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The "Side Show" factor touches more than one point: the creatives.
Last Edit: Delvino 11:46 am EST 12/20/17
Posted by: Delvino 11:37 am EST 12/20/17
In reply to: Barnum movie musical isn't getting the 'Greatest' reviews - WaymanWong 11:11 am EST 12/20/17

The "Side Show" comparisons* are interesting, because the man who exploited the handicapped and eccentric is the villain in that piece (there are two, if you include Browning in the denouement); here he's treated as a weird flavor of humanitarian, unlocking the door for the world to learn from the marginalized and "different." That's not even close to the whole or partial truth about Barnum, but in fairness to those times, he had no idea that displaying "oddities" exploited rather than humanized. It's now being served up to be viewed through the 2017 prism. Maybe it works by omission, because apparently the film barely dramatizes even the racial implications, let alone the physically challenged. We shall see. It has a 40 on Rotten Tomatoes.

*Prior to these reviews, did anyone else notice that Bill Condon co-wrote the screenplay? (I didn't.) The director/writer who came to "Side Show's" revision? Did Condon join this project after working on the B'way revisal? (He now has co-authorship with the wonderful Bill Russell.) I Googled: The Hollywood Reporter first mentioned his involvement with "Showman" in October 2013. "Side Show" finished up at La Jolla in December of 2013.
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re: The "Side Show" factor touches more than one point: the creatives.
Posted by: BillEadie 04:20 pm EST 12/20/17
In reply to: The "Side Show" factor touches more than one point: the creatives. - Delvino 11:37 am EST 12/20/17

At the time, a big deal was made about Bill Condon’s participation in the La Jolla version of “Side Show,” both as director and as collaborator on a revisal.

Bill, in San Diego
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re: The "Side Show" factor touches more than one point: the creatives.
Posted by: peter3053 02:37 pm EST 12/20/17
In reply to: The "Side Show" factor touches more than one point: the creatives. - Delvino 11:37 am EST 12/20/17

I saw the trailer for this film before a movie I was watching, GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN. The movie was exquisite; told with surprise and insight. The trailer for SHOWMAN, by comparison, seemed to be a compendium of clichés both in dialogue and images. I really wondered what it said about the film that they couldn't even make the trailer seem fresh.

Guess I'll dust off the old Barnum DVD with Michael Crawford to get my flim-flam kicks this year.
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