De Vil

Maddie, are your reading this? I wanna be Cruella for Halloween with Manila's dress and I'd drive all the way to PA to have you transform me into her, so you've been warned. Call Manila now.

Now, on to our scheduled post. I have not been to a movie theater in more than a year and a half. I don't think I'm ready to do that yet. Instead, we convinced a friend (who has been vaccinated for three months now) to come home and let us watch Cruella, the Cruella de Vil origin story, on her Disney+. BTW, I refuse to get Disney+ or Paramount+ or any of the myriad streaming services now jockeying for our attention. I'm bumming Hulu and Netflix and that's more than enough to keep me busy. 

So we watched Cruella at home, with popcorn and Swedish fish and some chips and guac. It was Disney and Chill, basically. To tell you the truth, I went into the movie kind of not expecting much. First, it's Disney. Second, I did not think Cruella needed a backstory. Evil does not need justification in fairy tales and children's stories. What would need justification would be the fact that it's mostly WOMEN who are evil in these stories, but that would require a whole college course. So on to Cruella.

What did surprise me about the movie was the flawless art direction and the overall feeling of being set sometime in the seventies and therefore having a slightly anarchic and Punk Rock feeling to it. That was enough to get me interested. The rest would just be icing on the fluffy Disney cake. Or something like that. I was ready to be entertained. 

I would have to say that as a kid, I loved to hate Cruella. She scared me a little. She was so over the top, so glam, so... evil, that you had no choice than to stan her while being slightly intimidated by her antics. She was loud, she was skinny and she chain smoked. What's not to love? She was a Drag Queen before I knew what a Drag Queen was. I had also loved the Glenn Close Cruella and the OnceUponATime Cruella. She's always been quite iconic as a villain and coming into this movie, I was kind of expecting Disney to sanitize her and neuter her intrinsic evil spirit. They kind of did. But I was too busy with the soundtrack and the fashion to pay much attention to it.

First of all, Emma Stone is super charismatic (and she needed to be, that was Emma Thompson in full scenery-chomping mode she was set against) and the story is serviceable and bland. It's Disney, people! And I have to say, Cruella is flashy and kinetic, but the more I watched it, the less I understood where the Cruella I loved (and feared) as a kid was coming from. It kind of didn't make sense, but hey. BTW, keep an eye out for Mark Strong, who plays the baroness's right hand. Yes, please.

I really thought the backstory was slightly preposterous. What kept me busy was the wardrobe and the art direction. Both stunning. Literally. The wardrobe, specially, seems to me to be a homage to Steve McQueen and Vivienne Westwood that will probably stand the test of time. They pack several dozen wardrobe changes (some of those pieces I wanted to wear then and there) in two hours. And the music! It's literally a who's-who of the late sixties and early seventies in bangers. If anything, you'd love that. Oh, and Florence and the Machine sneaks in a great Call me Cruella song at the end. Stay for the credits!

Here's a handy list of the soundtrack. Tell me it's not cool.

1. Call me Cruella (Florence + The Machine)  (Love it)

2. Bloody Well Right (Supertramp)  (more to them than Breakfast in America, people!)

3. Whisper Whisper (Bee Gees)  (so unappreciated)

4. Five to One (The Doors) (Duh, it's The Lizard King)

5. Feeling Good (Nina Simone) (Need I say more? Really?)

6. Fire (Ohio Players) (this was a radio staple, right?)

7. Whole Lotta Love (Ike & Tina Turner) (It's Tina, man!)

8. Livin' Thing (2012 Version) (Electric Light Orchestra) (this is a new version but I like it the same)

9. Stone Cold Crazy (2011 Remaster) (Queen) (Very, very appropriate)

10. One Way or Another (Blondie) (Duh)

11. Should I Stay or Should I Go (The Clash) (They needed some Punk rock to keep it real)

12. I Love Paris (Georgia Gibbs) (I had no idea who this was. Had to google it)

13. Love Is Like A Violin (Ken Dodd) (No idea, but it sounds good)

14. I Wanna Be Your Dog (John McCrea) (this was a surprise. Really)

15. Come Together (Ike & Tina Turner) (Has more soul than the Beatle's version. Upton, here's one for ya!)

Oh, bonus:

John McRea plays a David Bowie-Willam Belli clone with queer, fashionably firm hand. Props to Disney. Hey, credit when credit is due. And it apparently ruined a gay Repug's idea of Cruella, so props are due. 

And that's all. The movie was a Disney concoction, but I enjoyed it. They'll probably have millions tied to merchandise coming off of it, but I'd get the music. If anything, you can always play Name that Tune! as a drinking game while watching it. Now, that would be fun.

XOXO

P.S. check out the rest of the music in the movie:

"Inside-Looking Out" by the Animals

"She's a Rainbow", by the Rolling Stones

"Watch the Dog That Bring the Bone", by Sandy Gaye

"Time of the Season" by the Zombies

"I Gotcha" by Joe Tex

"These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra

"The Wild One" by Suzi Quatro

"Hush" by Deep Purple

"Car Wash" by Rose Royce

"Boys Keep Swinging" by David Bowie

"I Get Ideas" by Tony Martin

"Theme from A Summer Place" by Norrie Paramor and his Orchestra

"Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps", by Doris Day

"You're Such a Good Looking Woman" by Joe Dolan

"Smile" by Judy Garland

"Nightmares" by the J. Geils Band

"Gettin' Out" by the J. Geils Band

"Eternelle" by Brigitte Fontaine

"The Wizard" by Black Sabbath

"Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones

These songs are kind of incidental in the movie, but nonetheless they'd make a kick-ass mixtape.