Hi, this is Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, and I'm here with the Slate Spoiler Special podcast on the Sing-A-Long Greece, the re-release of the 1978 musical.

With me here in the studio is June Thomas. Hi, June.

Hey, Dana.

Who is Slate's foreign editor and one of my standbys when it comes to musical theater productions because you're a theater nerd.

And so, oh, one thing we should warn everyone before

we get started. I've been forgetting to say this, but this is a spoiler special. So if you

don't want to know what happens in the 1978 Greece, skip ahead until after you've seen it.

So June, we saw Greece together last night. It was a sing-along press screening, which is a strange

combination.

They did manage to rope some members of the public in, but it's obviously a little bit less

participatory than they're hoping things will be along the line during the re-release.

But what did you think of the movie and how did it hold up after all these years?

Well, it's funny. I think, I thought I had seen it on a big screen, but it was only seeing it that way that I realized I hadn't. I suppose I'd only seen it on television because obviously it came out, actually came out when I was in high school, but I didn't see it then. And it also was in that pre-d-D error. I mean, obviously it has been available for many years now, but, you know, there was kind of a gap between, you know, you had to wait for the appointment screening, you know, so it wasn't something you could just do on a nightly basis like these days. And it kind of is shocking. I mean, it's a musical or a movie that has this amazing life. And yet when you see it, it does, actually to me, I know you have a kind of a,

you have a higher opinion of it's the way it holds up than I do.

Oh, you didn't think it did hold up?

I mean, it did because it's obviously, you know, it's a one big joke, you know.

It's a movie you're not meant to take even slightly seriously, but, you know, the kind of the humor that, you know, it just felt a little

bit kind of creaky around the edges to me.

I will say that I guess the humor, I mean, things that were supposed to be actual jokes

didn't necessarily hold up, but I don't know that those were so funny at the time.

I think what I was surprised that held up were, well, all the songs, I think the music

and choreography and singing is all pretty great.

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