Moulin Rouge (2001) Revisit Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

 

I've actually seen the musical theater presentation of Moulin Rouge more frequently in the last couple of years than I have the film.  So it was a real treat to get a screening as part of the Paramount summer classic film festival. This was our first return to the Paramount Theater for the summer season, and of course it will be a brief return because the theater is closing down for 11 months for renovation. Screenings will continue next door at the State Theater, which will be pursuing renovations after the Paramount is done.

There is a cacophony of sounds in Moulin Rouge, times can be overwhelming. There are however other moments of quiet Melody that said a tone of romance very effectively. The juxtaposition of these two styles can be jarring at times, which probably accounts for the fact that not everybody cares much for this film. I on the other hand appreciate the effort to do something authentically different well at the same time appealing to an audience with familiar songs and music.

The tone of the film is occasionally comic, but usually it is overwhelmingly sincere in spite of its simplistic supposedly bohemian themes. Nicole Kidman was at the Apex of her beauty when this film was made. Not that she doesn't continue to be a lovely presence on screen, but this was a moment in time when her appearance could almost be described as created by artificial intelligence. Stunningly, she also has a very nice voice and conveys power and emotion with the songs that she sings. The Old Chestnut that Marilyn Monroe made famous, Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, is used continuously throughout the film to reflect the amoral attitudes of the gold diggers who populate the chorus in the film. We are however supposed to sympathize with them because after all they are exploited by others who are well off. To me the pretentious themes of the Bohemians feels like a long-term joke, that is playing out again a century after the events depicted in this film.

Ewan McGregor also has a naturally developed singing voice that carries a lot of the narrative of this jukebox Musical. He also is a handsome spectacle that would be enticing to that part of the audience drawn to a vibrant young man. For me the most fun in the movie is trying to discern which song is having its chorus or verse edited into The Continuous stream of exposition in the form of music. Those of you who know me will understand how I was delighted when a kiss song appears in the film.  Director Baz Luhrmann has consistently found innovative ways to make movies look different. There is some criticism of his style because although his movies look different from other people's films, they sometimes seem reminiscent of his own. Since he isn't producing films on a yearly basis I don't find that problematic.

In addition to the music the visuals of the film combine practical stage sets with miniatures and traditional optic effects to make the movie look spectacular( spectacular). Sometimes there's sepia-toned filters, occasionally soft focus camera work, and frequently there is dynamic use of light to make the screen come alive. All of it is accentuated by bright colors, particularly Reds, which hold our attention and stimulate our emotions.  

Is salt on our auditory senses can be overwhelming, which might make the movie Something of a chore for some moviegoers. Accounts for the reason I've not seen the film much since it opened 25 years ago. We first acquired the DVD of the film the year it was in theaters and my kids watched it frequently for the next couple of years, but they moved on to other movies and by 05, we were done with this for the most part. In the last couple of years however, my youngest daughter has become a theater kid, and on one of our trips to New York City, we saw Moulin Rouge with the original leads of the stage Musical reprising their roles. Just last year Broadway Austin presented the touring version of the musical here at the Bass Concert Hall, and we attended that as well.

The nostalgia that comes from watching a movie that was so distinctive 25 years ago and to which my children were devoted for a period of time was one of the main reasons I enjoyed are screening this last month. The movie is still a technical Marvel in an artistic gamble that I think pays off, but I will admit that it will not be something I rush out to see again. I need to catch my breath.

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

If ever a film announced itself as a feminist battle cry for comic book respect, "Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn" is the title they would probably choose. The idea here is to liberate not only Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, but every woman in the world from the patriarchal culture that they are being choked to death in. I think it's great that there is a comic book figure that is empowering to women, I just am a little concerned that they have to be murdering sociopaths. "Deadpool" seems like a caricature of super heroes, with his nihilistic humor and snarky social commentary. "Harley Quinn" is supposed to be taken differently, but I'm not sure how, and we may have skipped the part that is being parodied. 

I thought the quick telling of her backstory and the break up with her relationship to the Joker was clever. There is a combination of flashbacks, cartoons and first person narration that gets us through this relatively quickly and with some efficiency. The same efficiency does not apply to the secondary women in the story who need to be liberated as well. Detective Montoya gets ignored by the idiot men around her, multiple times, and it is only when she is egregiously second-guessed and suspended, in the mode of every movie cop trope you can find except the partner who dies, that she sees the need for some liberation. "The Huntress" is an assassin with a mission, who is saved as a child by a bad man who deposits her with other bad men to make her badass, but those men  disappear twenty seconds after her story is recounted. She has always been alone except for the gangster father she wants to avenge. So I guess what she needs to be liberated from is the family stricture that requires her to operate on a blood debt. "Black Canary" need to be liberated from the clutches of a man who sees her as a possession and doesn't recognize her worth. He treats her as a slave and she acts the part really well.

The other female character in the story is a neighborhood girl who has parents that argue while she hones her skills as a thief and pick-pocket. She is already liberated from any sense of right or wrong, so I guess she is supposed to be a role model for the suppressed women in the story and a chip off of the Harley Block. The reality is that the film stacks up so many straw men [that is an intentional double meaning] that the films sense of justice feels manufactured and that undermines the main point. I'm probably taking this too seriously, some of you are muttering to yourselves right now "it's just a comic book movie". It is just a comic book movie which is why all the other stuff is standing in the way.

Margot Robbie made this character her own in "Suicide Squad" back in 2016, and it is no surprise here that she is the main draw. The problem is that a little of the character goes a long way, but we get a lot of the character and it makes her distinctiveness feel littler. From an action point of view, the fight scenes and shootouts are staged in a visually arresting manner but sometimes there is a little too much layered on top, For instance, every scene depicting women kicking men's asses, is accompanied by an empowering hard rock song about the power of bad ass women. It underlines, puts it in bold and points at it in such an obvious way that the action sometimes feels less organic to the events in the story and simply one more place to pump up the girl power.

In addition to overselling Harley, the make her antagonist feckless. He is a villain who is so narcissistic, that much like Kylo Ren, he has a superfluous mask simply to draw attention to himself. It literally serves no other function, since everyone including the police know that he is "Black Mask". Ewan McGregor squawks and screams through the role as if he is Al Pacino playing the Joker. His only super power appears to be reckless inflated opinion of himself. What value is there in a heroine who takes down this pile of nothingness?

I like the production design when the characters are on the streets battling it out, and there is a funky set that is the location for the climax confrontation which was fun. I probably sound silly complaining about the cartoonish characters when we are talking about a movie that is a cartoon, but there was never a time I thought the women leads were in jeopardy. Harley by herself repeatedly takes out squads of hulking henchmen, so why would we worry about the outcome when she has four backup players to fight a small army?

Truth be told, I found the movie entertaining on a simplistic level. If we have to choose between the sets of characters on the screen, of course we are going to root for the women. It just lacks the kind of balance that would make the film feel substantive, and you can tell that it wears its ideology on it's sleeve. That detracts a little from the fun, but it also makes the value of that ideology feel cheap. 

Doctor Sleep

Thirty-five years ago, someone created a sequel to a Stanley Kubrick film, using material from the original author of the piece. It seemed foolish to try to ride the tailcoats of Kubrick's Masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey", but "2010: The Year We Make Contact" was not a disaster and it did make a little money. Well, writer/director Mike Flanagan has attempted the same feat. Kubrick's "The Shining" had a sequel written for it by original author Stephen King, and that story has been adapted to make this sequel almost forty years later.

"Doctor Sleep" is substantially different in tone from "The Shining". The single location of the first film made it feel like a Gothic haunted house story, although there are many elements of the "shine" that are present. King was famously dissatisfied with the Kubrick approach. While I never read the novel, I suspect his unhappiness stemmed from the minimal relationship of the psychic ability of Danny Torrance to the film story. That may in fact be why King returned to the characters, so that he could elaborate on the mystery of "Shining" and not simply be trapped in the haunted hotel.

This story does start off at the time of the original events, and there are a couple of moments recreated for the prologue, but we quickly move forward thirty years to Danny Torrance as an adult. He is a troubled man who has been haunted by the spirit of the house that he feels has pursued him over the years. Ewan McGregor plays the adult Danny and he wanders aimlessly until another spirit visits him and he commits to a fresh start with new friends and no chemical solutions to his anxiety. As his story is playing out we are introduced to a new group of people who seem to thrive on those that shine. At first it is unclear whether they are spirits or something else. Ultimately, this group of wanderers lead by the magnetic Rebecca Ferguson, turns out to be the antagonists in a deadly hunt of those who can "shine" and those who use the shiners for their own purposes. It's basically a vampire story with creatures that are human but who have supernatural abilities. It certainly is a horror story, but it is not the slow burn descent into madness that the original focused on.

The strengths of the story ,as told in the film, are first and foremost McGregor, who has to be desperate, sometime despicable and ultimately re-deemed. The character is strongest in the scenes where he is working as an orderly in a hospice, and conversing with those who are soon making the trip to the other side. He develops the sympathy and heroic nature that he will need when the story leads him to direct confrontation. Cliff Curtis, a familiar supporting actor and welcome presence helps steady Danny in the road to empowering his Shining Skills. Inevitably there is a figure that brings the two sides into conflict. I won't spoil the horror for you but suffice it to say, it involves children, and that is introduced as a theme early on but taken to it's most horrifying place mid-way through the film. 

Modern film techniques allow directors to do things that seem physically impossible. The CGI moments remind us of that impossibility. That is one of the reasons that practical effects are so important, because they tie a sense of reality to the impossible. Two sequences in the film took be out of the story a bit because of the computer work. One involves a young girl rotating a house and levitating, this was preceded by an episode with spoons years earlier. Both of these moments would have worked more in a frightening way if they had more practical elements to them. "Shining" moments are less problematic because we are in a fantasy world at that point so the lack of reality is less egregious.

Just like how 2010 took the metaphysical world of it's predecessor and moved it into a traditional political conflict, Flanagan  and King take the supernatural horror from the first story and turn it into an action story, and it works. There are moments of horror in this film that are shocking for sure but it will be most noted for the game playing being done by two sides that we get to understand pretty well. It feels like an adaption of a complex universe that has been created in a book, and I think it is largely successful at turning that material into something cinematic.