Grease 2

Also, top mentions must go to the T-Birds, especially Chris McDonald as Goose. We also get a shot to see Peter Frechette, the villain from Animal House, sing his heart out before he started getting thrown down flights of stairs in Twisted Sister videos. However, it is Zmed who, over the years of repeat viewings, has clearly become the backbone of whatever lasting appeal the film has garnered. Johnny Nogarelli keeps his cool going full tilt while allowing inadvertent reveals of humanity, using the style to transcend the dread of the mundane. He is what pushed me into a zipper-dripper leather jacket in high school with Dracula hair to match. Zmed completely owns the role and is fun, fancy-free, and cool in a timeless way.

“…Zmed completely owns the role…”

But it’s the music that makes a musical, and Grease 2 has some great songs, to the point where I hunted down a vinyl copy of the soundtrack in New York City while in college. The second tune on the first side is the white-hot wall of “Cool Rider,” the greatest song of the entire Grease franchise. No other piece of music so perfectly captures the central hunger of what drives these people to submit to the caste system of coolness of high schoolers. It is a system that keeps people elevated yet frustrated, yet everyone wants in. However, the songs don’t work as well on record as they do in the context of the film. This is because Birch makes the frames dance. Seldom do movement and melody tie together in such a strong sinew, all part of the timeless power of the picture.

The only atrocity present occurs in the closing credits, where the Segal twins, Jean and Liz, are credited as “Sorority Girls.” First off, where do sororities come into play in a high school setting, even if all the actors are almost in their 30s? And for a franchise that gave names to just about every speaking part, to not do so for the Segal sisters at all when they have more screen time, lines, and numbers than any other student, excluding Michael and Stephanie, at Rydell High is criminal. The twins represent everyone who isn’t a T-Bird or Pink Lady. They also went on to star in their own sitcom, Double Trouble. I have seen every episode of that show, as it was the only sitcom that ever once reenacted a sequence from Five Easy Pieces. If they could digitally change the credits to give them some kind of name like the Fabrizio Twins, then Grease 2 would be the perfect picture it has always secretly been.