Owen breaks out his spirit fingers

And his jazz hands. And his happy feet.

So I largely agree with what you said about the musical. I think the breakdown of musicals—or at least of popular ones—into those two categories, showbiz musicals and teenybopper musicals, makes sense, as does your description of their respective characteristics and popularities. I haven't seen a whole lot of musicals myself, but I've probably seen enough to contribute my two cents on the subject.

I'd say that, broadly speaking, Once would fall into the showbiz category, since it's about musicians. But functionally it's very different from most examples of such musicals. The songs don't come from the characters just deciding, "Hey, let's sing a song about what's going on!" They come from the guy teaching the girl one of his songs in the music store, or her listening to a CD that he made her, or their recording his music together in the studio—i.e., things that people actually do in real life, as opposed to musical-fantasy life. (You could make the case that it's not even a musical as that term is usually understood; what would it be then, just a "drama with singing"?) In that respect, Once, A Prairie Home Companion, and the film version of Cabaret (I'll have to take you word on that one; I saw it as a kid and remember almost nothing) are alike in eschewing the escapist song-and-dance fantasy world in which most musicals reside. (That's not to say that the fantasy world is always sunshine and gumdrops, of course; I can't imagine anyone walking out of Fiddler on the Roof cheerfully whistling and snapping their fingers.)

And I think it's a shame that musicals on more serious subjects generally aren't more successful, lessening Hollywood's willingness to make them. I really enjoyed Sweeney Todd and Across the Universe the last couple years. (I haven't seen Rent, either the stage or film version; I wonder if the film's financial failure had something to do with stories revolving around AIDS not having the resonance in popular culture that they had in the '80s and '90s, since it's often not the death sentence it was then and we just don't hear a lot about it anymore.)

I'll hold off on addressing your more recent post on Network until later, when I have a little more time and energy to tackle it. I saw it a few years ago, but it didn't quite click with me at the time. However, your post inspired me to rewatch it on Netflix Instant Watch; I got a lot more out of it this time around, and there's certainly lot to talk about. Until then, I'll give those "Depression movies" a shot. One I thought of was Bonnie and Clyde, not only a great movie but a real turning point in film history. Barton Fink might also qualify. While neither of these are directly about the Great Depression, the period is an indelible element of both films. For some reason, I seemed to have an easier time thinking of movies about other countries' depressions than ones about our own times of economic woe. There's Bicycle Thieves (commonly though incorrectly known as The Bicycle Thief), about a man struggling to find and keep work in post-war Italy. From Japan, whose economic golden age in the '80s turned stagnant in the '90s and hasn't fully recovered since, I thought of Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers (trailer), about three homeless people who come across an abandoned baby—it also happens to be the best anime I've ever seen, and one of my favorite films, period—and Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale (trailer), which imagines a near-future Japan in economic and social collapse resorting to blood sport. Though of the films I've mentioned only Bicycle Thieves centers directly on economic depression, I think that they all very much reflect the time when they were made (in the case of Tokyo Godfathers and Battle Royale) or the period that they depict (in the case of Bonnie and Clyde and Barton Fink).

P.S. — Speaking of Hairspray, I haven't seen it, and I have to say I don't have a lot of interest in John Waters unless its his earlier, perverted, Divine-era movies. (I admit that I haven't actually seen them yet, but I'm working up the courage to watch Pink Flamingos, Mondo Trasho, or Polyester.) I do, however, love this announcement on behalf of theater management.