That’s a pretty brave thing to say in this year of craptastic movies! 
But we still haven’t had the December rush of Oscar contenders, as studios rush to get their junk in New York and LA so they can fail to get nominated.
the acadamy hasn’t picked the real best film in years, just do what i do and see their picks as what’s NOT the best film
People don’t think the appropriate movie won Best Picture? I’m shocked! Absolutely shocked!
Next thing you’ll be telling me that the Grammys do not in fact reward musical excellence.
So Chicago has all of these things yet dispite this its been running at the Adelphi Theatre in Londons West End since Oct of 97? Yes your so right in your analogy of Chicago that the thousands of people whove seen it since then all disagree with you.
Just because you dont like a film, that doesnt mean it
As for Lord of the Rings and best picture, personally I think it should have won the last two years running, and I would hope ROTK will be of the same standard, but I dont think it will win anything. Movies like LOTR never do.
Chicago was good, but not great.
If Return of the King is as good or better than the last two movies, it’ll be the best picture front runner, IMHO.
That obviously does absolutely nothing to prove that a movie based on the stage musical was a great movie. “Annie” has been on stage since time immemorial and has been watched by zillions of people, but the movie still blew chunks.
RickJay when I said all of these things I meant the same songs character and storyline. If his problems with Chicago had been based only about how it was portrayed on the big screen I could understand it, just wasnt his sort of thing. But it wasnt, he said the Story, Characters and Songs were ‘trite’. Thats why I compared it with the Musical.
as in the Stage musical… Sorry!
coughGladiatorcough
Have you actually seen the play? It did look rather at times because of the camera work (there was some spoofing of the “Dance of the Reporters” scene because there were so many cuts). Although I don’t know why this makes it a better or worse movie. If it works, it works. It’s not a filmed play, though, if you’ve ever seen one, they look very different from Chicago. All that said, I would’ve gone for The Pianist. I think the Academy may have wanted to go with a film that made people happy and also not give too much acclaim to Polanski.
Are you in the academy? Because you talk like your in it (BTW what was the name of that film that won Best Picture that year?)
But you do have a pointy Titanic and Gladiator really made you think after all :rolleyes:
IMHO i find the academy has a strong favorable biased toward certain genres, grudgingly acknowledges others and avoids some like the plague when it comes to giving the award for best Picture)
I lost interest in all award ceremonies after Christopher Cross’ Sailing beat out Pink Floyd’s The Wall for best album in the Grammys. Now there are just too many of them, killing any credibility left that these ceremonies had in my mind.
I like Chicago, and musicals in general. My mom took us to a lot of them in the 60s. I didn’t care for Chicago’s MTV-like quick cuts that seem the norm for any type of music/visual work these days, but I ran out the next day to buy the soundtrack. As for it being unrealistic, well that’s what suspension of disbelief is about. You can’t tell me that LOTR or the Star Wars films are realistic.
As for Moulin Rouge, I thought that Chicago was a much better movie. Though I thought the use of modern popular music was clever, Moulin Rouge just left me with a creepy feeling, like I wanted to shower to wash away the dirt afterward. And though I thought Nicole Kidman looked hot, I didn’t find any of the characters very likable.
And I agree that Annie sucked, but I do enjoy watching the scene where all the maids are dancing, showing off their gartered stockings.
Ok, which version of Annie are we discussing? The older one, done in the 70s or 80s with Carol Burnett I LOVED. The new one, with Kathy Bates? Bites, hard.
Moulin Rouge? Loved it!!
Chicago? Loved it too!
~grins~ Moulin Rouge was different, as even posters who didn’t like it have stated here. I can’t think of another movie that was approached that way.
Chicago was good. I found myself tapping along with every song, and really enjoyed the movie. However, though I like Renee Zellweiger, I was afraid for her bones through most of the dance numbers, she looked so brittle and …non fleshy. And I felt the costumes didn’t flatter her very much.
And I read somewhere that Chicago was loosely based on two women that actually were in jail in the 20’s for similar crimes, though the “Roxie”, named Beluah (sp? and poor woman!) never made it in show business.
Unlikable characters? They were really supposed to be, weren’t they? I’m confused about your warehouse statement. When you have a lot of dancers, you need a lot of space to work in. thought they did ok considering most of the scenes were supposed to be in a jail!
As for realistic? Umm…Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, ET, Gone with the Wind. These aren’t movies that are written to make you think, or analyze, to reexamine your life and purpose for being. They are entertainment, pure and simple.
~J
My guess is that Chicago won Oscars because A) it made boatloads of cash and B) wasn’t confusing and C) made Hollywood feel good about Hollywood being about feeling good.
Plus it has the cashet of coming from “the stage.”
Just thought I’d chip my two bits in here… I just saw Chicago. Eh. shrugs
Wasn’t a great film. Wasn’t a terrible film. Had some good points and some very slow parts. The musical numbers, while all very skillful, got a bit stale after a while. Even my wife, who’s a bigger fan of musicals than I, started going “enough already” at about the halfway point.
Good stuff: I really liked Queen Latifah in this, and Richard Gere was surprisingly good. Almost in his element, I’d say. The singing and dancing was all uniformly good. The puppet number stood out, to me, as the best performance and the most clever staging. “Mr. Cellophane” was a nice little surprise buried in the movie, but too quickly forgotten and overshadowed by more of the same brash numbers.
Not-so-good stuff: The “caged heat” (murderesses) number was overdone and too long. Too many performances overall, not enough story. Catherine Zeta-Jones performed well but acted poorly. I never really cared about any of the characters enough to invest much in the film. The whole musical-as-fantasy-life thing was done, and done better, in Dancer in the Dark.
End result: I’m not sorry I saw it. It was mostly filler for a couple hours, with a few high points and a few points of “can we move on now?” While I don’t think the film – ah, how was it put? Ah yes – “sucked monkey ass,” as the OP said, I do agree that it didn’t deserve Best Picture. Two Towers was a more impressive cinematic achievement and The Pianist was a better film.
Sorry to resurrect the thread, but I didn’t think my thoughts on the film merited starting a new one. Carry on.
Not even looking it up, it was Annie Hall. Do you want me start quoting from the film word for word? I’m sure as many people can quote Annnie Hall as Star Wars.