Archive for the ‘Magic Mike’ Category
My top 5 It’s Raining Men usages in film and television
Humidity’s rising, barometer’s gettin’ low
According to all sources the street’s the place to go
Tonight for the first time just about half past ten
For the first time in history it’s gonna start raining men
Can you hear it? Of course you can. It’s one of the stickiest songs I know of. And I curse the moment when the idea to write this post popped into my head. Once again it runs on repeat in my head and I can’t find the button to make it stop.
I’m obviously not the only one who finds it catchy. When look closer at it, it has had a lot of appearances in movies and television over the years. And no wonder: the song text as well as the bouncing, energetic beat works well with scenes that give conclusion and release of hidden emotions. What you can’t formulate in sentences, you can express in a dance.
First I’ll give an honorable mentioning to some of the other appearances that are listed on Wikipedia. I’ve got the feeling this list isn’t complete, so feel free to share in a comment if you have additions to make.
Movies:
Easy Money (1983)
Eraser (1996)
Scary Movie (2000)
Khabi Khusni Kabhie Gham (2001)
Stuck on You (2003)
Vampires Suck (2010)
TV:
The British sitcom Miranda: in the episode “The New Me” in series 2, the title character Miranda dances to the Weather Girl’s version of the song in the streets, later the song was heard in the episode’s credits.
The Simpsons: It’s Raining Men is Homer Simpson’s favorite song. In the episode “Fear of Flying, Moe pulls the record out of the jukebox and tosses it onto the street when he banishes Homer from his bar. It appears again in the episode “What to Expect When Bart’s Expecting” when Fat Tony’s gay horse plays it on a stereo.
And now over to the top list. This is my personal ranking of the It’s Raining Men appearances I’ve seen. It’s based on how well it fits into the context, what emotional impact it has and entertainment value.
5. Friends – from the episode “The one with Chandler’s dad” (2001)
Chandler and Monica go to see Chandler’s drag queen father playing at a club in Las Vegas. The scene is quite emotional and It’s raining men comes in towards the end as a comic relief around the 4 minute mark in this clip. It’s a shame it’s so short, I would have loved to see the whole song, with Chandler.
It’s raining men, Hallelujah, it’s raining men Amen
I’m gonna go out, I’m gonna let myself get absolutely soaking wet
It’s raining men, Hallelujah it’s raining men, every specimen
Tall blond dark and lean rough and tough and strong and mean
4. Magic Mike (2012)
It’s not one of the best dance numbers in Magic Mike and the version of the song is somewhat slow and unenergetic. But Channing Tatum’s hip movements – what can you say? Amazing!
God bless mother nature
She’s a single woman too
She took for the Heaven
And she did what she had to do
She taught every angel to rearrange the sky
And each and every woman could find her perfect guy
3. After the Wedding (2006)
This scene contains a lot more than just some random dancing at a party, which you know if you’ve seen the film. It conveys love and sorrow, the past and the present and the future, all brought together in one last bittersweet dance.
It’s raining men, Hallelujah, it’s raining men, Amen
It’s raining men, Hallelujah, it’s raining men, Amen
It’s raining, it’s raining, oh it’s stormy
I feel stormy weather moving in
About to begin about to begin
With the thunder don’t you loose your head
Rip off the roof and stay in bed
2. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
I don’t remember a lot of this movie, apart from the fight scene between Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Extra points for moving the fight into the street: “Street’s the place to go.” (Song starts around 1.50 in this clip)
God bless mother nature
She’s a single woman too
She took for the Heaven
And she did what she had to do
She taught every angel to rearrange the sky
So that each and every woman could find her perfect guy
Oh it’s raining men, yeah
1. Queer as Folk, UK version season 1, ep 8 (1999)
Sadly they only made ten episodes of this brilliant British TV series about a few gay men in Manchester. It’s Raining Men appeared in the final scene of the finale of the first season. And just how great doesn’t it fit in? Stuart and Vince have been struggling quite a bit with their on-off relationship throughout the series. Then finally they reunite, dancing ecstatically to It’s Raining Men, after sorting things out in a beautiful conversation across the dance floor where words are replaced by looks, smiles and nods.
It only lasts a brief minute (you can fast forward to 9:17 at the clip I’ve included), but watching it again puts just a big smile on my face as it did when I watched the series on Swedish television so many years ago. This is the unquestionable winner.
Humidity’s rising, barometer’s gettin’ low
According to all sources the street’s the place to go
Tonight for the first time just about half past ten
For the first time in history it’s gonna start raining men
It’s raining men, Hallelujah, it’s raining men, Amen
It’s raining men, Hallelujah, it’s raining men, Amen
It’s raining men, Hallelujah, it’s raining men, Amen
The original
We’ve come to the end of this It’s Raining Men odyssey in movies and television. In case you didn’t know it, It’s Raining Men was originally performed by The Weather Girls I’ll finish this post with a link to their lovely music video. Enjoy it one last time. And then try to get this song out of your head again. From my own experience it might take you a while.
This post is a part of a blogathon from the Swedish network Filmspanarna. The theme was “Rain”. Here are links to the other posts :
In English
In Swedish
Fiffis Filmtajm
Fripps filmrevyer
Har du inte sett den
Jojjenito
Mackans film
Rörliga bilder och tryckta ord
Is Mike magic only to women?
I’ve always found the idea of “one-gender-only” nights appalling.
By excluding half of the population people seem to think that they’ve gotten free passes to objectify, ridicule and crack terrible sex jokes that they normally wouldn’t dream of doing.
It’s the kind of humor that doesn’t make me cry with laughter, but rather whinge with embarrassment. I’m never sure of who is most humiliated – the guys on the stage (it’s always guys if it’s a “ladies night”) or the audience, but I’m leaning towards the latter. Overly excited drunk women screaming hysterically at the sight of a bare breasted guy make me feel utterly ashamed.
Approaching with caution
Coming from this you could say that I approached Magic Mike with caution. A movie about male stripping with the ex model and dancer Channing Tatum in one of the leading roles, didn’t that sound very much like a night for the ladies?
On the other hand it was made by Steven Soderbergh, who is a director that I have full confidence in. Over the years he has jumped into a wide arrange of genres, and he always seems to get it right, so chances were that he’d make something good out of the male stripping as well. Besides I had gotten a free prescreening ticket, so there wasn’t much to lose.
There is this thing about expectations: they always turn out to be wrong. There’s nothing that can kill the experience of a movie as efficiently as to go into it with really high expectations Prometheus, anyone? Too good marketing for its own good I’d say. The movies that I’m skeptic about on the other hand usually surprise me in a good way. Like Magic Mike did.
Few surprises
Actually there’s very little to be surprised about. When the film started, introducing the young Adam who arrives at a city without job and money and then gets introduced to the world of male stripping by the veteran Mike, I could make a fair guess about how the lives of those guys would develop, how their happiness curve would look and what kind of difficulties they’d get through, and it turned out that I was quite right. We’ve seen this story told a hundred times before.
But what did surprise me was how much I enjoyed the strip and dance routines. They looked pretty much professional, far away from the charming, a little awkward dance they did in The Full Monty (one of my favorite British comedies, so despite my denials about you might suspect that I have a bit of a fling for male strip dancing.)
It’s impressive, not the least the performance by the 43 year old Matthew McConaughey. Either he’s got a talent for this or he must have worked his ass off to get in shape and learn the routines. In any case he’s pretty amazing. As is Channing Tatum, but that was more to be expected.
Not just for women
The question is: is this movie only for women? Judging from some reactions I got when I mentioned it on Twitter, people seem to assume this. But I would say no.
I guess if you’re someone with very low self esteem or if you’re so insecure in your maleness that you never could hug a guy or freak out every time you see a man wearing string thongs, you’re probably not ready for it. But if that isn’t an issue, I can’t see why this movie shouldn’t be as enjoyable for a male audience.
If anything you could accuse Magic Mike to offer very little for women apart from the strip numbers. I’m honestly not even sure it would pass the Bechdel test. In the end this is the story about men who are out on a discovery trip, going through some rough events and getting out on the other side. The women are only there as an audience, as the voice of reason or as objects for desire.
However I don’t think the other women who attended the prescreening gave a crap about Bechdel tests. They liked to see half naked men dancing and they didn’t make any secret of it. For the excited cry-outs and clapping you would almost have thought we were attending a live show.
And I? Well, I didn’t join in the screaming and shouting. I might have if I had been in a group of friends on a night out, especially after a drink or two. But I wasn’t appalled or ashamed on behalf of the audience or on behalf of the strippers. Somehow it balances pretty well, neither glorifying nor ridiculing the men who make a living strip dancing.
I was entertained and a little moved and I’d happily recommend Magic Mike to anyone, provided you don’t hate watching dancing on the screen.
Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh, US, 2012) My rating: 4/5
The Velvet Café 