Rereleases are primarily aimed at the generation that loved the movie first, and sure enough, my packed screening had its share of thirtysomething moms with kids. What surprised me were the gaggles of teenage girls in the front rows, lip-synching to every song. John Travolta was an irresistible hottie 20 years ago, and it seems that the post-Barbarino Travolta still gives the vapors to the Tiger Beat set. Maybe they'll go see Primary Colors next.

What did this cross-generational audience get for its inflation-adjusted trip to the 1950s via 1978? Grease still packs a wallop, from the opening disco theme, through the energetic and well-staged "Summer Nights," right up to "Hopelessly Devoted," Olivia Newton-John's long-nightie ballad. It's a tribute to the musical magnetism of the principals, Travolta and Newton-John, that the movie goes comatose for the hour or so of running time that neither has a song. The long dance-contest sequence serves only to prove that the art of editing dance had disappeared by the late '70s. But things perk back up when goody-goody Sandy decides to rat her hair and sing "You're the One That I Want." I defy anyone in their 30s not to sing along.

During its first life, I had only the vaguest sense that Grease was a nostalgia act. So one of the pleasures of the rerelease is recognizing the icons of the past who pop up regularly, from Frankie Valli to Frankie Avalon to Eddie Deezen, who played the annoying dweeb kid in a slew of B movies. (Here he plays Eugene, the annoying dweeb.) Those moms with small kids might remember that the nostalgia here doesn't come without quite a bit of crude sexual innuendo and some profanity.

I was prevented from regressing completely to my seventh-grade self, however, by an act of retroactive product dis-placement so audacious I almost didn't believe my eyes. When Danny confronts Sandy by the malt shop's jukebox after cutting her at the pep rally, a menu board with a Coca-Cola sign is clearly visible behind his head. Except that it's not--the red Coke logo in the middle of the board is obscured by a gray electronic box. Given that the T-Birds drink Pepsi a couple of times in the movie, I assume that Pepsi cut a deal with Paramount to cut out the competition. Not that Grease is such high art that the switch amounts to mutilation...but it certainly shows how times have changed.