Contradicting Popular Opinion
A.K.A.
An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks: Moulin Rouge!
INTRO
Moulin Rouge! I don’t understand why the official title has an exclamation point. I am supposed to yell it? MOOOOLANNN ROOOOOOOJE!
I mean, I understand the title, They Live! That is something one would exclaim. THEY LIVE! Maybe it is the official name of the place itself. I think TGIFridays might technically be TGIFridays! An exclamation point = CLASSY!
The whole thing is quite bothersome to me. It leaves me tentative to end the sentence. Does the ! after Rouge count? Should I throw another period at the end just for the f*ck of it?
Anywho…
GET ON WITH IT!
Moulin Rouge! falls into that class of thing that I quite often refer to as the “woman dog whistle.” Take the Oprah show for instance. If you turn that crap on, women from all over start migrating towards the television. Doesn’t matter if they are 2 or 80, invalid or legless, all nearby females will be there within a matter of seconds. Some of these women you may not even know. Random women-folk just show up in your house! It’s true!
Anyway, Moulin Rouge! has this similar effect. Women seem to think this film is good. The only possible explanation for this thing is the existence of certain audio and visual signals that are exclusive to the female of the species.
I certainly don’t pick up on it.
Seriously, this movie is pain. After the first 20 minutes I was nauseous.
I had to take a lot of breaks during viewing.
If you have a penis and/or testicles, DO NOT attempt to watch this movie in one continuous sitting. Take some breaks, stretch a little. Maybe think about Sonny Chiba movies or bass fishing.
Even when Moulin Rouge! approaches watchability, it manages to f*ck shit up. Namely, in the most interesting sequence in the film, the part where the Argentinian guy who sounds like Triumph the Insult Comic dog sings the Police song “Roxanne”, you can see a member of the crew. You can also see a camera. Goddamnit movie! Be competent, you were nominated for a bunch of Oscars!
Anyway, I’m gonna get a couple of little things that bothered me out of the way. First, early on in the flick there is a caption that reads: PARIS 1900. Then they show this “old thyme-y” looking footage of people in period garb in what is obviously supposed to be Paris. Then we start Ewan McGregor’s narration where he says something along the lines of: It all started a year ago, in 1899.
Why does this bother me? It’s accurate right? 1899 comes right before 1900, duh! But it is so inelegant, graceless and redundant. Why bother with the first caption? Of course we are in Paris. We can see the Eiffel Tower! The f*cking movie is about the Moulin Rouge ferchrissake! And you tell us the year in the first couple of minutes. Is this movie made for people with the memory capacity of goldfish and the attention span of Rhesus monkeys?
Plus, if you want to make that old thymey camera work look more accurate, don’t shoot that part in widescreen. Movies weren’t really widescreen then. The “letterbox” shape of movie screens didn’t really take off until it was used as a gimmick to help distinguish movies from TV back in the 1950s.
Again, this isn’t really a big deal, but it makes the movie seem a little half assed in its attempts.
So what is that? Two nitpicks? Okay here comes my third. Why does John Leguizamo steal parts from midgets? So maybe, Toulouse-Lautrec is only borderline midget (about 4’11” if memory serves), but Leguizamo is 5’8″. He does the shoes on the knees thing here. In Spawn he was a midget, too, but I think he mostly squatted inside his costume for that part.
Does Leguizamo hate midgets? Does he dream of a world where midgets are starving in the streets, forced to work as seeing-eye-little-people for the blind? Has he ever punched out Warwick Davis?
What about Dionne Warwick? I kinda want to hit her….
Man, I like John Leguizamo, but his filmography leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, he was Luigi Mario (no, not a typo) in Super Mario Bros., he was in the weakest of the Die Hard movies, he made The Pest which was the first movie I have ever seen get 0 stars from multiple reviewers, To Wong Foo, The Honeymooners, etc. Brother needs to get a new agent.
All right, here are some of the bigger problems with the movie. As eloquently as I can put this… um… the camera work is ass. Ah yes, quite eloquent. It’s like the camera has ADHD. Shots are too short, the camera moves randomly, the 360 rule is routinely broken, and I never have any sense of where I am supposed to be looking. Honestly, I need Dramamine. Movie, you might be showing me brilliant colors, or something quite beautiful, but the way in which you are showing me these things is making me ill.
So visually, I can’t get behind the movie.
In terms of the audio? Well, let’s see, they turn Elton songs into show tunes. Nothing can withstand that much gay.
But seriously, the use of pop music in Moulin Rouge! just strikes me as lazy writing. In a straightforward way, it’s cut and pasting instead of creating. In a more subtle way, it is cheating with audience emotions. The movie avoids trying to build any sort of bond between the romantic leads and the audience.
“See these people, they love each other like in all those songs you know! Therefore they are like you and thus you care about them and their relationship.”
It creates this disturbing alienation. I mean, people got off on this gimmick. A surprising number of people apparently need pop-culture to communicate. Can’t we just relate to each other anymore? Must we build bridges made out of songs from JackFM?
I’m speaking in metaphors now, and thus hate myself.
And while I’m talking about the music, can I just stop to say that McGregor is not a singer. Neither is Kidman. They manage competence, but there is nothing spectacular (and certainly not spectacular spectacular) about their vocal talents. They don’t embarrass themselves, but they don’t exactly shine either.
McGregor singing is slightly reminiscent of a Sting promo from WCW. Sting couldn’t always cut a good promo, or even an interesting promo. To combat this, he would cut a LOUD promo.
I’m just saying.
So, visually and musically, I don’t really care for this film. How about the story? How about the writing? Well, the scenes of Moulin Rouge! have all the complexity and nuance of an episode of “That’s So Raven.” None of the characters are particularly fleshed out. Seemingly important scenes are filled with characters to whom we’ve barely been introduced. The dialogue isn’t particularly well-written, witty or memorable.
(The story is cribbed together from 3 other stories. It tells none of the three particularly well. Bonus points if you can tell me the three I am thinking of…)
Many of the sequences make me embarrassed for the movie. Kinda like watching a straight white guy pop and lock.
As for the love story, well what love story? Kidman is a f*cking fembot. She has little romantic chemistry with anybody. She evokes as much sympathy as one would have for a bowling ball or perhaps a gingham handkerchief.
McGregor seem to fall in love with Kidman because she is relatively attractive, and barks like a Welsh Corgi when aroused. And I imagine that she is the best groomed whore in all of Paris.
Kidman’s character falls for McGregor’s because of his large wang. I guess.
Let’s look at the other characters.
Bridget Jones’s dad plays Zidler. Apparently, the character is supposed to be some sort of creepy, pudgy, ringmaster pimp, which would make a good rapper name. He’s sort of a father figure to Kidman, you know, in a Wes Craven horror show sort of way.
Worst Dracula Ever! plays the Duke, a mustache twisting, cartoonish milksop just waiting for the proper damsel to tie to the nearby railroad tracks. Most assuredly, scenery was devoured. I was kind of waiting for Brendan Fraser to come out and defeat him. Alas…
And then there’s… hmm… Deobia Oparei plays some black guy named Le Chocolat. His character seems like he should be more important than he is treated in the flick. Maybe they’ll make Moulin Rouge 2! Like Water for Chocolat!! Johnny Depp can play an Irish gypsy who sings about magic food that makes people feel like buying hookers and singing pop medleys.
Anywho, I think that that might be it in terms of characters.
At any rate the whole movie is terribly uneven.
Let me explain something, if a live action movie uses cartoon sound effects, I am done.
I have ceased caring about the movie.
You can try for all the drama you want, movie, but you have forfeited your ability to move me in any way shape or form.
You might as well be a sequel to Zapped!
And for a movie about the underworld, prostitution, burlesque, it certainly is… well… safe. There is nothing really seedy going on. Nothing is very sensual or sexual in the movie. (No crotchless panties like the real Moulin Rouge) There is nothing particularly erotic.
Who makes a PG-13 movie about a sex house anyway?
I would say that leaves the whole experience bland, but far from it.
The movie is grating.
OUTRO
Man, I got nothing for this thing.
Seriously, I don’t know what you could do to help this movie out.
I would be interested in seeing it remade by some one like Cronenberg. He’d f*ck the shit out of this movie but good.
There are better movies out there called Moulin Rouge as well. They were showing one ’round here (the 1952 one) at the Siskel Film Center. I miss Siskel. He hated a lot of stuff, and liked Carnosaur. Good guy.
Anywho, if you do happen to watch this flick, I’m gonna recommend a triple feature of They Live!, Army of Darkness, and Big Trouble in Little China to clean all of the woman stank out of your DVD player.
If some persists, treat immediately with a Sonny Chiba movie. Preferably, the first sequel to The Street Fighter.
