Hey folks, harry here.... I'm about 3 hours away from the longest plane trip of my life thus far.... but before I go, I have to pass on these looks at Baz's latest film... MOULIN ROUGE. Seems it is one of those... some will love it, some will hate it films.... BUT I have faith in Baz... and he has all the way till next summer to tweak and make this film play like a coked up drummer on a Swing solo.... Baz's Adrenal-Musical stylings are a treasure for me.... I can not wait and from these descriptions... it sounds like he's made a damn fine one.... problem is, so many don't seem to love the genre like I do.... Here's MacGuyver....
Hi Harry... L.A. Spy MacGuyver here with a look at a movie that will probably be the hardest sell of next year, Moulin Rouge. Now I dont know what has been reported on this movie up till now, but I had no idea what to expect other than a comedy/drama starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGreggor. What I got was unlike any other movie that I have ever seen and enjoyed up to this point.
The movie is a movie musical about two lovers involved in a stage musical (one the star, one the writer) that is paralleling their real lives. All this takes place at the turn of the century at the infamous Moulin Rouge theatre. The director is the same person (gender neutral only because I'm to lazy to jump over to IMDB and look it up) who directed the most recent Romeo and Juliet (with Leo) movie, and what they appear to be trying to do here is do for movie musicals what Romeo And Juliet did for shakespear. R&J gave us modern settings and teen idols with shakespear's words, and MR gives us Pop songs and lyrics from the last 20 years or so(madonna, the police, nirvana) woven in as the dialogue and the songs, with more classical instruments and an old fashioned 19th century musical feel.
I am not a fan of Pop music, nor am I a fan of movie or stage musicals (in fact for the most part I detest all 3), but I have to admit that after a a rocky forst 15 minutes or so I got sucked in and my admiration for what they were succeeding in doing here grew throughout the film.
It was very smart of them to get you accustomed to this style of movie (in which the main characters often break into song, and most often a song you know) by making the first few musical numbers very funny scenes, and then slowly easing you off of comedy and into the fairly tragic story.
I'm trying not to spoil anything more so I'll try to sum it up quickly here. The editing is very choppy and and disorienting at first, but the technique either grows on you or is refined afte rthe first 20 minutes or so. The set design is amazing and will surely get at least an oscar nomination. The acting and singing by the stars is terriffic and impressive, but the movie starts off with a focus on some more annoying side characters (Led by what looked to be John Leguizamo - so big suprise that its kind of annoying) that I think may have put some people off.
Overall all I'd say that about 80 percent of the movie worked well at this point, and that is pretty good for a very complicated movie in what I think was the first (or one of the first) screenings. I just have no idea how the studio is going to sell this movie, especially as a summer movie since I think it opens in june. There were aobut 7 groups of people that I noticed walked out in the middle parts of the movie, and chatter afterwards was basically split between Adoring it and people who just didnt get it at all. I actually heard one girl saying "They totally ripped off a bunch of other songs, this was like the most uncreative movie I've ever seen." I just hope it doesn't end up as a flop with a large cult following like Rocky Horror, because if the masses of people will just give it a chance I think they will get sucked in as I did.
MacGuyver
and now for a brief preview look at our next review... here ya goes....
Hi Harry,
I'm first, I'm First!!!!!
Just got home from the Regal Cinema here in Simi Valley (about 30 miles from Los Angeles), where I saw a special screening of MOULIN ROUGE. I logged on as fast as possible so I could be first with a review (some other people were talking about posting).
Now I loved Romeo + Juliet, it was bitchin. I thought SUNSCREEN was totally cool and I was really excited to see what Baz did next. I was not disapointed. MOULIN is a wild, trippy ride that takes the musical and beats the shit out of it. Kinda like how Shakespeare could never be the same after ROMEO. It felt old and totally new at the same time.
I'm going to bed now but will write a full review tommorow for you. As a taster, where else can you go a wild nightclub, take drugs, meet Toulouse Lutrec have sex with Nicole Kidman and sing Beatles, Elton John, Madonna, Sting, Nirvana and Queen songs. The songs are sometimes sad, sometimes funny and sometimes just wierd in the way they are used. I don't think everyone in the audience got it, especially in the begininng which is really trippy, but most dug it and there was loud clappng at the end. I mamnaged to get into a group of people at the end who were kept behind for extra interrogation (they gave me $10, but i would have done it for free). Lots and lots of suits in attendance.
More to come.........
Keep up the good work. Love the site. So glad I can contribute at last. I'm First!!!!!
