Moulin Rouge (Double Digipack)

Rating:
Summary: Breath-taking, unique and silly musical
Review: I must admit, the first 40 minutes or so left me wondering whether this whole film was a joke, it had too much silly, eccagerated acting and humor, mixed with deepfelt, romantic scenes..very confusing. Some people got up and left the theatre at this point. How very sad for them! Because WOW..suddenly the whole movie shifted into drama, love and passion, and the very first love song scene melted my heart. Ewan and Nicole CAN sing! And when they act it seems so real, you just sit there with a silly grin on your face and go " aaawww". From then on, the movie picks up pace both in plot, intensity and beauty. Some songs were written originally for this movie, and they are unforgettable. Most of the musical intermezzos were playing on or flat out making fun of other songs, like Madonna's "Like a virgin". You will have to atch it to see how they managed to put this all together to a whole. The costumes, the ambiance, the filning, it was all unique, like nothing I have ever seen before. That alone is amazing. I highly recommend this shw to anyone willing to put up with a silly beginning, it is so worth it in the end! My daughter and I struggled hard not to sob out loud the last 40 minutes, and I never cry at movies! This musical is simply impossible to stick in a box and shrug at, it slipped past all my defences and cynicism and I found myself actually experiencing overwhelming emotions in response to Ewan's huge, blue eyes and Nicole's dramatic passion.

Rating:
Summary: **picks self up off floor**
Review: Wow. It's been out a week and I've already seen it four times and counting. Directed by Baz Luhrmann (who directed "William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet"), "Moulin Rouge" is a dark and quick-paced story of beauty, freedom, truth, and above all, love. Ewan and Nicole do their own singing and have beautiful voices..."Roxanne" still brings shivers down my spine. A tragic romance, "Moulin Rouge" will bring a tear to any feeling person's eye.

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: I've seen the movie twice now, and I expect to see it a few more times while it's still in the theaters. I will undoubtedly buy the DVD as soon as possible once it is released. This is the movie that I've waited my whole life to see. It's a no-holds-barred movie that carries you by the seat of your pants from the beginning to the end. It's just too bad I wasn't involved in it. There are not enough words to say about this spectacle, other than you must see it while it's in the theaters, and you can't trust anyone's opinion but your own.

Rating:
Summary: MOULAH LOOSE
Review: This attempt at Fellini,3 Stooges,Beatles,Monty Python,etc..was embarrassing to even watch..Maybe if I would have been "totaled" on absinthe a message would have been received,but, not from this movie. Even the photography was bad. If I had rotten fruit I would have thrown it at the screen. "The double hook"..smelled.I asked for my money back..even tho' I had free passes!! A total waste of time..I'll wait for the Crazy Horse or La Barone!!Show it without sound or color and see if it follows Hitchcock's "Rules"....Put the people responsible for this "movie" up against the wall and shoot them with their own shots...and make them doubles!!Use the future DVDs for coasters!!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and beyond!
Review: "Moulin Rouge" is one of the most breathtaking motion pictures I've ever seen. Easily the best film of 2001. Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor are astonishing, and the musical soundtrack is pure melodic genius! A must-see. Don't wait another second to see "Moulin Rouge"!

Rating:
Summary: Luhrmann, McGregor & Kidman Do Their Best Work To Date
Review: Get yourself into your cineplex at once to see this film. It's going to loose some of its larger than life sweep when it goes to the smaller screen. This is a towering work of the imagination which is matched by powerhouse performances. I saw this with my friend Joyce and we both were equally enthralled from start to finish. Joyce is not an artist but had no trouble following the abstractions in continuity Baz Luhrmann achieved with his fast edged cutting, blurring pace and sequencing. As a director and writer, he is an expert at film collage. This is how a musical should be made in 2001. The biggest problem the old movie musicals had were leaden pacing and the jarring sense of a song artificially intruding into a play. That is all gone here just like it was gone in Milos Forman's "Hair" and "Amadeus" and Bob Fossee's "Cabaret." What formidable problems these modern masters have solved in the movie musical genre. Ewan McGregor I could go on about for pages. Neither Joyce nor I realized that he could sing. Saying he can sing is like saying DiMaggio could hit a baseball or Monroe could play a sex goddess. He is that good a singer. In fact, had he taken to the rock concert stage, he probably would be an even bigger star than he is right now. Fortunately for us film fanatics, he is also a first class actor and chose to follow that call. If he'd been around in the 1940s and 1950s, he would have had the lead in every major musical of the day. I don't know if he can dance but I wouldn't be surprised if he can after this tour de force performance. To top it all off, he's got great on screen charisma. The camera loves him as it does just a few actors. He's even got dark hair here and it totally works for him. Nicole Kidman also does a first class job. She does a very good singing job but is not in McGregor's stellar singing class. She also does a powerful acting job and looks wonderful in the part of Satine the courtesan. The rest of the cast is also very strong and you can tell they are all veterans of moving around stages and sets. Jim Broadbent, playing the impressario, is superb even outside a British PBS production, his more usual venue, continuing on a theatrical riff like he did for Woody Allen in "Bullets Over Broadway." The plot is operatic. McGregor is Christian in 1899 Paris, a penniless writer. He falls in love with Satine, a dancer and courtesan at the Moulin Rouge theater. She suffers from consumption (TB), which her stage family tries to keep secret. A duke also wants to make her his mistress in order to back a new musical with her in the lead. Christian presents an obstacle to the duke's plans, however. Rather than this story's being leadenly told, however, you are audio and visually shown each facet to it. When the film deals with jealousy, it is in a powerful performance piece that starts out with the tango performed on the stage by two other performers and moves outward from there involving other cast members. Modern music is used throughout, most of it rock music. Luhrmann got it to work beautifully. I've seen all three of his films and I prefer them in reverse order, his newest to his oldest. Thus, this is my favorite. "Romeo and Juliet" with DiCaprio and Danes is a strong second place but did not bowl me over to the extent this film did. It showed the potential for "Moulin Rouge" though. "Strictly Ballroom" was very good but I would have never dreamed we were moving from there to this. It's like moving from drawing with charcoal on a pad of paper to painting on huge canvases in oil. This is my choice of 2001's films for best picture Oscar so far and everyone in it is a strong contender for each of their categories as well. Knockout sets, costumes, cinematography, scoring and everything else inbetween to boot. I just hope it doesn't lose out in the awards to another action-adventure mega blockbuster as we saw happen with the 2000 films.

Rating:
Summary: Truly disappointed
Review: We were looking forward to a movie with passion and excitement, and got a musical with songs that were out of place and not sung very well either. Imagine the scene set around 1900 and the songs that are sung are from today's music. None of the dance/music pieces were long enough to grab the viewer, more like abbreviated clips. Nicole Kidman is beautiful but she can't sing well enough for a musical. The first half of the movie was so confusing and boring, and the exaggerated theatrics of the characters were too much. Acting does not involve screaming your lines with emphasis on the end of the sentences. Ziegler, the theater director, is annoying, and Ewan, the male romance interest, was bland. The last 1/3 of the movie was better, but not enough to save it. It was disappointing because the premise behind the movie could have created something wonderful.

Rating:
Summary: Visually satisfying, Musically disappointing
Review: This movie is just as color-saturated and overflowing visually as most reviews have stated. The acting is appropriate, and I expected to love it, but the songs were a letdown. Either they went on interminably ("Your Song"), or they are truncated to just a few seconds ("Lady Marmalade") or they are just dull (too many to mention). This is no "Grease." Maybe the soundtrack CD is better, but as a musical, it just wasn't catchy. Still, at least it makes an effort to do something artistic, unlike a lot of the crap in theaters.

Rating:
Summary: no thanks
Review: An odd hodge podge of unpleasantness. I left after 30 minutes. I went hoping to learn more about turn of the century Paris. Instead, I got Madonna.

Rating:
Summary: Lurhman delivers again!
Review: This film was simply amazing. The music, costumes, dialogue, and perfomances were superb. It was funny at times and dramatic at times, but never disappointing. Check out Luhrman's other films first if you are unsure about catching this one in the theaters, once you have gotten a taste of his style you will want to see this lavish production on the big screen for its full effect. You will enjoy this one.