Cabaret Revival.

"Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
Fremde, etranger, stranger.
Gluklich zu sehen, je suis enchante,
Happy to see you, bleibe, reste, stay.

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome
Im Cabaret, au Cabaret, to Cabaret"

I have heard glowing reviews for the Cabaret revival on Broadway starring Alan Cumming. 

A monstrous performance 

in the role that Joel Grey made his own in Bob Fosse's original adaptation of a book by Christopher Isherwood's 'Goodbye to Berlin'.  




Cabaret is one of my favourite films, but its successful revival made me think about the ubiquity of the revival genre in our media at present.

Viral marketing?

We have the deadly, killer virus, this year's model is the 'Ebola virus', even more deadly than 'Bird Flu', even more deadly than 'AIDS', even more deadly than 'Mad Cow Disease'.

It is brought to you in all its horror in technicolour on your local 24 hour News Channel everywhere. Thank God that journalists have a social conscience and a feel for global responsibility.

Do people eat more popcorn when they are afeard of dying of bubonic plague?

We have the continuing popularity of American detective series, revived with fast-cut editing, raised eyebrows, African American leads, the inscrutable Asiatic side-kick.  Nothing like a good cadavre.

The concentration on death, decay, horror is becoming obsessive.

We have a rash of Superhero movies:

Batman returns ad infinitum
Spiderman spins another web
Captain America
Thor, Hulk
Catwoman (another African American lead there)
Mission Impossible (brought to you to finance the Church of Scientology?)
The Avengers
The Invincibles
The X men
Ironman
Scooby Doo

And so many more I can't be bothered to Google.

STOP, STOP the horror.

We have eternally young leading men and ladies (did they never see She or Brazil?) with their skin stretched to 'perfection', the salient pectorals, nipples, the perfect dentistry.  They are perfectly selling perfect dreams of perfectly charitable acts of beauty.

We have an ever-gruesome selection of slasher movies did you see Saw, Saw, Saw, Saw, Saw, Saw....?

We have a very popular recent medieval revival genre of torture, beheading, stoning, crucifixion, brought to you curtesy of smartphone and Youtube or hidden poorly by the good guys of the CIA. 

Disenfranchised, disenchanted, dislocated Call of Duty maniacs are moving up to a new level of horror by exporting their alienation to Syria.

Yes Andy Warhol was right we can all attain infamy. Beheading gives you posthumous fame for about a week.

Hurrah for crusades!

Crucifixion is logically followed with crusade or jihad according to what perspective you put on it. 

Hurrah for revival!!

An Oscar for Mel?

Mel Gibson after a career in detective movies surpassed his peers by including Superhero, Man in Skirt, Redskin, Scot, English hating, Crucifixion, Torture, and Beheading in one movie - Braveheart.

He then went and confused us with drunken rabid anti-semitism before being generous and giving up movies. (I pray, I pray).

We have movie franchise derived from food franchise. 

Music franchise is now U2, Beyoncé, The Rolling Stones or any other dead artist.

We have education franchise looming a Starbucksisation of learning - Harvard uber alles. 

Hurrah!

We have body franchise. 

You need long legs and unasiatic eyes to make it now in some asiatic countries.  

Brazilians think nothing of Brazil on the way to be stretched - have they never seen the movie?

Come on people, shake yourselves out of this madness.

REVIVAL is not VIE, it's MUMMIFICATION.

We are getting stuffed alive people!

Let's use our imagination to look beyond

Cabaret.

Captain America.

The Passion of Christ.

The Big Mac.

The Big Bucks.

From here to Eternity.

PLEASE.  PLEASE.

STOP the bloody REVIVALS.

We even have LePen in a skirt and Sarkozy 2 lining up in production.

I call on the almost forgotten Marlon Brando to testify:

Anyone remember Apocalypse Now?

Who will take responsibility for deconstructing this pathetic horror show?