Cinematic WTF

A tuxedoed Gene Kelly, age 68, roller-boogies. In split screen. Then triple-split screen. And then a great gold X swells up and over him, a chintzy computer effect suggesting that he has just botched a Family Feud answer, and then we're treated to that year's girl: Olivia Newton-John, she of the windswept hair, spangled pantsuit and iffy falsetto. She croons breathily and cavorts anemically on a red-step stage smack in the center of the roller rink, her Sinbad flare slacks tucked into her boots like jodhpurs made from old-school foil Wendy's wrappers. Skaters zip past, kama sutrad atop one another, and then whoever's driving this train floors it something fierce, not just hauling ass to crazy town but gunning for a full crazy promised land: Xanadu. White-gloved hobo clowns do some kind of marionette dance, tightrope-walking umbrella fighters strut and stretch just six feet above the ground, and as Newton-John and company kick it up on a stage Spirographing with Simon-game color effects, their costumes switch and switch and switch — now they're tiger-leather carhops, now they're cowgirls so fringed that they look like documents run through a shredder. And, seriously, this isn't even Xanadu's best scene. Don't miss the chance to savor all this crazy — as well as the death of narrative coherence — for free at 8:45 tonight on the rooftop terrace of the Kansas City, Missouri, Public Library's Central Branch (14 West 10th Street). Xanadu is just part of the library's Off-the-Wall Film Series, which promises a musical every third Friday all summer long. Still to come: the more sensible Hairspray, Grease and Purple Rain.— Alan Scherstuhl
Fri., May 16, 8:45 p.m., 2008