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Chicago (Widescreen Edition)

Chicago (Widescreen Edition)

List Price: $19.99
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: I bought this DVD based on its numerous awards and great ratings and reviews by well known personalities. Ooops!! This movie is totally lame, slow moving, pitiful plot, a complete waste of time. So it's a musical, hey none of these people are Julie Andrews or somebody like that, it's a lousy musical. You just can't trust the academy awards anymore I guess.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Best cure for insomnia I've ever run across
Review: To be honest, I wish I could give this 0 stars. The special features couldn't keep my attention, & neither could the plot. About the only thing that was of any interest was the scantily-clad women, & that got a little tedious after a while.

Bring back the MGM musicals of the 1940s & 1950s. This was awful.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What in the world is The Academy Awards thinking!!!!!
Review: I got two complaints....well, really three complaints...okay four complaints. One complaint is that this movie really SUCKED! I mean it was terrible. My second complaint is how in the world could the Academy Awards give Zeta-Jones a supporting actress Oscar for her lame, poor performance is this horribly made film and denie Meryl Streep that honor for her performance in Adaptation. Thirdly, the acting sucked, especially by Renee Zelwegger. She is so annoying and her performance received much more recognition than it deserved. I mean it was a horrible performance. Fourth, how could that fat pig in Chicago, Roger Ebert, gives this movie 4 stars(highest rating) and only give the greatest movie of the decade so far, THe Pianist 3 1/2 stars. Outrageous! Okay, I have one last complaint, which makes five complaints in all. What in the world is The Academy thinking! How could they give this sick, ugly movie the oscar for Best Picture and denie Best Picture to Roman Polanski's beautifully made and well acted 'THe Pianist'? It's all crazy to me. THe Pianist was the best movie of 2002, not Chicago. Outrageous!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Entertaining despite poor direction & lightweight story
Review: Aspiring nightclub performer Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) and professional Vera Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones) compete for headlines and the attention of their slick lawyer, Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), in Chicago during the roaring 20's. The musical numbers are exuberant and the cast acquits itself well, but it is all in service of a very thin story that makes some fairly obvious points about the fleeting nature of fame. The film presents grasping, unsympathetic characters, but I felt that the filmmakers were trying to make me sympathize with them rather than skewering them for their conceit and self-centeredness. Queen Latifah delivers a star-making performance.

Director Rob Marshall really does his performers a disservice with his rapid MTV cutting between shots. He should have allowed his cast to generate energy through their performances rather than attempting to construct it with rapid editing and camera angles. It leaves the question of whether the actors, who are not known for musical ability, were able to deliver sustained high quality performances or whether Marshall had to piece highlights of various takes together to get what he needed.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: JOHN KANDER and FRED EBB!!!
Review: Yes, I enjoy this movie very much. I have it on DVD -I lost it when it was theatrically released-. And I have understood that the core of its fascination lies in the musical numbers. The original music by Kander and the incredibly intelligent and brilliant lyrics by Ebb are enthralling. I felt that same about "Cabaret", but I have only latelly come to know a little about their authors, this legendary Broadway team. I think that they are the real talent behind this, more than Fosse, who was so ill-advised that he wanted to do the film with Madonna. Maybe he was the spirit behind all this, and organised all to the benefit of his great wife, Gwen Verdon. But here what attacks for the good one's senses and nervous system are the music and lyrics of Kander and Ebb, I see Fosse nowhere, I don't know even if the choreography is basically his or rather Rob Marshall's.

So let's give credit where is it due. KANDER and EBB, amazing guys, "start spreading the news" as is the stunning song "New York".

It is a pity, also, that CHITA RIVERA, the great lady of the stage who created the character of Velma Kelly is given here and semi-clandestine and very short cameo only. She is the imprisoned woman who tells Roxie Hart about "Mama Morton" when she first is in prison.

And I admire very much ZETA-JONES now, I didn't know that her roots where in the theater musical. She is great, the best imaginable for the role. Yes, a little out of drawing here and there, but her dancing and her voice are wonderful. We have to put up with Gere as Billy Flynn. No, I don't believe he does it very well. He is rather poor in the musical numbers (dancing, he gets along singing). His tap dance is all wrong and poor. His histrionics are excessive although some places he is correct. Well...

I see that the sexual act at the beginning (Roxie Hart and the furniture salesman), the semi-nudity in the prison number, the presence of rapper Queen Latifah, the amorality of the plot -this is a satire, but probably taken by all at face value- is not enough to many for considering this one a worthy picture, a modern musical. For them, I imagine, the only solution woulb be to erase completely the musical side and fill the movie with those ridiculous "throb-like" sounds that contemporary Hollywood composers fashion.

I hope there were more like this one!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dazzling and Electric!
Review: You can watch this movie over and over again and still love every second of it! The music is sensational and the dance #'s are really great! When I first watched this movie I didn't think it would have a good plot to it, but I was definitely wrong about that! It is a great movie and a good buy for anyone who loves musicals!
**Check it out!**

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: omg....the 20's are over for a reason
Review: i hate this movie
there i said it

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Cheap, not Deep
Review: Skanky, spanky 'hos stretch their struttin' stuff across the screen from camera angles galore in this cheap-shot show. Although the choreographer's SPREAD-'EM-WIDE obsession may pander to hetero males, it became cliche' in my book before the fourth crotch shot. "Chicago's" embittered, cynical 'ho cliche's overpower the droopy, dreary, dreadful drag queens that dragged "Moulin Rouge" to a two-star rating (see my "cliche' hell" review). Only a fool loves in Chicago, and the 'ho leaves her footprint on his heart. In contrast, Moulin Rouge howls love to an unholy death. The "splits" were cliche' fodder in Chicago, but at least dancing was included. Aside from an occasional hoof-stomp, that activity was edited out of Moulin Rouge to make room for emoting. Chicago has a future with my VCR. I will not be insulted by Moulin Rouge again unless I am falsely arrested and subjected to that miserable movie to coerce a confession. Chicago featured fantasy set to music. Moulin Rouge's redundant grinding wail fits its name: "moulin" means "mill;" "rouge" is "red" for EMBARASSMENT.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It Has it All Coming!
Review: While ruined by the boy next to me in French who can't seem to stop singing the songs, Chicago is a great movie with excellent songs and dancing. A little too racy for the kids, this makes a great party movie. Especially when everyone starts dancing uncontrollably.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: RAZZLE DAZZLE
Review: To disagree with another reviewer, I enjoy musicals. I love the creativity in the lyrics and anytime a movie entertains and puts you in a different time and place is cause for celebration, at least to me. This movie is All that Jazz and then some and it's probably the next best thing to actually being inside a Broadway theater. It's music isn't as catchy as those in the recent Disney musicals. In fact "Mr. Cellophane" is the only song I remebered after finishing the movie. But for the most part it's well made with the sequences of song and dance coming from the main character's (Roxie) imagination rather than bursting out into song after speaking some lines. Rene Zellwegger plays Roxie Hart, an alduterous murderess, Catherine Zeta-Jones is Velma Kelley, imprisoned for killing the other half of her sister act and her boyrfiend. Normally I don't care for brand name Hollywood stars, but Zellwegger and Zeta-Jones actually are very impressive in this tale and both deserved their Oscar nods. Rapper Queen Latifah as a corrupt jail warden, shows she can sing too! and John C. Reilly who has the best vocal chords of the lot is terrific in "Mr. Cellophane". The well known Buddhist Richard Gere is slick lawyer Billy Flynn. I can't remeber if he got an Oscar nomination or not but he was definitely the best actor in the movie, and though he did a credible job of singing, it's his tap dancing that is more memorable. Also in this film are Broadway's Christine Baranski as Mary Sunshine and Taye Diggs who narrates the film as a jazz club emcee. Chicago is not the best movie you'll ever see, but as far as entertainment it ranks among the top.


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