistake of trying to float a conceit that had already confounded Fred Astaire in Yolanda and the Thief, Rita Hayworth in Down to Earth and Ava Gardner in One Touch of Venus.

       Not even the presence of Gene Kelly, who was archly named after his character in Cover Girl, could elevate the stubbornly earthbound proceedings - not that he was allowed to, however. He got to rollerskate, as he had done in  It's Always Fair Weather, and his duet with Olivia on `Whenever You're Away from Me' is the film's highlight. But this was an Olivia Newton John vehicle and Kelly was simply there to make her look good and lure the nostalgic away from their TV sets.

       Of necessity, the plotline was risible. But Newton John totally lacked the screen presence to carry off such an ethereal role. Moreover, her dramatic shortcomings were cruelly exacerbated by the inanimation of Michael Beck, as she was too often left to carry their scenes on her own. She made the most of tunes like ex-husband John Farrar's `Magic' and the Jeff Lynne title theme (both of which charted well), but the inability to dance that had been disguised as best as possible in Grease was exposed by Kenny Ortega choreography that fell far short of the zeitgeist chic he managed to achieve in Saturday Night Fever.

       However, Xanadu's gravest fault was its cynical resort to the Golden Age in a bid to appeal to the widest possible constituency. There was no real affection for the MGM style here, just an exploitative MTV-era pastiche that plugged gaps that the dismal pop of the late 1970s couldn't hope to fill.

          Olivia met future husband Matt Lattanzi during the shoot (he played the younger Kelly). But she failed to learn anything from the film's failure and, three years later, played another heavenly messenger in her calamitous reunion with John Travolta, Two of a Kind.

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20 Things You Didn't Know About 'Xanadu', History's Greatest Roller Skating Disco Musical

A look back at some of the behind-the-scenes stories from this Olivia Newton-John cult favorite

Roller skating. Greek mythology. Hollywood. Olivia Newton-John . Gene Kelly. Electric Light Orchestra. By some measures, Xanadu should have been a hit.

It wasn’t, however. Upon its release in theaters on Aug. 8, 1980 – 35 years ago this week – the disco musical Xanadu was met with negative reviews and middling box office returns. That didn’t stop it, however, and this hypercolor fantasy has persisted, becoming a cult favorite in spite of its inauspicious beginnings.

In honor of the fact that Xanadu has endured and overcome its rough start, we’re celebrating the film’s 35th anniversary with behind-the-scenes stories that fans may not know.

1. It could have co-starred Mel Gibson.

Newton-John was the producers’ first choice to play the female lead, Kira. Once she landed the part, she had someone in mind to play her love interest: “an unknown Australian named Mel Gibson,” according to Entertainment Weekly . In the end, however, the role went to actor Michael Beck, who’d previously starred in The Warriors .

2. It’s kinda-sorta a remake.

The 1947 film Down to Earth features Rita Hayworth as a muse who descends to the realm of humans and falls for a Broadway producer. That’s not exactly the plot of Xanadu , but doesn’t it sound like a ’40s version of the same basic story that Xanadu tells? It should: the latter is a loose remake of the former.

3. But it’s actually more complicated than that.

Down to Earth was a follow-up to 1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan , which also dealt with otherworldly beings getting involved with the lives of mortals. (Two actors from Mr. Jordan reprise their roles in Down to Earth .) This original film has been remade twice – once as 1978’s Heaven Can Wait , starring Warren Beatty , and again in 2001 as Down to Earth , starring Chris Rock . All of the films are adaptations of the play Heaven Can Wait . So that means that Xanadu is a remake of a sequel to a movie adaptation of a play.

4. And that’s not even the end of it.

Xanadu stars Gene Kelly as Danny McGuire, a former big band leader who lost his muse ages ago. In the 1944 musical Cover Girl , Kelly played a character who works in a nightclub and happens to have the name Danny McGuire. If that weren’t connection enough already, Cover Girl has Kelly romancing Rita Hayworth, who played the muse in Down to Earth that serves as the inspiration for Newton-John’s character in Xanadu .

Mimi and Olivia Newton-John, Ben Stiller’s Sweet Goodbye to Anne Meara, & Happy Anniversary Kimye!

5. it’s kelly’s final role..

Given that Xanadu wasn’t warmly received, it’s a bit of bummer that it ended up being Kelly’s last turn in a feature film. (He appeared in two TV roles before dying in 1996.) Kelly himself was aware that the film hadn’t lived up to expectations. The book The Films of Gene Kelly, Song and Dance Man has Kelly summing up the experience with one decisive sentence: “The concept was marvelous, but it just didn’t come off.”

In a 2012 interview with The Daily Herald , Newton-John said she understood what an honor it was to work with Kelly in his final film regardless. “He was lovely,” she said. “I still can’t believe I danced with Gene Kelly. How lucky am I that I’ve been in movies where I’ve danced with two of the greatest dancers of all time – with Gene Kelly and John Travolta? I never would have thought that because I had two left feet growing up.”

6. And in Kelly’s big scene there’s yet another movie connection…

Kelly himself choreographed his dance number with Newton-John, and the dance moves they perform are extremely similar to ones he’d performed when he danced with Judy Garland in the 1942 film For Me and My Gal . So in many ways, Xanadu is as much about Kelly’s own storied musical career as it is about roller skating and neon. Who knew?

7. Newton-John broke her coccyx while filming the number for "Suddenly."

Ouch. Just ouch. But hey – she soldiered through anyway.

8. She wasn’t just playing any muse.

Though she’s hushed from speaking her true name out loud, Kira tries to tell Beck’s character that she’s actually “Terpsichore.” In Greek mythology, Terpsichore (literally “delight in dancing”) was the muse of dance and chorus. And sure – “Kira” seems like as sensible a nickname for “Terpsichore” as anything, right? It beats “Terps.”

9. Xanadu brought about at least one wedding.

Newton-John met her first husband – actor Matt Lattanzi, who played the young version of Kelly’s character in the film – while on set. They were married from 1984 to 1995.

10. It also helped jump-start the solo career of animator Don Bluth.

At one point in the film, a musical number transforms into a cartoon sequence. The animation was done by Don Bluth, who had recently departed from Disney. Following Xanadu , Bluth’s production company made its first feature-length animated movie, The Secret of NIMH . Bluth later directed An American Tale and The Land Before Time as well.

11. And it helped launch the career of Kenny Ortega.

If you remember the production for the song “Dancin’,” then you probably know that quite a bit went into the dance numbers in Xanadu . “Dancin’ ” is in particular a marvel, if one that’s very of-the-era. Kenny Ortega, who planned the choreography alongside Jerry Trent, went on to a high-profile career. Today, he counts among his hits Pretty in Pink , Dirty Dancing , Newsies , Hocus Pocus and the High School Musical movies.

12. It also features a Conan cohort in a small role.

Sandahl Bergman, who is perhaps most famous for playing the female warrior Valeria in Conan the Barbarian in 1982, was originally a dancer. In Xanadu , she plays one of the muses.

13. It spawned a No. 1 hit.

People may not have initially flocked to theaters to catch Xanadu , but they loved the soundtrack, and the single “Magic” scored Newton-John a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in August 1980.

14. The title track also went to No. 1, just not in the U.S.

Newton-John collaborated with Electric Light Orchestra for the title track. Though it fared well enough in the U.S., reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, the track was a huge international hit, reaching No. 1 in England, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Israel, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Austria.

15. In fact, the soundtrack was a bigger success than the movie.

The album went double platinum in the U.S. and managed five Top 20 hits, including “Magic,” “Xanadu,” “Suddenly,” “All over the World” and “I’m Alive.”

16. The reviews for the movie, however, were not so enthusiastic.

In fact, two of them stand out as being especially pithy in their meanness. Esquire famously summed up the movie in a single sentence: “In a word, Xana-don’t.” Variety got in a good jab too, describing Newton-John’s character – who glowed periodically, because, you know, muse magic, I guess? – as “a roller skating lightbulb.” Womp womp.

17. It helped start the Golden Raspberry Awards.

The Golden Raspberries, for those who are too nice to pay attention, honor the worst of a given year’s cinematic efforts. They were born after their creator, John Wilson, sat through Xanadu and another not-so-kindly reviewed musical from 1980. As Wilson explained to TIME , “I happened to pay 99 cents for a double feature of Can’t Stop the Music and Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu and was refused my money back afterward.” At the inaugural awards, Can’t Stop the Music beat out Xanadu for Worst Picture, and Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon beat out Newton-John for Worst Actress.

18. The nightclub was a real place – but it is no longer.

The beautiful streamline moderne building that becomes the eponymous nightclub in the film was actually the Pan Pacific Auditorium, which was once a popular venue in Los Angeles. When Xanadu used it for its exterior scenes, it had fallen into disrepair, and in 1989, it burned to the ground. Today, the site is a park that in part reflects the beautiful architecture seen in Xanadu .

19. There’s also a darker footnote to Xanadu ‘s legacy.

In 1983, Newton-John’s starring role in Xanadu prompted Louisiana resident Michael Owen Perry to think that the actress actually was a Greek goddess who used her eyes to communicate with him. The story, as summarized by Entertainment Weekly , ended with Perry going on a killing spree. Speaking to EW , Newton-John said the incident marked a frightening moment in her high-profile career. “I guess because I was playing this ethereal character, he got reality and show business confused,” she said. “I left the country for a while. That was a very scary time.”

20. Xanadu the musical got all the praise that Xanadu the movie didn’t

Preserving many of the hit songs from the original movie but substantially rewriting the story and dialogue, the Broadway musical Xanadu opened in 2007 and proved to be a success with critics and audiences alike. It was nominated for four Tony Awards and and closed in 2008, after 49 previews and 513 performances.

And just for the record, this play would be a Broadway adaptation of an ’80s film that was a remake of a sequel to a 1941 movie that was originally a play. Whew. That’s enough to necessitate a disco nap.

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Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1980 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.

We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly three dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1980 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1980 so that it is their true 40th anniversaries. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.

This time around it’s Aug. 8, 1980, and we’re off to see Xanadu !

Quick side note: Since we launched this series this year, we’ve discovered that Vintage Video Podcast is doing the exact same project with two differences: First, it’s audio (naturally), and second, they are doing every major film. We’ve listened to a couple of episodes and it’s fun checking off their thoughts against my own. Check them out over at Vintage Video Podcast .

As I was experiencing Xanadu – I don’t feel you watch this movie, you experience it – I kept wondering about a huge missed opportunity. Early in the film we see the nine Muses of Greek mythology spring to life out of a mural.  And I kept thinking, “Why didn’t they have Sonny Malone (Michael Beck) be the painter of this since he’s an artist in this story?”

It seems at one point in the filming that was actually the plan, and that plot point was brought back for the Broadway musical. This also, however, explains nearly every problem with this film where everything feels half-baked. It seems the script was being written as they filmed and no one was quite sure where it was going.

What we end up with is something that feels like a bunch of music videos strapped together with a threadbare plot that doesn’t know where it’s going or how it’s getting there.

The film was apparently originally pitched as a roller disco film, but as the cast started to take shape the story – if you can call it that – evolved. In it’s final state it was was a critical and financial flop and actually inspired the creation of the Golden Raspberry awards along with Can’t Stop the Music from earlier in the year.

As the movie progressed, I came to the conclusion that it could be the worst film I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen some clunkers, but this is so outrightly bad it’s difficult to believe anyone looked at the finished product and went, “Yeah, I want my name on this.”

And Gene Kelly as Danny McGuire… oof. Imagine having this as your last film credit. I will say that both he and Olivia Newton-John as Kira/Terpsichore gave the film their all, but it was just one bad setup after another.

They made Gene Kelly tap dance in roller skates for crying out loud.

Despite how just outrightly bad this film is, I can’t help but suggest you watch it. The level of absurdity, especially in the ending nightclub scene, is something to just behold.

If nothing else, enjoy the scene of the Muses awakening. Newton-John’s finger work here is… something.

1980 Movie Reviews will return on Aug. 15 with The Octagon , The Kidnapping of the President , and Smokey and the Bandit II !

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Sean P. Aune

Sean Aune has been a pop culture aficionado since before there was even a term for pop culture. From the time his father brought home Amazing …

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MISS NEWTON-JOHN IN 'XANADU'

By Janet Maslin

• Aug. 9, 1980

I was puzzled by the ads for ''Xanadu,'' because they showed a large likeness of Olivia Newton-John and otherwise gave no idea what sort of movie this could be. Now I understand. ''Xanadu'' doesn't lend itself to quick or easy characterization. Too many different things are going on here, and they don't have much to do with one another. On the other hand, this is still a very muted movie, so ads that created an impression of general frenzy wouldn't do the trick, either. Miss Newton-John really is the film's only clear-cut drawing card.

In ''Xanadu,'' which opened yesterday at the Criterion Center and other theaters, Miss Newton-John plays the magical woman with whom both a young artist (Michael Beck) and a less young former musician (Gene Kelly) have been smitten. It seems she is a muse, who 40 years ago brightened Mr. Kelly's life and is now doing the same for Mr. Beck. The film treats this fanciful notion gently, without overworking it, but the muse theme does have one depressing aspect. The film makers, evidently not confident that the audience will know who muses are or what they do, has Miss Newton-John tell Mr. Beck to look up the word in the dictionary. And he does.

Unlike old-fashioned muses, Miss Newton-John does much of her work on roller skates, although the skating portions of the movie, like its musical numbers, have a desultory feeling. The music, performed by Miss Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra, is pretty without being peppy, and it doesn't complement the action very effectively. Many of Miss Newton-John's songs are offered as voiceovers while she skates, which minimizes their sparkle considerably.

The director, Robert Greenwald, has filled the movie with bright colors -people often turn into beams of light or are surrounded by neonlike coronas. There are dozens and dozens of costume changes, lots of dance numbers, even an animated segment midway through. Like ''The Wiz,'' though, ''Xanadu'' is desperately stylish without having any real style. A dance number featuring two teams of dancers -one group dressed as punks, the other in 1940's garb - winds up a terrible mess, because the two groups aren't dressed or choreographed to have anything to do with one another.

Mr. Kelly, who dances a little and even rollerskates in one scene, is forever charming, but why this movie needed him is unclear. Mr. Beck fares best in the quieter scenes that show him at work as a commercial artist, but the big numbers leave him overwhelmed. Miss Newton-John looks pretty and sings a little and is probably doing just what her fans would like her to do. But it's a pity ''Xanadu'' hasn't more real pizazz.

''Xanadu'' is rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''). It contains fleeting nudity and some mildly suggestive dancing.

XANADU, directed by Robert Greenwald; written by Richard Christian Danus and Marc Reid Rubel; director of photography, Victor J. Kemper; edited by Dennis Virkler; music by Barry DeVorzon, Jeff Lyne and John Farrar; produced by Lawrence Gordon; released by Universal Studios. At the Trans-Lux 85th Street, at Madison Avenue; Plaza, 58th Street, east of Madison Avenue; Criterion I, Broadway and West 45th Street, and other theaters. Running time: 93 minutes. This film is rated PG.

Kira . . . . . Olivia Newton-JohnDanny McGuire . . . . . Gene KellySonny Malone . . . . . Michael BeckSimpson . . . . . James SloyanHelen . . . . . Dimitra ArlissSandra . . . . . Katie HanleyRichie . . . . . Fred McCarrenJo . . . . . Ren WoodsMuses . . . . . Sandahl Bergman, Lynn Latham, Melinda Phelps, Cherise Bate, Juliette Marshall, Marilyn Tokuda, Yvette Van Voorhees and Teri Beckerman

Xanadu (United States, 1980)

How, one might ask, does one begin to defend Xanadu ? To start with, by looking at it without any pretensions and seeing it for what it is. Conventional wisdom decrees that Xanadu is a horrible film. In a sense, conventional wisdom may be correct, but it ignores one key ingredient: viewed in the right frame of mind, this movie can be a lot of fun. Age has done for Xanadu what it has done for many critically reviled motion pictures that time has not forgotten: allowed us to look at it a little more kindly and appreciate it for its glorious badness. The film is too energetic, too jaw-droppingly campy, and too silly not to be enjoyed and celebrated on some level. "Cheesy" doesn't even begin to describe it, yet that's at the heart of its perverse charm. Now, that's entertainment!

Officially, I consider Xanadu to be a guilty pleasure. "Guilty," because no self-respecting film critic in his right mind would admit to liking it, and "pleasure," because I do like it. Over the quarter century since its 1980 release, Xanadu has developed a cult following and has made more than twice the amount of money on home video that it captured at the box office. The film is often referred to as a flop, but that's not entirely accurate. While it's true that it didn't make back its $20 million budget on the big screen, the numbers aren't as bad as some think them to be. For example, during its opening weekend, it made $1.5 million. That's not a lot, but converting it to a modern day opening, it looks better. Average ticket prices today are about 2.4 times what they were in 1980, and Xanadu opened on 250 screens, which is about 1/10 of the number it would open on today. Doing the math, Xanadu 's adjusted opening weekend box office would be $36 million, which is respectable.

If you conduct an on-line search for the word "Xanadu," you will get an amazing array of responses. It's the "Orginal Hypertex Project." It's a language and translation wizard. It's a swingers club in Manchester. It's an undersea adventure company. It's Charles Foster Kane's fortress. It's Kubla Khan's pleasure dome. And it's a 1980 film starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. The movie was intended to catapult Newton-John onto the A-list and give Kelly a chance to strut his stuff for a new generation. Instead, it ended up pretty much finishing both of their acting careers. Kelly never made another feature film (by choice - after Xanadu , he only appeared in a couple of TV mini-series), and Newton-John went back to music. Within a year, she would release the smash, multi-platinum album, "Physical."

Xanadu cannot be watched with anything resembling a serious mindset. Enjoy it for its garishness. Enjoy it for its silliness. Enjoy it for the soundtrack (the product of John Farrar and ELO). But, most of all, enjoy it for Newton-John. She may not be the greatest actress of her generation, but she's gorgeous, and she has a great singing voice. She was at the peak of her career in 1980 - the girl next door and every teenage boy's wet dream all rolled into one. Watching her in this, her second best-known role (after Grease ), it's almost possible to believe she is a Muse sent by Zeus. The precise Muse is Terpsichore, whose specialty is dancing. I guess that's the closest one comes to roller skating, which is what this film is about. Xanadu was originally conceived as a roller-disco picture (they, like skating, were all the rage in the time period), but it underwent significant changes during pre-production.

Then there's the late Gene Kelly. Some long-time fans have lamented that this represents Kelly's farewell to feature films, but the venerable song-and-dance man "got" the movie. It was a throwback to his bread-and-butter - an attempt to re-create '50s musicals in the early '80s (a marriage between disco and retro). It wasn't a good one (director Robert Greenwald was in way over his head), to be sure, but it gave Kelly an opportunity to do what he was best at, even at age 68. It always brings a smile to my face to see him show a few moves, even amidst all the corniness. And, believe or not, we get to see Kelly on skates.

What's the story? Does it matter? Zeus' Muses arrive in 1980 Southern California to spread inspiration. Kira (Newton-John) has been selected to re-invigorate the love of painting in Sonny Malone (Michael Beck). She does so with a kiss and a lot of roller skating, which I suppose functions as foreplay for the PG crowd. Around this time, Sonny befriends old-timer Danny McGuire (Kelly), a former Big Band musician who wants to open a dance club. With more than a little help from Kira, the two become partners and the result of their efforts is "Xanadu," the hottest night spot in the Beverly Hills area. But there's trouble ahead for Sonny and Kira. Zeus wants his daughter home, and he's not happy that she developed feelings for a mortal. He's also probably a little cranky because Mount Olympus has gone all neon.

I have heard that Xanadu is popular in the gay culture, which doesn't surprise me. The film has the kind of flair that would make it a hit among those who delight in kitsch. The acting (especially by Andy Gibb-lookalike Beck) is awful, the storyline is too moronic to be called trite, and the set decorations appear to have been designed by someone who was experiencing an LSD flashback. Yet, there's fun to be had for anyone who likes the music (which I do). This is, after all, a musical, and the stench of ripe cheese can be set aside if it offers pleasure to the palate. The soundtrack soared. Of its ten tracks, two ("Magic" and "Xanadu") were hits. Two more ("Suddenly" and "Don't Walk Away") got significant airplay. "All Over the World" is a lingering favorite, although that probably has something to do with the truly bizarre way in which it is presented. These are the '80s at their worst.

There are two likely reactions to Xanadu , both of which are valid. One is to turn it off midway through because the headache is getting too severe. The other is to laugh and hum your way through it. Newton-John brings warmth and appeal. Kelly brings a touch of class and a reason for lovers of the great MGM musicals to smile. And Beck brings great hair. Don Bluth gives us a magical little animated sequence (which really doesn't belong in this movie, but never mind). Xanadu may not achieve its director's original lofty ambitions but, by failing so spectacularly, it has become much more. Had the film been a modest financial and creative success, it would likely be forgotten today. As it is, however, "Xanadu" has become more closely associated with this film than with all the other aforementioned things combined.

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• Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
• My Fair Lady (1964)
• Singin' in the Rain (1952)
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• (There are no more better movies of Olivia Newton-John)
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• American in Paris, An (1951)
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• (There are no more worst movies of Gene Kelly)
• (There are no more better movies of Michael Beck)
• (There are no more worst movies of Michael Beck)

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

• A struggling artist living in Los Angeles meets a girl who may hold the key to his happiness.
• In Los Angeles, artist Sonny Malone reluctantly returns to his job at Airflow Records--doing poster-sized exact-as-possible renderings of album covers for on-site promotions--as he could not make a living as a freelance artist, where he could truly use his artistic vision. On his first day back at Airflow, he gets sidetracked by thoughts of a young woman who literally rollerskates into him. He's unaware that their initial encounter and subsequent encounters are not accident: she is Kira, a muse who was awakened by his lamentations about his art and sent to help him achieve his artistic vision. Later that day he meets aging Danny McGuire, a former big-band musician turned construction-company owner who wants to return to his roots by owning a live music venue. This meeting too is no accident; Sonny soon discovers that Kira was part of Danny's past. Sonny and Danny achieving their dreams is threatened by Kira knowingly breaking the rules. — Huggo
• The Greek muses incarnate themselves on Earth to inspire men to achieve. One of them, incarnated as a girl named Kira, encounters artist Sonny Malone. With the help of Danny McGuire, a man Kira had inspired 40 years earlier, Sonny builds a huge roller-disco rink. — Randy Goldberg <[email protected]>
• Sonny Malone ( Michael Beck ) is a frustrated artist. He has tried to leave a job he hates--painting large display versions of record-album covers--but he shreds his efforts and throws them out the window. The pieces blow past a mural of nine dancing women. THE WOMEN GLOW INTO LIFE AND LEAP FROM THE PAINTING! The women are the so-called Nine Muses of Olympus. They dance down the street and turn into streaks of neon light and fly up into the sky, with accompanying "whoosh" sounds. However, one of them, Terpsichore ( Olivia Newton-John ) stays on Earth. Sonny does not see this one muse who remains. He returns to his hated job. On the way there, he is kissed by Terpischore who rolls up on him on roller skates before skating away. At work, Sonny's co-workers lovingly chide him. His tyrannical boss orders him to paint just what he is told and nothing more. He seems beat down, but his next assignment is an album cover of a musical group called 'The Nine Sisters'. It is the one with one of the kissing woman on it! He asks around--who is the kissing album-cover woman? A guy behind the desk says she's not on the payroll. The photographer can't explain how she got into the shoot for the album cover--of a hundred pictures, she's in only one. A guy on a porch hasn't seen her (but tries to set Sonny up with one of his daughters). Sonny goes to look for her at the scene of the kiss which is the front of an abandoned art deco auditorium. Sonny goes inside the auditorium and finds Terpsichore, who introduces herself as Kira. The two of them fall in love, though Kira refuses to tell Sonny anything about herself. One day, Sonny hears a clarinet played by an older gentleman who sits on a rock by the ocean. The older man is Danny McGuire ( Gene Kelly ), a former big-band orchestra leader who is currently working as construction mogul. One thing leads to another, Danny and Sonny become friends. Danny tells Sonny that he once had a muse in the 1940s who looked significantly like Kira. Kira encourages Sonny and Danny to open a nightclub at the auditorium, and the two begin working on this project as partners. However, Kira eventually confesses to Sonny that she is a Muse and cannot stay in love with him. Kira/Terpischore tells Sonny that she is not supposed to fall in love with mortals. Rather, her purpose in the universe is to inspire people--men, it seems--to achieve a dream; then she moves on. So, sadly, she must leave. Sonny gets upset, and Kira leaves Earth. Danny tells Sonny to keep pursuing Kira, encouraging Sonny not to give up on his ambitions like he did after his own muse left him. Sonny finds the wall upon which Kira was, and is, a painting. He looks at the wall, then roller-skates quickly toward it and jumps into it! Inside the realm of the gods, Kira's father Zeus denies Sonny's plea to let Kira come back to Earth, and despite Kira's mother Mnemosyne interceding for Sonny and Kira, Zeus ultimately sends Sonny back to Earth. Kira then professes her feelings for Sonny, and her parents decide to let her go back to him for "a moment, or maybe forever." At the climax, Kira and the Muses perform at the grand opening of Sonny and Danny's nightclub Xanadu before returning to their realm. Sonny is saddened by their departure, but upon seeing a waitress who looks exactly like Kira, he stops her and asks to talk.

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Xanadu Reviews

• 31   Metascore
• 1 hr 33 mins
• Music, Fantasy, Comedy, Science Fiction
• Watchlist Where to Watch

An artist lamenting that his job is merely to copy works of art rather than exercise his own creative mind is inspired by a roller skating muse. He crosses paths with a construction company owner who wishes to return to his music roots.

Gene Kelly made Hollywood musical history anew with XANADU--not only had he starred in perhaps the greatest musical of all time, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, he could now claim the dubious additional distinction of having appeared in one of the worst. Struggling artist Sonny Malone (Michael Beck) finds a muse in the form of Kira (Olivia Newton-John), a painted figure who, with her sisters, comes alive faster than you can say, "Let's put on a show!" to sing, roller-skate, inspire Sonny, and generally get the plot moving. Enter Danny McGuire (Kelly), a wealthy businessman who was a clarinetist in the 40s--when, it's revealed in flashback, he too was inspired by Kira. He still longs for her, but doesn't recognize Kira in her modern-day incarnation. Danny plans to open a small nightclub, while Sonny prefers to create a rock'n'roll hall, and under the influence of their mutual muse the two combine to create Xanadu, a schizophrenic nightclub mixing 1940s and 1980s music in a sea of roller-skates and neon. Though meant to be a throwback to old-style Hollywood musicals, XANADU merely replaces style and substance with flash and glitz, and Kelly (using his character name from COVER GIRL) gives the film its only real link to the past. Trying to appeal to both old and young audiences, the movie ends up shooting itself in the foot, but the soundtrack yielded several hits for Newton-John on the pop charts.

Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ should have been a TV show

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To anyone worried that “Megalopolis” would be the only risky, expensive late-career epic from a Hollywood legend to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, breathe easy. With “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” (three more parts are planned), Kevin Costner has you covered.

The “Dances With Wolves” Oscar winner, accompanying his fourth feature behind the camera, arrived at the movie’s Cannes festival premiere Sunday as cool as a cucumber, sporting shades, a wry smile and a neat mustache, but by the time he accepted the gala audience’s extended standing ovation, Costner was visibly moved.

“I’m sorry you had to clap that long for me to understand that I should speak,” he said during brief remarks inside the Grand Lumière Theatre after the applause relented. “I think movies aren’t about their opening weekends. They’re about their life. About how many times you’re willing to share it. And I hope that you do share this movie with your sweethearts, with your children. I feel so lucky. I feel so blessed. And there’s three more.”

After catching up with “Horizon’s” first chapter, which arrives in U.S cinemas June 28, deputy entertainment & arts editor Matt Brennan and movies editor Joshua Rothkopf tried to get their arms around it. Read their conversation below.

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Matt Brennan : Josh, if the old adage about “one for you, one for them” still holds true, then “Horizon,” the four-part western that succeeded (and eventually came into conflict with ) Costner’s blockbuster TV series “Yellowstone,” is one he’s been accruing the fiscal and reputational capital to make for a Hollywood lifetime. And boy, does he spend it.

Clocking in at three hours for Chapter 1 alone, with plots that originate in the Arizona desert, the Rocky Mountains and the plains of western Kansas, populated by an army regiment’s worth of characters, “Horizon” is, logistically if not formally, every inch the equal of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” in wild (deranged?) ambition. Unlike so many schlock films, TV series and beach reads of recent vintage to employ the “American” adjective as a marketing ploy, “An American Saga” here signals the true scope of Costner’s vision, encompassing Native Americans, the pioneers who supplant them, the Union soldiers who protect them, the outlaws who prey on them, and the Black, Mexican and Chinese laborers without whose work the American saga would have long since stopped short.

All are converging on the town of Horizon, more idea than place, promoted in fliers and parceled out by Eastern economic interests but ultimately scarcely settled; the handful who’ve tried have had their homes razed by the Indigenous Apaches whose lives and livelihoods they’ve disrupted. For now, though, we are scattered to the four winds, following a mother and daughter who are among the sole survivors of the latest raid and who are taken to recuperate in a federal fort nearby; gunslinger Hayes Ellison (Costner), who becomes embroiled in a multi-territory revenge plot; and Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson), the reluctant leader of a westbound wagon train. Countless other threads are introduced — some swiftly, and often bloodily, brought to an end, others barely a ripple for now — to the point that Chapter 1 concludes with what can only be described as a trailer for the rest of the saga. This isn’t just Costner’s “Megalopolis.” This is his “Lord of the Rings.”

And unaccountably, I liked it. More precisely, I found myself reverting to the capacity for trust I cultivated in my days covering television. I’m engaged enough in the arc of many of the characters, particularly Miller’s Frances Kitteridge — in a budding romance with Union Lt. Trent Gephardt (Sam Worthington) — to see where the project goes from here. And I’m intrigued by the decision to use this solitary, hardscrabble outpost, or the journey to it, as a lens through which to view the full complement of social and political issues facing 19th century (and present day) America. As to whether distributor Warner Bros. genuinely expects the general public to see and recommended this with so little self-contained payoff, that’s another question. But luckily, it’s one I’m not compensated enough to spend any time answering.

So what say you? Is “Horizon” the capstone achievement of Costner’s career or his cowboy Xanadu?

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Joshua Rothkopf: Come back, Michael Cimino — all is forgiven. I mention the late director of 1980’s “Heaven’s Gate” because there already is a cowboy Xanadu, one still struggling to graduate beyond its status as a famous Hollywood bomb and film maudit . But we didn’t know how good we had it: At least “Heaven’s Gate” was shot by the brilliant Vilmos Zsigmond and attempted some big ideas and a shape.

“Horizon” is television. I mean that literally, although I obviously can’t prove it. It has dramatic thumps every 50 minutes or so — a raid, a shootout, an orchestral swelling. “Chapter 1” feels like a cobbling together of the first three episodes (along with a brief sizzle reel of upcoming moments at the end) and given a fancy Cannes premiere. It makes sense, Matt, that your “capacity for trust,” developed from covering TV, is letting you connect with it on a deeper level than I can. To me, it’s a pretender in a festival filled with the opposite.

If “Horizon” is TV, what kind of TV is it? I can’t help but be reminded of James Poniewozik’s recent essay for the New York Times about what he called Mid TV, or “prestige TV that you can fold laundry to.” It’s, you know, just fine. “Horizon” is absurdly over-plotted and peopled with redundant characters, lending it an epic “scope” that aspires to an E.L. Doctorow novel but isn’t justified, at least for now. (Charitably, it’s one of those shows your friends would recommend to you with the caveat that it takes a few episodes to “get going.”) You pick your favorite character from the decent, unexceptional cast — for me, it was Danny Huston’s exposition-heavy colonel who says things like “That’s how they’ll reason in the face of fear” — and wait for them to cycle around.

It passed the time. It probably helped that I love westerns. More troublesome are some of “Horizon’s” banal formal choices. Do you not have a problem with the professionally lighted flatness of the look and color palette? Those dumb dissolves between scenes? The methodical editing that chops everything into a pabulum-like TV hash? I never thought Costner had a visual style to begin with, but at least on “Dances With Wolves,” he had cinematographer Dean Semler, who also did “The Road Warrior” and “Dead Calm.”

Did you feel like you were watching a film? I wanted to check my email.

Brennan: Categorizing “Horizon” as television would explain its aesthetic, which reminded me of a trend that dates back to at least “Game of Thrones”: setting otherwise anodyne shot-reverse-shot filmmaking on dramatic clifftops and ravishing vistas to distract from the lack of visual style.

But, as in TV — a writers’ medium, after all — I found myself drawn into an internal argument over the narrative and ideological possibilities of “Horizon’s” structure that kept me engaged even when it all started to look like my laptop’s home screen. Unlike the more focused, hard-edged period westerns that have dominated the genre in recent decades, such as James Mangold’s “3:10 to Yuma” or Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” this one has melodrama, romance, action, even hiccups of comedy all swirled together. I appreciated that traditionalism, which suggested to me the old “cavalcade of stars” approach to grandiose moviemaking, even if the project’s star power and serialized nature suggest prestige (or “mid”) TV.

For me, the far thornier problem, and one difficult to evaluate in a multi-part narrative, is “Horizon’s” handling of its Native American characters. In a film set in the 1850s and otherwise devoutly committed to classical Hollywood trappings, the presence of Indigenous characters and tongues from the opening frames of “Chapter 1” — as Apache children peer down on father-son settlers from a rocky point, believing (wrongly) that it’s just a “game” — is a promising indication that Costner intends to depict the pioneers as outlaws in their own right, stealing Native land through legal means.

By the end of the film, though, I was beginning to worry, and not only because what Native characters have been established lack definition like the Kitteridges or Costner’s Hayes Ellison. Whereas “Horizon” develops Native characters primarily vis-a-vis the political crisis they face, the “white-eyes” Anglos have love (and sex) lives, religious organizations, business concerns.

It reminded me of a line from the film in which an Irishman in the Union forces says, “We don’t make our history any more than they make their weather.” In other words, in “Horizon’s” view, Anglos have families, while Natives have war; Anglos have history, Natives weather. I can only hope that the depiction of the Apache characters deepens in “Chapter 2,” due in August.

So I’ve now tempered my praise. Did you find any redeeming qualities in it?

Francis Ford Coppola teases ‘Godfather’ update, criticizes Hollywood studios at Cannes

The filmmaker addressed the press at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival after the premiere of his deeply personal, occasionally baffling epic ‘Megalopolis’ polarized critics.

May 17, 2024

Rothkopf: A tall ask, my friend. Let’s talk about that writers’ medium for a second. As you say, “Horizon” reaches for many tones, but would any writers room on a show have spent its first three hours compiling them in such a lifeless then-this-happened manner? We’re talking about the development of at least 20 major speaking roles via impressionistic dribs and drabs, none of these plot strands interconnecting (at least thus far).

It’s a lot of movie — I just wish it were a lot of feeling. We never get to know the Kitteridges before a raid on their homestead wipes out most of them. Wouldn’t doing so have helped? It seems perverse to be asking a three-hour piece of entertainment for more connective tissue, but that’s where I’m at with this.

I share your concern about the project’s depiction of Native American characters, and the solution should be giving them more of a share of screen time — not, as we hear a few times, by having white characters use the term “Indigenous,” anachronistic to 19th-century conversation. It would be better to depict racism honestly, not soften it.

Positives? I liked it when Luke Wilson showed up as the head of a wagon train leading a group of pioneers through Kansas Territory — a party that includes a pair of dotty Brits who assume their fellow travelers are their servants. The “Idiocracy” actor is expert at a frustrated slow-burn; had the whole thing been chopped down to a comedy, I probably would have enjoyed it more (speaking as someone who thinks Costner’s best western is 1985’s “Silverado”).

And I do know there was at least one person at Cannes who loved “Horizon,” though perhaps for different reasons: Francis Ford Coppola.

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Matt Brennan is a Los Angeles Times’ deputy editor for entertainment and arts. Born in the Boston area, educated at USC and an adoptive New Orleanian for nearly 10 years, he returned to Los Angeles in 2019 as the newsroom’s television editor. He previously served as TV editor at Paste Magazine, and his writing has also appeared in Indiewire, Slate, Deadspin and numerous other publications.

Joshua Rothkopf is film editor of the Los Angeles Times. He most recently served as senior movies editor at Entertainment Weekly. Before then, Rothkopf spent 16 years at Time Out New York, where he was film editor and senior film critic. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Sight and Sound, Empire, Rolling Stone and In These Times, where he was chief film critic from 1999 to 2003.

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