Rules

Back by popular (?) demand, the Romance, Music & Musicals Challenge celebrates things we love and also lets us double-count with the Academy Award Movie Challenge.

Eligible titles include romantic movies and TV shows, filmed concerts, music-themed movies, and musicals--they don't have to fit all three categories! So this is the time to catch up on Wicked, Oscar darling Emilia Perez, A Complete Unknown, Maria, leftover Hallmark Christmas movies, and whatever else strikes your fancy. Use your best judgment on qualifying titles or ask in the discussion thread, but we tend to be pretty lenient. Live events (concerts, stage musicals, etc.) can also be listed, but sorry, not your Valentine's Day date with your sweetheart or streaming an album on Spotify.

Post your list in the list thread. Be as creative or as basic with your list as you want.

You may number (or not number) the items on your list any way you like.

Reserved

Absolutely perfect timing. I actually just got a copy of the Collector's Edition of Heavy Metal in the mail from eBay yesterday.

I checked to see how many qualifying movies I might have for this Challenge. Around 500 romances and 130 musicals (some overlap, obviously). So, 'why not?'

You can get them all in if you October Horror Challenge it!

Just saw that Shout! is releasing A Chinese Odyssey Part 1: Pandora's Box (1995) and A Chinese Odyssey Part 2: Cinderella​ (1995) on blu as a set, early next month. Both qualify for the Challenge, besides being damn fine movies. It's a version of Journey to the West filtered through the lens of Jeffrey Lau and Steven Chow's sensibilities (circa mid 1990s).

How do we feel about montages set to music? In Movies and TV, where perhaps the montage is more important overall because of the shorter running time.

I would think the montage would have to be a significant portion of the show, unless the show is considered a romance, which then makes it eligible either way since romance counts. Or at least, that's what I'd rule (like in the animation challenge, non-animated films with animation in it has to have a significant portion to count: ex: Who Framed Roger Rabbit) if I was host...

Started late on the challenge, but it was a first time watch for me, In the Heights. I can see why it wasn't super popular but I really enjoyed it. I'm a Broadway musical fan though, so it was like watching a show, just from the comfort of my own home. I'm also a fan of Lin Manuel Miranda, so I was already leaning towards liking it. I think some of the themes are very timely as well. Would recommend if you like musicals and Miranda. My one main critique is I don't know Spanish, and even though I had the subtitles on, there was a fair amount that wasn't translated. I have just enough knowledge of the language to get the gist of what they were saying, but it would've been nice if it all was translated rather than a just a few lines here and there.

I’m all in favor of movies having musical montages as a shorthand way of condensing a lot of feelings into a short span of time. But the existence of one wouldn’t qualify a title for this challenge. Same case if characters in a murder mystery drop into a coffeehouse and a random artist performs a song. Not enough.

I really enjoyed the In the Heights movie, though I knew I would as I’ve seen it on the stage twice (without subtitles!). There’s one scene in the movie that had me feeling it was the modern equivalent to West Side Story’s “The Dance at the Gym.” And now I’ve finally seen the show enough times to remember the “Usnavi” joke!

I won't lie, it took me a very long time to get the joke! And probably only because I kept on seeing it in print...lol! I don't know that there was a song that I won't stop singing but I definitely was humming along with it while watching. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it in person, but I would now.

I happened to notice a movie double-feature in a Super Bowl-related “music” promo, a pair of British movies about a group singing sea shanties. So nothing to do with the big game, and it wasn’t even on sale. But Fishermen’s Friends is on Peacock, and both it and the sequel are on Prime, so I watched both.

I really liked the first, a rom-com set in Cornwall about a singing group that scores a recording contract (based on a true story). The sequel was not as good, because the lead couple (including Tuppence Middleton, who apparently is in Downton Abbey) was written out, and the main plot is about strife in the band. The music is still good, though.

I just watched The Only Girl in the Orchestra, an Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary for double challenge credit. It’s about the first woman to play in the New York Philharmonic and is a fun 35-minute watch,

I watched "Atomic Shakespeare" tonight, a season 3 episode (1986) of Moonlighting, that 39 years later still holds up very well, the episode being set so far in the past it might as well be a fantasy, especially with the anachronisms present in the episode. And as far as Shakespeare adaptions go, is fair enough. It also contains a 'Here's Johnny' [[b]The Shining (1980)] joke. Made me wonder what TV show or movie made that joke the first time.

I found one from 1982, The Young Ones, "Flood" (26:48). Not a lot of time left for an earlier example, but it's possible.

Hoping to really kick things off by the weekend. Life been getting in the way to the point where even a concert on YouTube sounded like too much effort lol

I watched a couple romances that had recently hit streaming, We Live in Time (MAX) and Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Peacock), and enjoyed both.

For Oscar challenge cross-credit I watched Emilia Perez, which was certainly interesting.

I also watched a music documentary on MAX, Yacht Rock, which was a lot of fun. I'm probably going to try to fit in some more music documentaries instead of waiting for that challenge.

Just finished watching the battle of the bands musical episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. Not only had I forgotten just how good the musical numbers were, but I was blown away by the fact that Xena and Draco even have a rap battle.