A Movie Nearly Every Night: Grease

Grease (1978)
Dir: Randal Kleiser (yeah, what's he done for us lately?)
Starring: John Travolta, Olivia Neutron-Bomb, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway

The chicks will what???

Wow, what a lot of surprises. I forgot this movie had a beginning at the beach. For the past 30 years I've only watched it on television and usually starting at the girls' night when Marty Marachino is writing her love letters to her marines. Danny and Sandy meet at the beach ... oh yeah ... (heh -- her name is Sandy and they met at the beach hee hee hee)

On Bluray it was very pretty. I could almost see my old apartment in Los Feliz through the smog at the end (Whoo! John Marshall High School rules!).

So, let's face it, this movie is meant to inspire nostalgia, and it does. I wasn't alive in the '50's, but I was in 1978 and I sat on the couch in my pink Snuggie sipping Amareto and watched this movie that reminded me of junior high and made me feel like an adult all at the same time. It was a lot more adult than I thought. Kenickie's condom breaks because he bought it in the 7th grade?!? No wonder Rizzo thought she was up the pole. But they imply that a lot of sleeping around went on ("Cha Cha" the best dancer at St. Bernadette's with the worst reputation; Rizzo singing that at least she's not a tease), but Kenickie clearly hasn't had any action since he was 12. So did Rizzo and Danny have a "thing" and what was it? Doesn't seem like they went all the way. Or they did and it only took 15 minutes? It's crazy that we watched this as kids.

Which brings me to the Bluray sound: Like everyone else in 1978 we had the soundtrack, but I didn't really pay attention to it. Not like now. You hear everything on Bluray. Did those girls on stage at Sowers Middle School know that they were singing about a "pussy wagon" when they recreated Greased Lightning at the talent show? Not that it would make any more sense to them than "four barrel quads" and "chrome plated rods" but what about this: "With new pistons, plugs and shocks, I can get off my rocks."

Dude.

Anyway, always a pleasure to see Joan Blondell and Edd "Kookie" Byrnes. Kookie, Kookie lend me your comb...