There's A Horse's Patoot ...

As a (more or less) real man we aren't that fond of "the thea-tuh," & of course Broadway musicals w/ ninnies breaking into song for no apparent reason are anathema, abomination & just fucking stupid in the Bouffant book. (Read somewhere that the Japanese agree, & that Hollywood musicals were often exhibited in Japan w/ the pointless musical numbers simply excised. Sometimes we wonder how such a sensible nation lost that little war they started.)

Nonetheless, as an "irreverent celebrity analyst" ourself, we haven't been able to avoid noticing that revivals of Broadway chestnuts (Oklahoma, Gypsy, South Pacific, ad nauseum) were popular w/ the sort of middlebrow fuckwads from fly-over country who go to Manhattan to take in the sights & are willing to pay insane prices to sit still & witness drivel, & that this creative bankruptcy has at last reached the bottom of the creative barrel w/ musical versions of successful movies & comic books, & the hiring of hacks from the popular music world to crank out cheery & disposable musical pablum to placate the punters.

Now they've scraped through the barrel's bottom & are working on the mud below. Case in point:

Deadline reports that Barry Levinson — writer-director of the movie [Diner] that launched his filmmaking career, as well as those of the aforementioned stars — will write the book for the musical, while Sheryl Crow will handle music and lyrics.

We suppose we're saddened that Mr. Levinson has run out of new or interesting ideas, but here's a modest proposal for all hack-meisters: Unless you rammed all your Hollywood money up your snout & really need to put your spoiled offspring through college, give up the mansion/wasteful existence, retire somewhere less expensive & leave humanity the hell alone. Just because people still take your calls doesn't mean you have to continue expressing yourselves. Or breathing. Sheryl Crow? What the hell goes through their minds?