I'm up at 3 a.m., can't sleep for coughing, and the film suddenly popped in my head and lifted my spirits-- I wanted to sing so badly despite my ruined voice: "You'll find happy hearts and smiling faces...." and "Well the best thing you could ever do is diiiiiiiieee". I began thinking how much fun it would be to mount a stage production of it, even a simple one where we play the songs and just do a band-focused version of it with just enough of the story to connect the songs. Sounds like one of the most-fun things I can possibly imagine if I found the right people for it. I'm about to put on the DVD but happened to be online and wanted to add a rating for it here. I gave it an 8 but might have bump it up a notch; think I've got RHPS at 8 but I like Shocky better, and for full disclosure I give 'Phantom of the Paradise' a 10 but won't argue about that, it's only my taste and not 'factual'. I adore Shocky, took a long time to track it down back in the '80s on VHS and copied it, and now have the DVD obviously and it was only five bucks but still one of my prized possessions. I think it's truly brilliant, despite anything about what it was 'supposed to be' and its distance in tone from RHPS, it's a very different beast but such an incredibly detailed film with excellent music which has been in my head for decades.
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