Moulin Rouge is the standard star crossed lovers story of power, betrayal, lust, greed and tragedy. I grew up watching musicals like My Fair Lady and Camelot and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. These were movies where people would break into song and dance for no reason-and I never had a problem with that. Most of these shows featured music written for them, though Singing in The Rain was the result of MGM buying up a bunch of old music. Moulin Rouge is one of those films that has the feel of a music video and uses modern music in…
Category: musical
My Fair Lady
Lerner and Loewe made several amazingly good movies and a couple of not so good movies. My Fair Lady is their best. It is the story of a rich Victorian Gentleman-he’s just rich, don’t worry about how he got that, and a poor cockney girl who has to sell flowers for a living. Though it is not at all clear how selling flower came to be the standard profession of poor, honest girls. The story of My Fair Lady is a long one, both in screen time, which is several months, and real time, which is about three hours. The…
Hairspray-Bring Back the Good Old Days
Hairspray is a good, old fashioned, all singing, all dancing musical. This is not a musical that apologizes for being a musical, it is one that embraces it. People break into song for no reason, dance in the streets, change clothes and sets at the drop of a hat, and seem to be having the times of their lives. This is a fun movie to watch.John Travolta reportedly turned down the role of sleazy lawyer Billy Flynn in 2002’s Chicago, so that part could be played by the can’t-dance, can’t-sing talents of Richard Gere. So I was a bit surprised…