Moulin Rouge

[d_kendal]

yeah I definitely agree that Moulin Rouge was awful. me and a couple friends went to see it while it was in the theatres after hearing good things about it, but we walked out after about 15 or 20 minutes.

Doug - your review was right on!

- David

[Doug Nelson]

Flattery will get you anything you want

[ravenmd]

OMG Doug you made me laugh so hard.. I am insanely envious that I didn't write that review.

I hated Moulin Rouge and you just explained better than I ever could.. WHY. The first time I tried to watch it I got to about 14 minutes before turning it off. The second time 5 minutes and I started skipping all of the the tape to see if there were any good parts later on.
Then after hearing even more from people about how fabulous it was I determined I would force myself to sit through the entire thing once and for all to see if I could find what all the hoopla was about... perhaps I had missed the point.. who knows...
I got to about 22 minutes and was too nauseated to push on. I could feel my entire being give a cosmic sigh of relief as I turned it off. It all goes in the same trash can.

and Doug.. ever consider a career as a movie critic? you're GOOD

[Doug Nelson]

God, what a mess.

In junior highschool we had this guy, Tod, who would mix his lunch all together. Gravy, peas, pudding, soda, whatever, and eat the whole thing with a spoon. "What's the difference, it all goes to the same place"

Moulin Rouge tries to be hip by wallowing in cliches. I guess if they know you know they know it's a cliche, it's hip. But it's not hip. It's a melange of recycled songs, tired plot devices, soap opera acting, and not-bad CGI effects, edited on a blender, and shoved into your eyes. I looked for Tod's name in the credits. Surely he was one of the producers. "What's the difference, it all goes to the same place"

Over-the-top can be fun, but not without some wink to show they know it's over the top. Maybe it's supposed to be post-post-ironic. It's so over the top you'd have to know they know that you know...etc. But there's no wink. This is as sincere and moving as a Japanese Elvis impersonator.

This is a self-indulgent fever dream from someone who never got over Barbra's retirement or Judy's death. I can see him clapping his hands, tears rolling down his eyes, shouting "This is the way "A Star is Born" should have ended!"

Just in case you don't catch some of the cliches, they've done the service of underlining, circling, and highlighting them. The leading lady is supposed to be tragic, so they have her hawking up tubercular sputum whenever they think its the most dramatic (which is nearly every scene, even during songs). The comedy relief is supposed to be a sad clown, so they dress him as...a sad clown. And if you don't get the "most important" line of the movie, they repeat it close to 20 times (once more after the closing credits). And not only does someone actually say "the show must go on!", they make a musical number out of it.

Maybe I just don't "get it". Perhaps the reason such a fuss is being made over this film is exactly because of this excess. But if that's the reason, not only do I not "get it", I don't "want it".