(diaryland) May 28, 2001 - 10:50 p.m.

Moulin Rouge

I saw that film last night. I read in Beat Magazine that James Valentine described it as a �90 million dollar rock esteddford entry� and he wasn�t far off. But it was a fun movie. Not only was there kitsch all over the place, there were uncomfortably too many close-ups of silly people and I thought I was going to get a heart attack at any moment due to the pace. It didn�t help I was in the front row. At the time, I hated the way there were operatic versions of songs off the radio but looking back, I don�t really mind all that much. I�m not overly sure about this, but the Cancan itself was extracted from the opera Orpheus in the Underworld by Offenbach. I think. So basically, the movie is doing the same thing. Nicking popular tunes from somewhere else and making them into bawdy dance numbers. Which means it�s kind of consistent. The movie was of course wildly inaccurate but being historically correct wasn�t the point. Tolouse-Lautrec was in it, but there were no real performers like Jane Avril or that stretchy guy that I�ve forgotten the name of. You know who I�m talking about. And the elephant in the back yard was heaps bigger and a thousand times more jazzy than it looked in old photos. But, hey. At least they had an elephant. Nicole Kidman was tops, and Ewan McGregor had on a facial expression all throughout the movie which made him look like he was trying to bum cigarettes off everyone. He proved yet again that he really could be a rock star. The storyline was extremely thin (no sub-plots either) but the overabundance of camera angles mostly made up for it. Just like in Romeo+Juliet, you know who is going to die before you even start the movie. And there was a play within a play. John Leguziamo was very silly. Richard Roxburgh sounded like he was from a Carry On film. I liked it when they sang Like A Virgin the best. It hurts me to watch Baz Luhrmann films but that is because I�m too cynical or he�s not cynical enough. In retrospect, it was good. Three-point-five stars. That is all.

I wrote a song yesterday.