Laurence Lerman

In Xanadu Did Universal A Special Edition DVD Decree
June 4, 2008

Any DVD supplemental featurette for the movie Xanadu that doesn’t at least mention the infamous Esquire Magazine review of the 1980 musical fantasy—“In a word--Xana-Don’t”—just wouldn’t be doing justice to this strangely loved and frequently loathed production. Universal is re-issuing a ‘Magical Musical Edition’ of the candy-colored confection on June 24. It comes packaged with the complete soundtrack by the Electric Light Orchestra and others—all the better to cash in on the popularity that the Tony-nominated Broadway musical based on the film is currently enjoying.

The half-hour featurette, directed by Jonathan Gaines, is a good one (better than the feature film, perhaps?), and it presents no less than a dozen of the film’s enthusiastic collaborators as talking heads. Among the guilty are producer Lawrence Gordon, choerographer Kenny Ortega, animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (who created that adorable pre-Little Mermaid lovesick fish sequence set to ELO’s sweeping “Don’t Walk

Greenwald--who’s best know for recently producing and directing the impassioned agitprop documentaries Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (2003), Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004) and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005)--acknowledges that Xanadu, his first Hollywood feature, didn’t do much to further his commercial filimmaking career. And it’s ‘Greenwald The Documentarian’ who best sums up the Day-Glo look and feel of his $20 million movie:

“It was not a film rooted in a kind of Paddy Chayefsky realism, I think it’s safe to say,” Greenwald grins.

My big question is where oh where in the featurette are Xanadu stars Olivia Newton-John and Michael “The Warriors” Beck and Electric Light Orchestra head honcho Jeff Lynne? Perhaps they were tied up when Universal came a-knockin'.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on June 4, 2008 | Comments (7)