Theatrical Review: Christopher Robin

Date: Sunday, August 5th 2018
Location: Stroud Mall Cinemark Theater
Time: 11am
Party: 2 (my sister and I)

Director: Marc Forester (interesting array of credits, but "Finding Neverland" tells me he was the right director for this because they deal with similar themes)
Writers: (too many to list LOL, but have to give credit to A.A. Milne and Ernest Shepard for giving us these beloved characters in the first place)
Composer: Jon Brion and Geoff Zanelli

Cast:

Christopher Robin- Ewan McGregor
Evelyn- Hayley Atwell
Madeline- Bronte Carmichael
Giles Winslow- Mark Gatiss (he played Mycroft to Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock? fascinating...)
Eeyore- Brad Garrett
Pooh and Tigger- Jim Cummings
Owl- Toby Jones
Piglet- Nick Mohammad
Rabbit- Peter Capaldi
Kanga- Sophie Okonedo
Roo- Sara Sheen

Duration: 104 minutes (+ 7 trailers... seems to be a trend at this theater, always 7 trailers...)

Write-up:

Introduction

Gotta say it is CREEPY at the mall this early on a Sunday. None of the stores are open and there's almost nobody around. The theater had a decent amount of people, maybe 15-20 and there weren't as many kids as I expected.

Kinda funny how I'm doing all this build-up with the stuff in the movie and the trailers as well, but the movie discussion itself, I'm probably not going to go into too much detail about.

The two of us had been seeing trailers for this for months and have wanted to see it. It's oddly been really difficult to get me to a theater lately because a) it's more than 5 minutes down the road like our old theater was and b) nothing out there holds any interest for me anymore... almost like RDJ's Sherlock where he's in his flat for a couple months after the Lord Blackwood case



Coming Attractions

None of which really looked that interesting to me. Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age (of 32, LOL)... seems to be a recurring theme... anyway, moving on:

House With a Clock in the Walls
...first of all, WORDY title, bleck! The PG rating says it was for sorcery, so I thought this would be another Fantastic Beasts trailer... nope, a kid goes to live with his uncle, Jack Black, and he learns about magic and there's apparently a clock in the wall just ticking away. I thought this would be like Poe's Tell-Tale Heart (although I think that's actually about a beating heart under floorboards... I never read the story as you can probably tell). There's a funny line in the trailer where there's this older woman in the house (I called her a Helen Mirren type) and she says something and Jack Black is like "that [some inanimate object I can't remember] talked" acting all surprised and crap in the usual Jack Black way. I was thinking I hadn't really seen him in any live action movie in some time. And the last one I remember seeing a trailer for was Goosebumps... funny thing about that...

Goosebumps 2
I didn't think the first movie did well enough to merit a sequel... I guess studios really are running out of ideas... there was a girl in this trailer wearing an Emma Swan red leather jacket and I really thought it was Jennifer Morrison from Once Upon a Time... nope, it's a younger actress I'd seen a few times before. I think she was a werewolf in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows and the Carrie remake. The story is about two boys finding a book that was never published and probably should have stayed locked away... you know where this is going... all Jumanji style, the characters from the books come alive and terrorize the town.

A-X-L
I thought this would be yet another Transformers movie (knock it off, Michael Bay, nobody cares anymore!) but it's a little closer to today's technology. A teenager finds a mechanical dog in a junkyard, but it has intelligence and can learn/obey commands kinda like Alexa, but without it taking back. And of course it's something developed by the government that they want back... the concept is interesting, but the storyline has been done before.

Wonder Park
I'm not entirely sure what this one is even about. It seems to be about a girl who's traveling alone in the woods and she finds a hidden theme park and she's tasked with bringing people back to it. And somehow this is being done by some studio other than Disney cuz this kinda looks like Fantasy Land from Disneyworld without it being Disney.

Smallfoot
Cute concept- it's about a society of Yetis (Bigfoot) in the mountains and to them, we (smallfoot) are legends. Then a hiker gets lost and one Yeti finds him and tells the others. But they don't believe him so he goes to find the humans and world collide. At least this one is kinda original and it seems to have a cast of well-known actors (none of which I can remember at the moment... man, this is really becoming a cynical post)

Dumbo
I'd heard this one was coming... directed by Tim Burton and supposedly the Internet went nuts when this trailer first came out. It's the first time I'm seeing it. It's very much a teaser trailer that only lasts maybe a minute with not much dialogue. We see Dumbo come out of the hay and his ears are huge. He's found by two kids and their dad is Colin Farrell (he's been popping up a lot lately in these types of movies... interesting, but in a good way). And they show Dumbo's mom Jumbo being carted off in a trailer and the two kids have to take care of him. Then the trailer ends as we see Dumbo about to take flight for the first time at the circus. I noticed that there is no Timothy the Mouse, who taught him to fly in the original cartoon... I don't know if they're doing this movie without him or what... but I kinda feel like he's a vital character.
Ok, I actually looked this up... there are no other animal characters in this... no Timothy or anyone else... it's focusing on the human perspective... :sigh: not sure how I feel about that. I only saw this movie maybe once in my life and for a kid, it's kinda traumatic where Jumbo gets shackled one foot at a time when she attacks kids for bullying Dumbo and she gets carted away somewhere and he's left alone. The humans in that movie were terrible characters... Tim Burton is also an interesting idea... I don't know how he and Danny Elfman will make this movie their own. But if they do the scene with the pink elephants on parade, where Dumbo gets drunk or something, it'd be extra creepy. I think Nostalgia Critic listed that as one of his "top 10 nostalgic mindf***s"

Mary Poppins Returns
We get to see a little more in this than the teaser trailers, but not much more. It starts with a kite that gets caught up in the wind and finds a boy and his father and they take it for a flight. And Mary Poppins comes down holding it, opposed to her umbrella. And there's one scene where Emily Blunt goes by a mirror and her reflection mocks her when she walks away.
Maybe it's the music playing in the background from the movie, but I was almost getting teary with this one the way I did with the Beauty & the Beast trailer... omg, that was so good! I'm not nearly as nostalgic about Mary Poppins, but I have a really good feeling about this movie. And Emily Blunt is sure to get great in this role.
Ok, that's one that looks interesting to me... scratch my initial statement...

The Main Event

Synopsis
So we start how we often do: Christopher Robin with his friends and they're preparing to say goodbye to each other, but they all promise not to forget each other.
We start to flash forward and we're treated to a montage of Christopher Robin growing up. He's in private school and his father suddenly passes away so he must become the man of the house. He meets his future wife, goes off to war and eventually comes back to a 3-year old daughter and he works for a luggage company as head of logistics. He more or less becomes a workaholic who doesn't spend any time with his family.

Enter Winnie the Pooh, who finds the magic portal Christopher Robin once came through and they meet for the first time in maybe 20-30 years. Christopher Robin is forced to work over the weekend to solve a logistics issue so a huge chunk of the workforce isn't laid off, which is why he misses more time with Evelyn and Madeline. And meeting Pooh, of course he's in a rush to get him home so he can resume work. But once they get to the 100 Acre Wood, they've lost track of everyone else and whether he wants to or not, Christopher Robin winds up looking for them. And along the way, he does find his inner child, which he had lost over the years where he'd had to be become a responsible adult.

Acting, Writing and Adaptation
As far as the writing goes, it's really well done. All the characters pretty much act the way you'd expect them to. While Christopher Robin is happy to see old friends again, he is very much trying to hold onto his new life and not lose sight of responsibility. There's always going to be a moment in these types of movies where a fight happens between characters for wanting different things. But they handled this well with him and Pooh- this is a kid's movie, after all. It's not like he's going to curse him out or say anything demeaning to him.
It may be a little cheesy how Christopher Robin winds up playing again... apparently everyone is hiding because they think a Hufflelump is out to get them and he pretends to scare one away... in anything but a Disney movie, how he acts would be considered more than a bit ridiculous. Yet here, it works... at least I think so.

For the most part, the characters are just how we remember them. Owl is a know-it-all, but he's not as annoying as I found him in the Kingdom Hearts games where he was pretty much a tutorial giver. Toby Jones was the perfect voice for him. Of course they had Jim Cummings (one of the most versatile voice actors ever... I'd known his name as long as I'd been learning names) playing Pooh and Tigger and doing them as well as you'd expect from him. I read one review that was maybe a bit cynical, but he had one thing right where Pooh kinda looks like zen riddles. He is a bear of little brain, but he knows a lot more about life than you'd expect.
And Tigger is just Tigger... we even get that dang song where he says why Tiggers are wonderful... just HAD to have that in the movie. And like with the old cartoons, of course he does something kinda stupid to screw up the story and the other characters have to go through the portal to London to make it right, but once we get to the end of it, you can't argue with the result because it saves Christopher Robin as part of his family as well as his job.
Brad Garrett was a good fit to voice Eeyore. However, I'm a little conflicted with how he was presented as a character. Some of his sarcasm was pretty funny and the audience got a kick out of them. (One of those moments was mocking Tigger's song pretty much saying "Not again..."). I mean, we all know Eeyore is very downtrodden and depressed and sarcastic. But some of his lines, to me, come off just a tad passive-aggressive just short of being mean-spirited. It's a little difficult to describe unless you actually see it for yourself, but he didn't quite sound like this in his original form.
Piglet is true to form, but it's hard hearing anyone else play him other than John Fielder, who passed away some time ago (2005, wow... that long?). Nobody could play Piglet better, but I really liked how the character was pretty much the same as we remember... other than the fact he was dressed in blue instead of his iconic pink/red outfit.
Kanga and Roo didn't have as many lines, but their actors nailed their parts.
I think the only voice actor I didn't like was who they got to play Rabbit. I think because it was a very British actor. And the cartoon really didn't have any British actors other than Christopher Robin himself. But the story did take play in England, so that's probably what they should have done in the first place. The actor played one of the many incarnations of Doctor Who, so definitely fitting for this role. But to me, it just sounded weird and out of place. (Maybe because Rabbit was my favorite character cuz I loved rabbits as a kid...)

And Ewan McGregor was great in this role. It feels like a long time since I'd seen him and I hadn't seen him in anything like this. Where he's an everyday man who happens to have animated stuffed animals for friends.
HIs wife and daughter were done well also. Of course we know Hayley Atwell as Agent Carter so it was cool to see her again in a normal role, but it's another where her loved one fought in the war. (I don't know if this was World War I or II in this particular movie). And Madeline was adorable as his daughter. He wants her to go to the same private school he did and to study all the time. But all she wants to do play as a kid and read stories like Treasure Island at bedtime, opposed to dusty old history books.
The fact Evelyn and Madeline get to meet the character and interact with them was great and really made the whole thing worth it at the end.

Final Comments

Overall, you get what you pay for. It's a live action Disney movie with beloved characters we all grew up with. They got a good story true to form and they were portrayed really well. And the story was well-written and didn't color outside of the lines too much to take away from the nostalgia and everything we grew up with. So I thought it was nice and sweet. And certainly well worth leaving the house and spending money on a movie ticket for. Not much is getting me to the movies anymore, so I thought it was worth it. Is it worth a movie ticket for other people? It's up for them to decide, I think.
It's kinda too bad that the movie only made $24.5 million... but nowadays, unless it's a Marvel or Star Wars movie (at least pre-Solo... still didn't think it was THAT bad where they had to derail all of the side-mode movies to regroup), movies aren't bringing in lots of money anymore. Half of it is lack of originality, but the other half is probably this ridiculous trend of streaming off Netflix and similar companies. I went around looking for a new CD and not only did nobody carry it, but the CD collections at all the stores but FYE were very minimal. Some dude probably my age or younger at Best Buy said they stopped selling CD's cuz one CD is worth 3-months of Spotify. If I was more secure with myself, I probably would have started an argument with him over it. I don't buy many CD's anymore, but that's so not the point :P Anyway, that's it.

Score: A- (it wasn't anything spectacular or ground-breaking, but I liked it enough where I'd watch it again for sure)

Theatrical Review: Beauty & The Beast

Date: Sunday March 19 2017

Time: 1:30pm 3:55pm

Party: 3 (mom sister and I)

 

Director: Bill Condon (of Breaking Dawn and Dreamgirls fame)

Screenwriters: Stephen Chbosky (wrote "Perks of Being a Wallflower", the book as well as directed the movie that Emma Watson co-starred in) and Evan Spiliotopoulos

Composer: Alan Menken (lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice)

Cast:

Belle- Emma Watson 

The Beast- Dan Stevens 

Gaston- Luke Evans

LeFou- Josh Gad

Maurice- Kevin Kline

Lumiere- Ewan McGregor

Cogsworth- Ian McKellan

Mrs. Potts- Emma Thompson

Duration- 130 minutes ( +2 trailers)

 

Opening remarks 

It's finally here!

I almost feel like it'd been looking forward to this movie than any other- at least in a long time. I think the thing that came closest to this for me was twilight. Seeing that world I came to love in the books and its characters come to life.

As a kid I think Ariel was my favorite Disney princess- even if i always cry at the end of the little mermaid. (The goodbye at the wedding always kills me).

But beauty and the beast was always something I enjoyed but didn't have any major fandom over. But I will say as I've gotten older I love this story so much more. I see myself in belle more than any other Disney princess- we have the same appearance (brown hair brown eyes- that's the one thing about Emilie de Raven's once upon a time portrayal of belle that's amiss for me- she doesn't have brown eyes!!- otherwise she's amazing and perfect in the role).

And of course there's Belle's love of books. I really didn't get to love books as much as I do now until I was in my 20s- where I always had to be reading or was looking forward to the next installment of the series I was reading at the time. And I only recently "got" in the last couple years that people in Belle's town thought she was weird cuz she was always reading. Like what the hell is wrong with that?! Seriously...

 

Anyway-- it should be noted that we didn't get to the movie until almost 4.

We completely screwed up by not double checking the movie times. We got there and the movie had already started. We thought it was 1:30 and it was really 1:05.

Like wtf! Who starts a movie at such a weird time? (But I suppose if I went through old ticket stubs I might find some really random times).

So anyways my mom said "I'm sorry" a hundred times as we turned back to go home. I thought about maybe going back for the next 3D showing so we wouldn't have to wait as long. I found a review that said it didn't have enough going for it to warrant the price. So here we wait- and hopefully some other mishap doesn't happen between now and 3:55 when the next showing starts.

The Arnold Palmer invitational was the perfect way to kill time (yeah I'm such a dork- I like to read and enjoy golf and figure skating).

 

A bunch of people still coming into the theater despite it being one of the later showings. A few families with a bunch of little kids I hope will stay quiet for the whole movie. At the moment it doesn't sound promising.

Three people in their mid 20s or early 30s took a seat two rows ahead of us. Two girls and a guy-I wonder if he really wanted to see this or he lost a bet.

Also we're back in the theater from that notorious "La La Land" showing with the audio issues.... we'll see how it goes

 

(Spoiler alert: both went fine. Although some kids rows behind us were making farting noises with their mouths at one point and one of the parents in front of us crossed the aisle to tell his kids to be quiet because the BIG number- you know the one- was about to start)

 

Somewhere between 40 to 50 people showed up to the theater for this... which is pretty darn impressive considering this isn't the first showing of the weekend.

Trailers 

"Coco" is the latest Pixar film. Looks like a boy and his dog wind up in the realm of the day of the dead and he admires this man (who may or may not be his father) who is a great guitar player- mariachi type.

 

Then a lengthy trailer (much more than a tease) for the last Pirates movie. Complete with Johnny Depp himself in what will be his most famous role ever.

Looked impressive but I don't know if I'm sold enough to buy a ticket.

 

The Main Event 

 

We finally arrived!!

 

Everyone knows the story by now so I won't go too much into it.

First off the visuals are AMAZING. Definitely see a bunch of Oscar nominations in the future. For production design and possibly makeup (unless The Beast makeup is CGI- in that case maybe special effects).

Seeing the sets from the animated film in real life... it was halfway between fangasm and "I wish I could live there."

Of course Emma Watson was great as Belle. And she was definitely a strong confident woman like the character demands. In some aspects more so but that's what happened when you have the freedom to go behind what's drawn on a page.

Luke Evans oddly made me like Gaston for the first half of the movie. Not in that way but I didn't find him as repulsive. Not until he had the town believing Belle's father was crazy. He just needs to walk into a room and give his opinion and people automatically follow him. (I'm sorry but these townspeople are so fickle and stupid sometimes).

Dan Stevens embodied the beastly side of his character really well. But he also had some help from the script he was given. There were a few changes in his early interactions with Belle between the two versions that I didn't appreciate and made it harder to really like him or imagine these two together. This time around anyway I wasn't thoroughly convinced that they belonged together. There just came a point where I threw my hands up and just said "to hell with it."

Other than the romantic side (I can see how they can become friends but falling in love... not so much) everything else worked so well. There was plenty of nostalgia with the songs and the score at certain points (that transformation scene at the end in particular... that was an especially powerful moment in the original and those feelings came rushing back).

I was able to recall a lot about the original and relish in how it was adapted for this version. And I was also able to let go and appreciate the changes (well most of them) as they came.

One massive improvement- LeFou and his relationship with Gaston. Josh Gad couldn't have been any better in this role. He felt like one of those characters you see in a musical where you don't expect them to steal the show and they just do. His character arc was so great- both cause for celebration, laughs and fist pumps (in particular- the battle scene in the castle at the end).
Ewan McGregor was really great as Lumiere and "Gaston" and "Be Our Guests" and "Beauty & The Beast" were all highlights both carried over really well from the original but also bettered with the special effects. Definitely worth a round of applause.

And there are also some great twists about the townspeople and how they have connection to people in the castle.

We also get more backstory from our two main characters that don't, personally, slow the story down but add to the film's length tactfully. One or two songs ran a little long and one of the new songs maybe felt unnecessary.

Overall this is a movie and story for escapism and suspending belief and for me it did its job. Makes me wish I didn't have to go to work tomorrow and see the movie again. But I'd more than enough time away last week with the blizzard.

And when the movie finally ended, a bunch of us in the theater clapped, which pretty much says Disney did their job and nailed it.

Grade: A-

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Writer/Director: Baz Luhrmann
Writer: Craig Pierce
Composer: Craig Armstrong


Cast:
Santine- Nicole Kidman
Christian- Ewan McGregor
Harold Zidler- Jim Broadbent
The Duke- Richard Roxburgh
Toulouse-Lautrec- John Leguizumo

Awards and Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Art Direction
OSCAR- Best Costume Design- Catherine Martin and Angus Strathie
nomination- OSCAR- Best Picture (lost to "A Beautiful Mind")
nomination- OSCAR- Best Actress- Nicole Kidman (lost to Halle Berry)
nomination- OSCAR- Best Cinematography (lost to LOTR: Fellowship)
nomination- OSCAR- Best Film Editing (lost to "Black Hawk Down")
nomination- OSCAR- Best Make-up (lost to LOTR: Fellowship)
nomination- OSCAR- Best Sound (lost to "Black Hawk Down")
Golden Globe- Best Picture- comedy musical
Golden Globe- Best Actress- Nicole Kidman
Golden Globe- Best Original Score- Craig Armstrong
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Actor- Ewan McGregor (lost to Gene Hackman)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Director- Baz Luhrmann (lost to Robert Altman)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Original Song- "Come What May" [fun fact: it was written originally for Baz's "Romeo & Juliet" and because of this, it was disqualified for the Oscars... which sucks because it's a beautiful song!)
nomination- Grammy- Best Compilation Soundtrack (lost to "O Brother, Where Art Thou?)

[another fun fact: Baz Luhrmann was snubbed for Best Director and Original Screenplay and there was a huge controversy about that... he directed the crap out of this movie, I agree that was a huge oversight]

Write-up:

Opening Remarks

It's hard to believe that this movie came out 15 years ago... and to this day, it's hard not to be dazzled by the visuals and get swept up in the excitement of it. Almost as hard as it is for me to get through the ending without ugly crying... this time, I actually managed with only a couple tears.
"Phantom of the Opera" is probably the one musical that I cried at WORSE than "Moulin Rouge"... and I believe that's still true.

When I was putting together my list of favorite movies, "Moulin Rouge" was part of my so-called "short list"... a short list of probably 200 movies (that I cut down to 101). I think the main reason it didn't make the list was that I hadn't seen in some time.
I don't remember my first impression when it first came out, but I knew that I really enjoyed it. The only thing that stuck was Ewan McGregor. I loved him. So cute and his voice and all that emotion. He was the first singing actor I loved. I later saw a bunch of his movies, but I don't remember any of them as much as this.

Between getting the soundtrack, watching some of my favorite figure skaters perform to their music and a story I'd been writing, I'd been wanting to see this movie again for a while. The last time, we were at the shore house waiting for family to show up. When they came, the movie was in its final scene and I was ugly crying. My aunt and uncle (on my dad's side) see me ugly cry A LOT-- the last time it was that bad was when we saw "Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway. And I was crying because I was so afraid the Phantom was going to kill Raoul-- although I distinctly remembered that he and Christine are able to run away together in the end.

Today was as good a day as any-- two years ago on this date, Evgeni Plushenko performed his "Tango Roxanne" short program at the Sochi Olympics team event... that I somehow missed seeing live by 10 minutes.
But more on him and my figure skating connection with this movie later... much later ;)

Quick Comment on Awards

I remembered this being one of those movies that got so many nominations... but I had no idea how few it actually won. The Art Direction and Costumes were very well deserved. There's no denying that. And with the Golden Globes, it was able to win Best Picture because of the split of comedy/musical and drama.
Looking at the movie again, I agree it probably didn't deserve Best Picture and Nicole Kidman didn't deserve the Oscar for Best Actress. You get a lot of flash and glamour and it's one of those movies that exemplify why movies need to be made. You just don't see that in real life-- unless you happen to be fabulously wealthy.
Even the soundtrack [a section onto itself] wasn't all that great-- there is so much good music in this movie, but whoever put it together was an idiot. At least that's what I thought when I bought it and listened to it. It was a huge disappointment. But maybe I was just expecting more and maybe the movie doesn't have as much substance as I thought it did.

The Story

of course...

SPOILERS

you have been warned...

The movie takes place in Paris at the turn of the century. All of it takes place in flashback-- one year after the events take place.


Christian, our leading man, is a writer. He travels to Paris in 1899 to write about beauty, truth, freedom and above all things, LOVE. By complete coincidence, a theater production crashes through his roof and he gets swept into the Bohemian movement taking shape in the village of Montmartre. It's lead (but of course...) by Toulouse-Lautrec. "Spectacular Spectacular" is the name of the show.
In order to make it happen, they need to convince Harold Zigler- the owner of the Moulin Rouge. A huge dance club where prostitute can-can girls perform and go on to seduce wealthy men for money. And this method of persuasion goes through the lead girl, The Sparking Diamond known as Santine. And Christian is the one elected to do it. I mean, he's helping them write the show now (all because he had the perfect line for their Switzerland-based show... "The hills are alive with the sound of music"). That same night, Santine had been promised to The Duke (the duke of what, I have no idea, it's never explained) and through lack of communication, she is led to believe Christian is the Duke. She does all of her usual tricks to have her way with him, believing he'll pay her handsomely for it.
Then of course she finds out he's actually a writer and upon The Duke finding the two of them together, the Bohemians convince him it's all part of their show and they're just rehearsing.

Much of the movie is about the show being put together and Christian and Santine falling in love. Of course, all kinds of shenanigans happen and all these obstacles come in the way of them and their happy ending.
And sadly, there's the fact Santine suffers through most of the movie with a fatal illness (damn Tuberculosis!) and :gulp: dies.

Acting and Actors

When we watch this movie as a family, my dad loves Nicole Kidman and I'm in love with Ewan McGregor. The two of them have such great chemistry. And of course they sing really well for actors... or people who haven't sung professionally before.
Christian is such an idealist, so optimistic. And he makes Santine fall in love with him because of the words he sings and the passion he dispenses. It's not to fall in love with someone like him. He's naïve, having never been in love before, but so what... this is a movie, dammit! I usually don't go to movies for realism. I enjoy the fantasy of them and believing in what they present.
With Santine being such a performer, it's hard not to fall for her too. She can be seductive, but also very playful. When she's seducing Christian, she's REALLY over the top and I can see why some people don't "get" that. There were points where I was even cringing. I mean, he's quoting "Your Song" by Elton John and she's practically having an orgasm. Seriously, what? Then he starts singing and it starts to make more sense. She stops the sex noises and just stares with her mouth agape.

Some scenes, John Leguizamo steals with his hilarious take on Toulouse-Lautrec. Although I don't know if he's meant to be the famous can-can painter or they're just using the name just like they're passing off all these modern songs as songs that were around in their time period...

I almost didn't recognize Jim Broadbent under all that makeup :P But then I didn't know who he was at all until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out. That character is much more fun to be around...
But then again, The Duke did stake the deed to the Moulin Rouge on the musical being done the way he would like it. It's hard not to give into his demands when this venue is practically your livelihood.
The Duke, of course, is our villain and Richard Roxburgh plays him so well. I don't think I've seen him in anything else really notable besides this movie. But the good villains have a habit of sticking with you. He's lewd, but he's also dangerous for a lot of the characters. Has a bit of an ick factor about him. Money is probably the only reason anyone would be interested in him.

Prepare to be DAZZLED...


I wonder how much of a budget they had for this movie and how much it took to actually make... or if they even made all their money back. The set pieces really are spectacular and the costumes are some of the best I've seen in any movie. They're so true to that time period and just... WOW
I fall for the love story more than the visuals personally... going back to "Midnight in Paris" which is about having nostalgia for certain time period and wanting to live in them, I preferred the 1920's to the 1890's- that was the moment where Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard's characters found themselves at an impasse. And it's ultimately why they didn't make it as a couple, despite having so much in common already. Certainly more than Owen Wilson did with Rachel McAdams, who he spent the movie engaged to. Why that is, I have no idea. It didn't seem like they had a lot in common.
...what am I doing? I already did a write-up on that movie.

My point is that I don't feel like I want to live in this particular time period or in the world this movie presents. [Personally, I don't "get" the Can-Can... great costumes, but the whole shtick of them is kicking the legs and lifting the skirts so you see the girls' stocking and underwear... This isn't me on a feminist rant or anything, women have every right to be sexy and seductive, but there are other ways than panty-flashing to get a guy's attention]
But I don't mind visiting every time I do return to it.
Most of the time, I'm just kept in by the love story and all the razzle dazzle.
The staging of the actual musical in the movie is really well done, pretty much staying in line with how the rest of the movie is presented.

Weak Points

This movie is very polarizing-- half the people who've seen it LOVE it... the other half hates it with a passion. Internet personalities Nostalgias Critic and Nostalgia Chick spent nearly half an hour (maybe more, actually) discussing whether it's a classic or a colossal mess. But this is my review, not theirs. :P

I will concede, though, that the movie isn't perfect. And by a lot of accounts aren't realistic.
Firstly, Santine is DYING of a deadly lung disease-- yet she's singing AMAZINGLY. But I will forgive and suspend belief for a while. Especially because Nicole Kidman sang her part so well.
Second... the one musical number that makes me cringe. When Santine has her sick day, a night where she agreed to meet with The Duke and Christian, Harold Zidler goes to The Duke and convinces him that she's "praying" to "cleanse herself of her former life to prepare for him"... and they decide the perfect song to commemorate this moment (and yes, every moment in this movie NEEDS a song to explain what the actors are feeling) is "Like a Virgin"... it's just wrong... the previous time I saw this, I finally noticed how messed up that scene is. Zidler and The Duke just ruined a perfectly good song by just making it sound creepy and perverted. Madonna made it perverted with her iconic wedding dress VMA performance... but it didn't need that chauvinistic lewd male twist on it. Just EW!

Writing may not be the movie's strong point. And there are scenes like the Bohemian group number "So Exciting," which is set to the melody of the Can-Can song where so much happens and it's so chaotic and you're expecting not just The Duke but US to believe that they know what their musical is going to be about. We all know that they're all making it up on the spot, but heck, it's so funny and enjoyable to watch that I don't mind it.
But at the halfway point, when the our couple is about to be torn apart (possibly forever), they're broken up by the stupidest of circumstances. Okay, maybe not the circumstances, but the way they react to them and carry them out.

Ok, ONE circumstance...
By this point in the movie, everyone but The Duke knows about Santine and Christian. Then one of the can-can girls asks him "why would the courtesan go with the penniless writer? Oh, I mean sitar player..."
We see her in the background a couple of times and this is maybe the one line she has in the whole movie. As far as I'm concerned (and I AM concerned), she's just here to ruin the movie. She has no other purpose (other than maybe being "victimized" in the Tango Roxanne scene). Now, if her character was developed more and we'd seen that she was jealous of Santine being the star of their group, I'd be willing to forgive this.
It's as if movies don't know how people break up... there's a random person that reveals a forbidden truth or a misunderstanding that takes place in the third act that derails the whole thing... "Moulin Rouge!" has BOTH of these issues... no wonder it didn't win Best Picture...

Christian asks Santine to run away with him and she agrees. Zidler tells her that The Duke knows about them and is going to kill Christian if she doesn't break them up and choose him. She blows that off and keeps packing. The moment he tells her she's dying... that's the one thing that makes her stop.
WHY? How is that stopping you from going anywhere? You're going to die no matter where you go and it's not as if there aren't doctors where they are going. So she cooks up this whole story with Christian to break up, saying she chooses The Duke because he offered her everything she could want. SHE COULDN'T HAVE SAID THE DUKE THREATENED TO KILL HIM OR THAT SHE'S DYING... she just says "I'm choosing The Duke"...
BULLSHIT!

Falling in love through song, now that makes sense... seriously, it does.

The Music

I'm almost done... now the best parts for last...

Yeah, so I didn't get this when I saw the movie the first time all the way back in 2001. We rented it from Blockbuster :P Those were the days...
Anyway, I didn't get that all the songs (well, excluding "One Day I'll Fly Away" and "Come What May") were already written in our time. Between the 60's and the 90's, no less. They were just given a modern, contemporary twist.
Dammit... "One Day I'll Fly Away" isn't original either?! How can that be? It's such a good song... there's no way it wasn't written for this...

Anyway, the moment Ewan McGregor sang "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music," I realized that the movie took all these songs and redid them so they were like new... or retro or something... it's confusing... a movie made in 2001 but takes place in 1899.
I knew more of the songs by this point and I picked out even more during the Love medley than I did the previous times.
Notably, "Heroes" by David Bowie.

I listened to the soundtrack on my commute yesterday. I swear on the first song, "Nature Boy," it felt like David Bowie's ghost was in the car with me. I felt chills in my hands. Or maybe that was just the cold air in the ventilation...
Anyway, it was almost spooky. Considering he just died and feeling his mojo in his songs. "Heroes" was featured prominently in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," but I only just recognized it today in the Love medley.

The soundtrack, as I may have mentioned early, has its flaws. The production, especially. It's one thing when I play albums from the 80's that don't have the Dolby sound yet that amplifies the volume. (Okay, maybe not Dolby, but there's a reason why I have to crank the volume up for CDs produced in the early 80's vs. CD's now).
But the sound is so quiet on so many of these songs, I had my volume past 30 so I could even hear it... usually, I have between 19 and 22 with regular CDs. With 80's discs, usually, it's past 22, but never 30.

While it, thankfully, omitted "Like a Virgin" in the creepy perverted style, it also omitted "The Show Must Go On"... I was sorely missing that especially yesterday... more on that later.

Going through it when I first got it back in 2012 (wow, and I was sure I'd gotten it in 2014 after the Sochi Olympics...), the one song I really didn't like "Because We Can" but it was just chaotic and really had no point. But the few times I've heard Fatboy Slim, I haven't been pleased. So I conveniently forget that dude (or band, I don't know which it is) even exists.

I think I got it particularly because I wanted to invest in actors who sang. Robert Downey Jr. got me started on that. Johnny Depp on the Sweeny Todd soundtrack and Hugh Laurie soon followed. Hugh Laurie has a great voice, but I didn't like that his "Let Them Talk" album had not just covers, but really old Swampy music. He says they were among the first songs he learned on the piano with his teacher back in the day... I think I'd only heard it through 3-4 times since I got it. Way too old school for my tastes.

And I wanted to have Ewan McGregor at my listening ears :P but then I found myself disappointed because I really couldn't hear him all that well through most of the album. During "Your Song" and the Love medley, I kept hearing this male opera voice completely obscuring him. Somehow, I blocked out the fact that the fucking moon has a face and sings through much of the movie :roll: I'm sure Plácido Domingo is a famous opera singer, but did we really need him for the sake of making the movie more epic?
I just want to listen to Ewan McGregor alone :(
"Tango Roxanne" has a similar issue, but more on that later...

Nicole Kidman stands out with her vocals on much of the songs she's featured in. Just beautiful to listen to.

A Quick aside...
One thing I forgot to mention earlier: I'm working on a story that involves dancers that perform in musical numbers and some of them prostitute themselves for extra income-- of their own free will, they aren't pimped into it or contractually obligated. It's just a way to make a living in their neighborhood, set somewhere in South America.
My protagonist is in this business because her greatest talent is to entertain and be seductive and so on. And the framework of her business allows her to live life without love-- something she feels she can never have after two incidents with men, neither of which were particularly damaging to anything but her self-esteem.
I thought of going back to this movie to find inspiration I might be able to use for my story. But I was too busy staving off figure skating programs that came to mind during certain musical numbers :P I all but forgot about it until the scene leading up to the Love medley. Santine tells Christian that love doesn't pay the bills and she's paid to make men believe she's in love with them. But it isn't as if she hates men or doesn't believe in love... my girl Talia does fall into a similar situation, though, where a guy comes along that loves her and tries to convince her to give him a chance. There was even an earlier draft that had a love triangle and her struggling about choosing love over a sense of duty and the guy she's with lets her go.
Also in an earlier draft, I wrote that she occasionally has sex with Alejandro, but never takes him fully serious... how much that's changed- now he's just a guy that runs this club with her that she loathes because she still thinks he's a two-timing bastard... she caught him with another girl when she agreed to go out with him-- the girl was a crazy ex and she never gave him the chance to explain.

I also thought about my story during "Tango Roxanne" where this one guy talks about prostitutes in Buenos Aires and how a relationship with a girl who sells herself never ends well. (In my story, it WILL end well, I promise). And because they sell themselves to the highest bidder, there can be no trust. And without trust, there can't be love.
That was an aspect I was going to explore in my story, but I'm so busy developing my characters and having them interact, I probably won't get to really go into that.

Back to the show...Singing along to "Come What May" and "One Day I'll Fly Away" were great moments yesterday :D Great sweeping songs. They were also the few moments not obscured by unwarranted opera singers.
"Diamond Dogs" and "The Children of the Revolution" I had to get used to with time... but I do kinda enjoy them.
The Hindu remix of "Diamonds are A Girl's Best Friend" I didn't warm up to until the 2014-2015 season of figure skating...

Actually giving myself away from the soundtrack and not expecting too much from it... I enjoyed it quite a bit while listening to it. And it made the trip go by so much faster. [The speed limit is 65 on that particular route- and "Because We Can" fit in that capacity rather well].

Then I had a flash of nostalgia when I was remembering when "Lady Marmalade" came on the radio and was gaining popularity. And one of my friends was saying "voulez vous couchez avec moi ce soir?" actually means "do you want to sleep with me tonight?"
We never forgot that :P it didn't help matters that we both had French, but we didn't exactly cover Moulin Rouge in class. We did cover the Geoffrey Rush/Claire Daines version of "Les Miz," though...
They had four bad-ass girls killing it vocally :P Christina Aguilera (when she was just starting to break into her own, leaving the clean pop image behind), Pink (before she exploded), Lil' Kim (I assume before she had issues with drugs and jail time-- I just remember her being on Dancing with the Stars and not being a huge fan) and Mya (who had a great one-hit wonder with "The Case of the Ex" and I didn't hear from her again until Dancing with the Stars... or after that).
And of course I tried to sing Christina's part and kinda failed... that's why I do that crap when I'm by myself. More confident girls will do it in the company of their friends, but I'm not one of them :P

Which just leaves me with my favorite part of the whole movie... although seeing it again now, the section of it dedicated to Santine trying to seduce The Duke to get him to change the ending of the musical back to the original version (sitar player gets the courtesan)... that was hard to watch because he discovers it's a ruse and almost rapes her.
If not for the token black guy in the cast... he's one of the performers we see a few times, but he has no lines. Yet he's the one who knocks out The Duke (I screamed "Hell yeah!" when he did, lol) and brings her back to Christian... historically, him being there probably wouldn't have made any sense (about as much sense of "Grease Live!" having the inclusion of Keke Palmer when, I don't believe, high schools were desegregated until the 60's and the story takes place in 1959) but it's good they gave him a good part that actually meant something. And it isn't something cliché.

Anyway... I just loved the song... particularly Ewan McGregor's singing in it. The tone of his voice is beautiful despite the context he's singing about-- jealousy, Santine being with The Duke. It's hard not to get swept up in the theatricality of it. Maybe deep down, I'm just a sucker for a good Tango. All the dancing shows and figure skating have proved that.
Looking at it again, there is so much to watch and pay attention to. Not that it felt rushed or chaotic, but there was so many cool things about it that I didn't know where to devote my attention.
Then checking into how it starts, this one deep-voiced growly guy is singing the song and the bitch who spilled the beans is at the center of it. I started to wonder if maybe this was the cast's way of getting revenge on her for her truth-telling. At the end, there's even a mob scene where it looks like she's surrounded and people overwhelm her. Not sure if it was rape or not, but she deserved some sort of retaliation for her actions.

I mean, Santine would have died anyway... but just having one random character have no other point than to ruin the whole story... I'll never stop being pissed at that.
At least we did get a great musical number out of it. So much happening, so many great visuals, great visuals, amazing music... 
I found out a couple years later that "Roxanne" was a song by The Police, so I listened to it on their album. It was NOTHING like this... and I didn't forgive that until Juliet Simms performed "Roxanne" on  The Voice. One of her best performances (still think she should have won-- the winner that year never put out an album).

The Figure Skating Connection

Now we're finally here...

I don't think I made the Moulin Rouge connection at that point, but when we went to see Divas On Ice in 2002, a skating show full of strong women, one of the biggest standouts for "Tango Roxanne."
It was performed by Katarina Witt, the ring leader of the tour. She did the seductress role so well and she was on the ice with a mystery man. And in the end, he overwhelmed her. I don't think the footage is anywhere online, but all these years later, I never forgot it.
The show had people like Yuka Sato (Jeremy Abbott's coach), Kristi Yamaguichi, Nicole Bobek, Nancy Kerrigan and Ekaterina Gordeeva. Ekaterina, I remembered her performing "Simply Irresistible" by Robert Palmer with a guitar. We stayed afterwards when they were redoing numbers so they could edit the footage together for an ABC special so it showed everyone skating flawlessly with no falls. Her number took especially long to get right.

As I said earlier on, Evgeni Plushenko performed a short program to "Tango Roxanne" at the Sochi Olympics and I didn't see his performance live... what I found out later when he'd used this music before. It was part of a compilation for a long program he had in 2001. Not his best effort-- which I hate to say is because Alexei Yagudin outperformed him... however talented he was, he was one of the people who attacked Plushenko's character after he withdrew from the individual event at Sochi due to injury... there's no forgiving that.

He also used "Tango Roxanne" on its own for his free skate in the 2012 European championships. It was arranged beautifully by Edvin Marton, who'd arranged music for him several times since 2004. The commentators detracted at one point, saying the choreography wasn't brilliant, but one thing they said was true-- it's the aura that he puts out on the ice that draws people in. People like me.
It was one of those "I could watch him skate forever" moments. And what sold me in particular, if the music alone wasn't enough... there was something he did in this number that he did in his free skate at Sochi... THE moment that made me a fan forever.





Ashley Wagner, another controversial Sochi Olympian (Russia had one slot for a man to compete and Plushenko got it despite coming in 2nd at their national championships... Ashley got on the American team despite coming in 4th at the US Nationals), performed a medley of songs from Moulin Rouge for her free skate in the 2014-2015 season. It helped her win the National title in 2015. She also resurrected it this year and breathed new life into it. It didn't hurt that she changed her look ;) originally wore a red dress and with her natural blonde hair.







This season, she dyed her hair red and wore the white dress Santine wore in her final scene before she died.




She'd been off her game this season. At least with her short program. It hasn't been particularly strong, but when she did this free skate, she came to life and performed the crap out of it. Johnny Weir and Tara Lipniski, former figure skating champions and NBC commentators, were also starting to believe in her. Johnny in particular had criticized her for overperforming and said now it felt more natural.
Ashley is one of the few American skaters I get really excited about these days. The guys' field has been demoted by other countries, particular Japan. Unlike Gracie Gold, I see a lot of fire and sass in her and that's what draws me in.
Her compiliation starts with "Hindu Sad Diamonds," goes into "One Day I'll Fly Away" and segues flawlessly into "The Show Must Go On." That's especially amazing to watch and easy to get caught up in when she's doing well ;) I cheered so loud when she won Nationals last year.
Richard Dornbush from the US had a short program this year set to "Come What May" and he has the sensitivity and artistry to pull it off. But technically, I never got the chance to see him perform it cleanly. He accumulated an injury that kept him out of the US National Championships and that's the end of the year for him.







Ok, so I wanted to do this movie so I could have an excuse to talk about figure skating here :P

But why not? It's something I enjoy about and am passionate about as much as movies.

Ultimately, this movie has great music and anyone who performs to any of it is bound to catch my attention ;) and keep it.