GREASE -- Twentieth Anniversary
(Paramount Pictures)Director: Randal Kleiser
Producers: Robert Stigwood, Allan Carr
Screenwriter: Bronte Woodard, adapted by Allan Carr, based on the original music by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey with "Grease" music and lyrics by Barry Gibb
Director of Photography: Bill Butler
Dances and Musical Sequences: Patricia Birch
Editor: John F. Burnett
Cast: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway, Barry Pearl, Michael Tucci, Kelly Ward, Didi Conn, Eve Arden, Joan Blondell, Edd Byrnes, Alice Ghostley, Dody Goodman and Sid Caesar
Quick Review: The best movie to come out so far in 1998 is 20 years old. It's a musical set in a time 20 years earlier than that -- the '50s the way we all wish they were. Oddly enough, GREASE has been popular as a stage show and movie not only in the United States where you might expect nostalgia or American fantasy to make it attractive, but it also is internationally popular. Part of that is the dominance of American culture, but most of it is the reason we like it so much: a score that transcends generations, stars that were big in 1978 (with John once again on top in 1998 and Olivia an admired figure after her successful battle with breast cancer), and the shared fantasy of the teenage years we all wish we had had. Since it was intentionally set in an earlier time to begin with, it's no less modern today than it was a couple of decades ago. The only difference is that Travolta's once again thin. His cool popularity ought to bring in the audiences -- young and old.
Rating (on a four-star scale): 
Interview with Olivia Newton-John.
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