What can I say in one line that will summarise this masterpiece?

Rating: 10/10 (2 February 2002)

Q. What's Moulin Rouge all about, then?
A.It's about a young English poet named Christian (Ewan McGregor, whose performance has been highly under-rated) who travels to Paris in 1899, despite his father's disapproval. He becomes acquainted with Henri Toulouse-Laudrec (John Leguizamo), a disorientated Argentinean (Jacek Koman), and several others. Well, they fall through his roof anyway. When they discover he is a writer, they want him to write a play, then get it staged in La Mouline Rouge (Translates as "The Red Windmill")
"The Nightclub of Your Dreams!"
It is there he first sees Satine (Nicole Kidman) a beautiful, ahem, courtesan. They meet, fall in love, sing and dance...but all is not well. The Duke of Monroth (Richard Roxburgh) is determined to take Satine away from the Moulin Rouge and make her a star (and, it seems, his wife). But then Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent) our nightclub's manager, discovers that our Satine is not very well...
This is a beautiful film. (C'est Magnifique!)Anyone who says this is just like all the other films titled 'Moulin Rouge' (the flops from the 30's and 40's,) either cannot appreciate good things, or is lying. Running at just over 2 hours, some would say it's a little long, but it flies by with the help of some speedy cameras and beautiful performances. With some help from a few familiar songs (Heroes by David Bowie, Material Girl by Madonna, and Your Song by Sir Elton John, to name a few) and obvious hard work, Baz Luhramann has created the best musical since Grease. (C'mon, admit it, we all sang Summer Nights at one point) All the stars positively sparkle and there is strong chemistry between them all. There are times when you laugh (When Zidler sings a famous Madonna reel to the Duke) times when you cry (The tragedy off-stage about ten minutes before the end, I'm not gonna spoil it for the minority who haven't seen it) and times when you can only sit on the edge of your seat to see what happens (yeah, like I'm going to tell you when that is! ). It'll be a few months before the launch of Moulin Rouge on DVD over here, but if you're in a similar situation, it's totally worth waiting for.
Someone asked me why the actors in this were so great. Y'know what I said?

`BECAUSE THEY CAN CAN-CAN!'
(Sorry for the bad joke.)
Stacy_G_IE