Sit down, John...and stop singing

The most disturbing news of this holiday weekend concerned neither sharks nor terrorists.  I learned that someone has released a director's cut of 1776.  The theatrical release was over seven hours long, or maybe it only seems that long because it contains not a single memorable song (and no one who can actually sing except John Cullum).  What it has is a strong screenplay by Peter Stone, adapted from his original book.  Woody Allen used to joke about Noel Coward acquiring the rights to My Fair Lady in order to remove the songs and turn it back into Pygmalion.  I would support anyone who wanted to do that here.  Or perhaps Tony Kushner, who  made the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment sexy in Lincoln, could write a new film on this story.  For such a momentous event in the history of the world, the American Revolution has not been well served by the movies.  The Devil's Disciple comes to mind (from a play by Shaw), and...I'm out.