JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAMCOAT

STRAIGHT TO VHS HOME VIDEO - NOV. 1999

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a screenshot from the film. the narrator is passing joseph his coat and they are both smiling. they are in a darkened school auditorium.

i am convinced i've reached some sort of parallel understanding of the world and of this film because nobody else seems to understand it like i do. this film might make me stop being agnostic because theres some higher power preventing people from seeing the very obvious truth about this film. "Like what? it's a quarter of a century old and it's just some silly bible-bashing kid's film about the importance of god or something." WRONG!

this film is about the importance of GAY / LESBIAN SOLIDARITY.

Travel back in time... to the gayest romp this side of the Nile! When Joseph's [Donny OSMOND] father, Jacob [Richard ATTENBOROUGH] gives his son a fabulous rainbow coat, Joseph's brothers are furious! They sell him to slavery out of jealousy, but Joseph's hard work and affinity for unravelling the unconcious lands him at the top of the food chain. Will he forgive his brothers for their misdeeds, or will they pay the price?

a screenshot from the film. the narrator is lounging on the pharoah's throne. she has an incredulous look on her face.

This is Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's collaborative debut. They wrote the musical together in 1968 for a local primary school, and it was initally only 15 minutes long! ALW would have been about 17 when he composed it. Over time, they built on the score, and when they took it to the edinburgh fringe in 1972, it was still only 35 minutes. the first performance of the full, modern edition was in 1974 at the Haymarket Theatre, and it has since gone on to be a plague upon the musical theatre canon.

It's so hard to actually vocalise why i love this film. it is not a good film. it's cheesy and old and made in kind of bad taste but it ended up being incredible. my favourite character is (and always has been) Maria Friedman's Narrator. what an icon. what a threat. she is SO incredible i aspire to be THAT cunty. she ruined joseph's life but she is also his best friend. she's omniscient. she keeps manifesting cocktails and food out of thin air and treating this poor kid's familial breakdown like it's the best entertainment she's ever seen. and she's right because it is.

a screenshot of a letterboxd review that reads: this is a nearly perfect film to me sorry. the reviewer awarded it four and a half stars.

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