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March 28, 2024, 09:32:02 PM

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Moulin Rouge is one of the greatest films of the century

Started by Blinder Data, October 03, 2021, 07:32:42 AM

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Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on October 04, 2021, 07:04:42 PM
Cannibal the Musical (which specifically refers to how fucking odd musicals are if you stop and think about it for a second)
I have / had the VHS of this under its original title "Alferd Packer: The Musical", which only refers to how bad old-timey people were at spelling names.

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Does Jungle Book (1967) count as a musical, or does that open the floodgates too much?  It's quite good anyway.

mothman

I personally don't think of it as a musical, just a film with songs in.

thenoise

I enjoyed Hairspray.

Never seen Moulin Rouge, although I remember Lady Marmalade and its accompanying video, which came out at a time when it was much appreciated by me and my little friend[nb]willy[/nb].

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on October 04, 2021, 07:04:42 PM
I'm famous for generally hating musicals (I find them embarrassing), and the only ones I like are:
South Park
Cannibal the Musical (which specifically refers to how fucking odd musicals are if you stop and think about it for a second)
Blues Brothers (although I tend to subscribe to Landis' own opinion that it's not really a musical in the traditional sense)
Willy Wonka
West Side Story
Muppet films I guess, although they're minimal

That's where people randomly burst into song and/or dance in a public place and everyone else seems to know the lyrics and/or dance moves as well, as distinct from films which feature performances - the most recent A Star Is Born, for example.

That's pretty much exactly what I think, same list and all although I'd exchange 'West Side Story' for 'Little Shop of Horrors'. To be fair though I haven't seen 'West Side Story' since I was about 10 and had always lumped it in the same category as your Oklahomas, Greases and Sounds of Musics etc.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on October 04, 2021, 10:51:33 PM
That's pretty much exactly what I think, same list and all although I'd exchange 'West Side Story' for 'Little Shop of Horrors'. To be fair though I haven't seen 'West Side Story' since I was about 10 and had always lumped it in the same category as your Oklahomas, Greases and Sounds of Musics etc.

Oh yeah, Little Shop Of Horrors (Oz one) as well, definitely. 

There's always been something about West Side that clicks with me.  Might just be because, for a musical, it's quite grim.

EOLAN

West Side Story is a film where I find the talking bits to be such a drag. The songs and choreography is so wonderful that the talk just seems so dull and uninteresting in comparison. And was much more of it than I expected.

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Quote from: mothman on October 04, 2021, 08:41:17 PM
I don't mind the odd musical or two, and I can appreciate the talent that goes into making them.

"I can perceive that a lot of hard work was expended on this"

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Quote from: mothman on October 04, 2021, 10:05:41 PM
I personally don't think of it as a musical, just a film with songs in.

Does there need to be a stage origin for it to count?

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Quote from: Shit Good Nose on October 05, 2021, 10:19:41 AM
Oh yeah, Little Shop Of Horrors (Oz one) as well, definitely. 

There's always been something about West Side that clicks with me.  Might just be because, for a musical, it's quite grim.

I think the music of West Side Story stands out for being more complex than most musicals.  Same with Sweeney Todd.

Mind you I was in youth productions of both West Side Story and Sweeney Todd when I was 15 so that might inform some kind of bias.


By and large most musicals make me feel sick.  All that Lloyd Webber shite can hoist itself into a brazen bull.


dissolute ocelot

The problem I (and evidently a lot of other people) have with classic musicals is that the music is shit. I like a bit of melodrama or a love story, but would never voluntarily listen to Andrew Lloyd-Webber or Rogers and Hammerstein.

Hence stuff like Little Shop, Grease, South Park, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rocky Horror, etc, which don't have the lowest-common-denominator Broadway shit stand out as actually being enjoyable. And Bernstein and Sondheim are a cut above that too, even if Sondheim can be a bit too clever-clever at times.

Blinder Data

Loving this musicals chat but back on topic...

I watched Moulin Rouge for the first time recently. I tried a few years ago but I was drunk and it made me feel dizzy. The lazy part of me wanted to dismiss it as S4C without even seeing it.

The experience of watching it reminded me of Mad Max: Fury Road. It makes you forget about the quality of dialogue, character development, plotting, and WOWS you with spectacle.

(That said, one aspect I didn't much like was the mysterious black character - named Chocolat! - who intervenes at important moments and yet barely says a word and we never know anything about him.)

The constant medleys and Ewan McGregor's singing can get annoying, but something about the whole thing works. Kidman and McGregor are very sweet together. Richard Roxburgh is fantastic as the villain. Some sequences, e.g. Roxanne, are beautiful. The editing is breakneck but submit yourself to Baz Luhrmann's magic and enjoy the ride.

Maybe it's not one of the greatest of the century, but definitely one of the most significant. There's nothing quite like it. It should be included in Top 100 etc.

I would recommend watching it on a massive screen, very loud, with no distractions.

Bad Ambassador



Quote from: Blinder Data on October 05, 2021, 12:54:32 PMit reminded me of Mad Max: Fury Road

which is also fucking terrible. A 2 hour long, dull, lifeless car chase.
It starts off really promising, I was enjoying it for the first half an hour. It looks pretty enough but it was all garnish and no dinner. Style over substance.
Everything felt so hollow. The characters were all 2d flat empty nothings. The action was badly done, My adrenal gland was spent and I was running on empty very quickly.

It's an action film only in the sense that things happen. Things that don't make you feel anything.
Shaking the camera around doesn't make me feel more excited, it just makes me feel restless and bored like I'm coming down from a sugar rush.
Bored the arse off me. Same with Moulin Rouge.

Midas

Generally not a fan of musicals, but I do like The Wicker Man.

Moulin Rouge is terrible though. What sort of cunt sets fire to their abinthe?

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Wicker Man is a good shout.


Still though, what makes a musical as opposed to a film with songs in, like The Jungle Book?

Noodle Lizard

I've always found the "The Wicker Man is a musical, actually" line to be a bit try-hard. The kind of thing you'd see falling out the mouth of a talking head on some Channel 4 "Greatest Horror Movies" slap-up.

It doesn't really matter at the end of the day, but I'd argue the focus of that film isn't musical numbers, it just features some folksy island cult members who like a bit of a sing-song, as well they might. The only bit close to emulating something you'd find in an out-and-out musical is Britt Ekland's song, because it has the non-diegetic presentation common with musicals (although I think you do see some people playing the instruments downstairs, so it's not entirely non-diegetic).

Strangely, I don't think I've heard anyone describe Performance as a musical, even though that does have at least one full-on "musical" number - and a great one, at that.

Midas

The Wayward Cloud was entertaining, though probably not so good. Not seen Dancer In The Dark, but I remember thinking that sounded interesting.

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Quote from: Noodle Lizard on October 05, 2021, 08:19:12 PM
I've always found the "The Wicker Man is a musical, actually" line to be a bit try-hard. The kind of thing you'd see falling out the mouth of a talking head on some Channel 4 "Greatest Horror Movies" slap-up.

Cheers but that wasn't even slightly my tone, and I followed it by asking what defines a musical as opposed to a film with songs in.  A question that hasn't really been answered.

Midas

The difference between films containing songs and musicals is nebulous but essentially musicals are just films that are worse.

Quote from: Midas on October 05, 2021, 08:51:44 PMNot seen Dancer In The Dark, but I remember thinking that sounded interesting.

Oh yeah, I've seen that! That's good! Have you seen "The house that jack built" That's really good fun :D

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Quote from: Midas on October 05, 2021, 09:05:31 PM
The difference between films containing songs and musicals is nebulous but essentially musicals are just films that are worse.

So in other words all the ones we have selected as likeable aren't actually musicals.

Midas

Mike Leigh's Naked is not a musical because the song Johnny and Louise sing at the end has an ambiguous relationship with what's happening onscreen, whereas Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a musical because the songs ebb and flow incestuously within the plot.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Replies From View on October 05, 2021, 08:59:26 PM
Cheers but that wasn't even slightly my tone, and I followed it by asking what defines a musical as opposed to a film with songs in.  A question that hasn't really been answered.

I wasn't responding to you, it's been a common take since the film came out (I think it started with Robin Hardy himself).

I think my subsequent point about diegetic music begins to answer the question of what defines a musical, though, at least in my mind. You wouldn't, for instance, call The Doors or most other music biopics which feature a lot of songs "musicals" because a lot of the time the music is presented as being performed by the characters within the context of the film.

For a decent comparison, take Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocket Man - both biopics of famous British musicians, released within a year of each other, partially sharing a director even - it seems clear to me that Rocket Man is a musical as well as a biopic, whereas Bohemian Rhapsody is just a biopic, despite featuring about the same amount of songs. The reason for that is that there's not a moment of musical performance in Bohemian Rhapsody which isn't "a character in the film performing some music".

I think a true musical has a very specific dissonance between its musical numbers and the "real world" of the film - almost like dream sequences. See also High School Musical (musical) vs. Glee (people performing music in a show). I think The Wicker Man falls closer to the "not a musical" side of things because, more often than not, we're seeing characters perform traditional music as part of the story. The Ekland bit, as I mentioned, is the only one which approaches what I'd consider to be a "musical number" in a film, but even that is supposed to be happening within "reality" (or at least the reality established within the film).

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Midas

charlie bucket: sad

ohhh cheer up charlie give us a smileeeeee

^ musical.

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oh fuck me that song



even on fast-forward it lasts about six years

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I suppose these revelations indicate that Die Hard is only a Christmas Film with songs in it, not a Christmas Musical.