Come What May....

Yesterday was a pretty lazy day after an EPICALLY SUCCESSFUL installment of Summer in the Country (the keg was kicked, so that means success). It was kind of rainy and dreary, and I did a 3.2 mile run (my longest since the half, kind of pathetic, I know) and went to the grocery store and then pretty much came home and did nothing for the rest of the day.

I was flipping the channels after the Sox loss to Atalanta, and Moulin Rouge! was on so I stopped for a bit. I wasn't really planning on watching it, and the next time I looked at the clock over an hour had passed. It was the first time I'd seen it in a long time, and honestly forgot how uniformly excellent it was. Baz Luhrmann created an extraordinary film, and one that holds up well over time and repeat viewings. The barrage of color, camera angles, the incredible production and costume design, the soundtrack(!!), everything comes together to make one of the most entertaining films I've ever seen. Yes, the first 20 or so minutes is pretty intense and has the potential to induce motion sickness, but if you can stick it out past there, you're in for a cinematic treat. And I haven't even started on the cast. Nicole Kidman gives a heartbreaking performance as the doomed courtesan Satine and Ewan McGregor gives, IMHO, the performance of his career as the love-struck poet Christian. Their chemistry is explosive, and the "Elephant Love Medley" is wonderful; they both have surprisingly strong enough voices to carry off the vocal demands quite well. They're supported by an excellent cast including John Leguizamo as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jim Broadbent as Harold Zidler and marvelous Richard Roxburgh as the evil Duke. It was amazing the way Luhrmann was able to take what on more than one occasion looked like mass chaos and turned it into one of the sexiest, romantic films ever. Look no further than "Elephant Love Medley" for romance, and "Tango de Roxanne" for blistering sexuality. And of course, it reinforces what everyone knows, the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.

When Moulin Rouge! opened the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and opened world-wide in the coming weeks. It was met with unanimous acclaim and Luhrmann was praised for the reinvention and rebirth of the movie musical (Rob Marshall, I hope you sent him a thank-you note after Chicago won all those Oscars in 2003). It was named the #1 film of the year by the National Board of Review and was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The two glaring omissions? A Best Director nod for Baz Luhrmann (leading host Whoppi Goldberg to quip "apparently Moulin Rouge! directed itself" during the ceremony) and a Best Actor nomination for Ewan McGregor. It picked up two design awards (Costumes and Art Direction) and lost out on Best Picture to A Beautiful Mind...full disclosure: I was a HUGE fan of A Beautiful Mind when it was released and was stoked for it's win; it's currently my least favorite of the nominees that year, which included Moulin Rouge!, The Lord of the Rings, Gosford Park, and In the Bedroom (Blackhawk Down should have been in there, but that's a different blog entry for a different day). In short, yesterday was a pleasant surprise, like a visit from an old friend.
Grade: A

Saw two other films recently that were kind of meh, Away We Go and The Hangover. I was really excited to see Away We Go, as I'm genuinely excited for anything by Sam Mendes, and the cast looked pretty good...but it was a disappointment. Long and short, a couple (Mya Rudolph and Jon Krasinski) travel the country to find the perfect place to raise their expectant child. The script was a little too clever for it's own good sometimes, and the metaphors were a little too blatant. I was also disappointed that the supporting characters (the more interesting ones) weren't fleshed out, there really was a lot more that could have been tapped into that wasn't. On the other hand, The Hangover pretty much was everything I thought it was going to be. A decent, mindless waste of an hour and a half. I'm going to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of those types of movies, and by "those types" I mean Old School, 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, I did/do however, very much enjoy Knocked Up and Wedding Crashers, so I went into The Hangover with low expectations. There definitely were some funny parts, and times where I did laugh out loud, but it suffered from giving away 90% of the best parts in the trailer. I'd recommend it though, it's "that" movie of the summer (soon to be usurped by Brüno I'm sure), the one that everyone is talking about. And you know you want to be one of the cool kids, right?
Grades: C (Away We Go)/ B (The Hangover)