Movie Musicals That Got It Wrong: Hairspray
Hairspray (2007) is another movie that was on the border between Right and Wrong. However, unlike Across the Universe , I feel a bit more confident saying that Hairspray falls on the Wrong side. Hairspray began as a movie -- a quirky non-musical from 1988 starring Ricki Lake. From there, it became a Broadway stage musical, and then that stage musical became a movie. Obviously it's not unusual for movies to be remade, but for a remake to come out less than 20 years after the original? But then, that's the trend these days for movies to be remade every 10 years or so, though it usually involves a superhero franchise. The story focuses on an overweight teenager named Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky in the Ricki Lake role) living in Baltimore with her two parents. Tracy and her friend, Penny Pingleton, devote their lives to The Corny Collins Show , a local American bandstand that features teenagers dancing to the latest music -- of 1962. The date and the location are si