5-minute musicals: Fake your way to expertise

There’s almost no way you won’t encounter the following scenario if you end up at anyone’s halfway decent secularist holiday party this year: some gay guy getting the Holy Spirit about Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls.” It’s kind of already reached frenzied proportions; she deserves the praise, of course, but it’s a little crazy, really, for a movie that’s only getting a limited release this week and doesn’t open nationwide until Christmas Day.

But that’s what you’re in for. Trust me on this one. And you don’t want to let down your party chat guy. He needs someone to gush to. So you have to step up your musicals game. And you can do it by responding with something as simple as, “Well how does her version of ‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’ compare to CZ Jones’s ‘Cell Block Tango’ in ‘Chicago’? That’s what I want to know.” It’s that easy.

You see five minutes of each film — this stuff gets leaked onto the Internet all the time, and the classic ones are heavy rotation on TCM — then you toss out a compare/contrast question and let the other person blather on about it. Meanwhile, you get to keep drinking.

So what if you’ve only ever seen “Grease”? To talk about any movie musical, all you really need is to see the signature number, the most famous bit, the one they show on awards telecasts, the one most people talk about. Then you’re good. And if you haven’t seen “Grease” then the bit you need to see is “Beauty School Dropout” with Frankie Avalon as an angel and Stockard Channing in giant curlers and a baby-doll nightie. You thought it was maybe “Summer Nights” or the part where the car flies off into the sky, but it’s “Beauty School Dropout,” really, for the drugginess alone.

A cheat sheet is in order. One movie, one number, you’re good. And yes, it’s incomplete. Back in the day they made a lot of musicals. Let someone else write the book…

The 1970s

“Jesus Christ Superstar”
Speaking of druggy, let’s say you’ve never had the opportunity to witness this hippies-getting-high version of The New Testament. The title song in “JCS” is one LSD-soaked sugar cube and two strokes of body-paint away from being admitted to an emergency room. Madonna hoisting her appropriating self onto a sparkly disco-cross has nothing on this sequence.

“Tommy”
Check out the post-“Pinball Wizard” moments as Ann-Margaret erotically writhes around in a roomful of baked beans. Then think about how she got an Academy Award nomination for this.

“Lost Horizon”
This one is extra credit. You can impress Burt Bacharach nerds by wondering aloud whose idea it was to stage a dance number in a library with Sally Kellerman and a pregnant Olivia Hussey, a dance number where the “dancing” amounts to posing on tables and climbing up and down ladders.

The 1980s

“Can’t Stop the Music”
Notorious for being a PG movie that features full-frontal male nudity in the “YMCA” number. But that’s not the one to look at. “YMCA” is the new “Hokey Pokey” at wedding receptions, impressing no one. It’s the “Milkshake” bit you want, the one with children decked out as the loveable Village People, who then magically transform into the five adult fetish representatives in sparkly white versions of their signature costumes. Then Valerie Perrine lolls around in a giant champagne glass. The song is all about milk. Yes, really, just milk.

MORE ON ‘Dreamgirls’ Jennifer Hudson is shocked by her success Review: ‘Dreamgirls’ not quite a showstopper 5-minute musicals: Fake your way to expertise 5Top: Best movie musicals For your consideration: Jennifer Hudson Oscar favs include ‘Dreamgirls,’ ‘Queen’ ‘Dreamgirls’ shines spotlight on girl groups

“Xanadu”
There’s an ELO song in this movie where Olivia Newton John and some guy turn into animated fish. I saw it all in its theatrical run. People threw things at the screen during this song. That makes it the best part of the movie.

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