I adore the Bollywood musical, and Baz Lurhman used its conventions brilliantly, particularly in the “Hindi Sad Diamonds” number. All the movie needed was for the guy and girl to have a chase around a tree (the ne plus ultra of every Hindi musical).
2.Ewan Mcgregor and Nicole Kidman, besides being stunningly beautiful, both sing very well, despite not being trained vocalists. Jim Broadbent (Zidler) also sang magnificently, and I’m annoyed that the CD left out his number with Nicole Kidman.
I also have to be cynical and say that it’s interesting that Lurhman can basically repackage the plot of “La Traviata,” knowing that in this Britney Spears-besotted age that nobody in the movie’s target demographic has ever even heard of Giuseppe Verdi and probably think that Toulouse Lautrec was just a funny drunken dancing dwarf.
4.John Leguizamo is up there with Robert Carlyle and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the three greatest actors working today.
I also loved it as well. Extreamly well done. Although it took me a little while to get into the format of the film about 15 minutes or so I have to say that it’s probably one of the best movies I’ve seen in years…if not the best.
I loved the love songs on the back of the elephant, and laughed my ass of during the “Like a Virgin” scene. While I wasn’t as fond of “Romeo and Juliet” that this director did, I did like his “Strictly Ballroom”.
goboy–
How is the CD? I loved the music, but I think it would loose a lot without the background of scenes.
And I also didn’t know that Toulouse Lautrec was anything other than a character at first. I believe he was an artist, yes?
Oh did I ever love Moulin Rouge. It is one of my favorites of all time now, I’ve seen it twice so far.
From the moment those mirrors swing open, and the girls come out in to a surrealistic post-modern yet old-world dancing, moving, pounding, bohemian-parisian night-club I was charmed.
Actually I think it had me from the Absinthe fairy. I really must try some of that stuff, they have a legal version minus the hallucinogen that they sell in the states. Maybe I’ll go visit Coldy and try some of the real stuff.
I really like Jim Broadbent, and I absolutely must see Topsy Turvy now. I think that this movie is best described as “Gilbert and Sullivan on acid”. If anyone can beat that I’d like to hear it.
I saw one of Nicole Kidman’s old movies on television two or three weeks ago. It was called Dead Calm. I must say her face looked radically different. It was curiously pumpkin like and quite unlike the “cut and sculpted” one she wears today. She was unintimidating in the 1980s. It’s kind of comforting to know that she had to buy her beauty.
Oui. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901) was as famous
for his dissolute life as for his lithographs of the Moulin
Rouge. He was a living symbol of la belle epoque and Bohemian life in Paris.
The CD is terrific, but it left out Jim Broadbent’s numbers. There are two versions of “Nature Boy,” unneccesary in my opinion, and a killer rendition of “Diamond Dogs” by Beck.
It also took me a little while to get used to it. I knew there would be musical numbers (it is the Moulin Rouge, after all). But I had no idea it was an all-out musical. When Ewan McGregor started singing “Your Song,” I finally got what it was, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
And I’m glad that, for once, I didn’t know much about the story or the “making of” before I went in to see it. Very cool movie.