Spectacular, Spectacular

Rating: 10/10 (1 November 2001)

**SPOILERS ARE CONTAINED HEREIN. BEWARE FOOLHARDY READERS!**
You know if you take out the songs, slow down the editing, keep the heroine alive at the end, split the Duke into two characters (the Money and the Evil Love Interest), send it back in time by about 250 years and move it about 200 miles or so North West and you've got Shakespeare in Love.
Moulin Rouge isn't an original film, it doesn't have an original editing style, it doesn't have original songs, the acting is good but not great, the singing *is* great although the comedy can grate, and the plot is seemingly ripped from another film which mimics another story (already covered by Baz) and that is being taken to court for plagiarism (did you follow that?)
What Moulin Rouge is however, is *magic*.
Magic is what cinema is all about. A piece of cinema can be original with excellent score, acting, direction, cinematography, script and all the rest but still not light up that part of you that will stay glowing and warm all the way through a tortuous tube trip home.
I'm still smiling now and my whole being is suffused with a warm fuzzy feeling that I don't want to let go of.
Leave your intellect at the door, prepare to be smacked round the chops by visuals that will blind you as completely as prolonged absinthe use, and let your ears fill with at least three of the past thirty years more popular songs being sung at the same time and at immense volume. 10/10
Shakespeare in Love got lots of Oscars. I wonder what the Academy will make of this?