Moulin Rouge

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the best film of the last 10 years or total shit ?

― anthonyeaston, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I probably need to see it again to be honest Anthony. I had a big discussion with Alex T after seeing it and we worked out why we hadn't liked it - unfortunately this was on Sept 10 and the next day's events kind of drove the film out of my brain leaving me with just the memory of dislike.

I think the modern-pop-songs-as-musical-numbers worked quite well as a musical, but didn't tell me anything new about pop - and the film lacked the innocence of musicals (inevitably I think). There was no chemistry between Macgregor and Kidman - Macgregor in fact gave a very dull performance. (A lot of the bit-players were good though)

And ultimately the sumptuousness turned me off. It was elaborate and colourful but it never surprised me - whether this would be a general view I don't know but for me fin de siecle camp seems like a pretty well-mined seam. Visual richness is great but this didnt have the imaginative backup I felt it needed.

― Tom, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Extended Ultravox video not helped by Ewan McGregor's singing voice sounding suspiciously like Midge Ure. McGregor very wooden, Broadbent falling into the over-compensating camping-it-up trap. Kidman approached it best - the only way to get through drivel like this is to get your head down, play it straight, collect the cheque and get the hell out of there. One feels that if it had been released in '76 it would've been right up against the wall (anyone remember "All That and World War II?").

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

We had a thread on this before but it didn't get very far. I agree with Tom. As in his 'Romeo & Juliet' the complete lack of chemistry between the two lead players was a big problem for me. I so wanted to get swept up in it all but with a few exceptions (yes, NK, singing 'One Day I'll Fly Away' being chief among them) I couldn't. The thing really began to drag when Kidman got ill and the ending was a bit of an anti-climax.

I wanted the film to be a dumb, beautiful, heartfelt love letter to love and 20th Century pop music, but in the end it slipped too often into camp and became annoying. And the fact that the keynote song was so forgettable didn't help matters.

― N., Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nick are you suggesting we invade this innocent other forum you've linked to?

― Tom, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Egad! I was so sure we'd had a thread before that I searched for it, found that, and thought, that must be it. But it isn't - damn Greenspun and his uniform template. I think I was thinking of a discussion on another, secret forum I used to belong to. But yes, let's invade lik e sands. Or at the very least steal their questions.

― Nick, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There are a few crackers.

― Tom, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I was sure we'd done this too, but I tried the ILE search and no dedicated thread came up - of corse this dos not alow for the fact that nun of us fuXOrs cannes spel.

The fillum? It's the anti-musical!

― Jeff W, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

like sands - long distnce relationships question - note the date - eek!

i like that forum loads

― , Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i dares you to start a "hello from ILE" thread on it...

― Alan Trewartha, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"No one would have believed in the last days of 2001 that 'like sands' was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences lazier than theirs and yet as self-obsessed as their own; that as regulars busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water."

The chances of anything coming from ILE was a million to one...BUT STILL THEY COME!

― Tom, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Why are they called 'like sands'? It doesn't make any sense.

― N., Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Perhaps from Days of our Lives? 'Like sands through the hourglass so are the Days of our Lives' etc. etc.

― Emma, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh right, I thought it was for people who like sands.

― N., Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You may be right,in which case my obsession with soap operas is addling my brain.

― Emma, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The forum is for online journalers, hence the days quote. We did have a thread on ILM, an article response thang to a piece I did for f/t.

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

the editing in this movie is so bad, so self-conscious, and so does not serve its purposes in any way... do you think that when a movie is so visually... rich? ok, so visually & compositionally FULL, that the editing needs to be really restrained to keep it from being a total clusterfuck? (conversely does that mean frenetic editing works better with simple and/or spartan framing?)

and man, the fucking blurry slo-mo, i hate it so much.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 19 September 2005 01:32 (twenty years ago)

i keep wondering when a film approaches a visually rich clusterfuck i like it much much more, i love it if it falls into it,

i wonder what that means

― anthony, Monday, 19 September 2005 01:38 (twenty years ago)

like what else?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 19 September 2005 01:41 (twenty years ago)

these are v. v. different movies, but i think that they ll qualify

broadway babes of 1942 (the berkely). barry lyndon, Cabaret,Lucifer Rising, pink narcisuss, Starship Troopers,Cleopatra, the devils,

― anthony, Monday, 19 September 2005 03:02 (twenty years ago)

I still love this movie very much. There's something so satisfying about unsurprising sumptuousness (to rework Tom's critique).

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 19 September 2005 06:19 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

surprised this film didn't generate more posts - it seems like the kind of film that would get lots of love here. i saw it on a plane (not the best way to see any flick, but especially one so visual) but it seemed largely crap. 5 years later, people still dig it/hate it?

― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 22 October 2006 04:45 (nineteen years ago)

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