The Ultimate Movie Musicals Bracket - Round Two, Day Four

Life's a cabaret, old chum.

We’re inching ever closer to a very important day, folks. That, of course, is in reference to my 39th birthday on Thursday, which means…well, it means I’m still in my thirties, thank goodness. But while we’re inching closer to that, we’re also arriving today at the halfway point of the second round of the Ultimate Movie Musicals Bracket.

Some very thematically appropriate matchups await you, so don’t delay. Start voting!

(3) The Music Man vs. (30) Dreamgirls: Listen, I really enjoy Dreamgirls, a film that probably was a bit too initially successful to be called underrated. (But it’s close.) But The Music Man is, as noted in the previous round, an all-time favorite of mine as a stage musical, and it’s translated to film pretty well. It’s a close one, but I give this to Professor Harold Hill. What do you think?

The Music Man

Dreamgirls

(14) Pennies from Heaven vs. (19) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg: These are each excellent films, but I’m going to vote for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Pennies from Heaven is very effective in aligning with the dreamscape fantasies of the 1930s captured on screen as well as in depicting the harsh realities of the Great Depression. But Cherbourg blends its fairy-tale visuals with a less cut-and-dried story a bit more solidly. Nothing against Herbert Ross, but Jacques Demy cannot be denied.

How do you vote?

Pennies from Heaven

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

(6) Cabaret vs. (27) Chicago: Two Best Picture winners. Two films based on musicals with songs written by Kander and Ebb. Two films directed by celebrated choreographers. Two films with one-word titles! And yet, one of these films was directed by the incomparable Bob Fosse, whereas Chicago was directed by a man who…well, he ain’t Fosse. Vote for Cabaret.

Cabaret

Chicago

(11) This is Spinal Tap vs. (22) The Blues Brothers: Here, too, is a matchup between films with some mild thematic similarities. Both of these are films reflective of a specific type of outrageous comedy in the early 1980s, and both of these are films that not only boast plenty of music and comedy, but plenty of performers whose successes are countless. This one’s a toughie, whereas the previous matchup isn’t. It’s close to a coin flip for me, but I’m going with the pair of brothers from Joliet, Illinois.

What do you think?

This is Spinal Tap

The Blues Brothers