Renoir on acid

Rating: Null/10 (16 January 2002)

You know that hyperactive, burlesque trailer for Moulin Rouge? Well uh, the whole movie's like that. And when all is said and done, if you don't have at least some amount of respect for what Luhrmann tried/was trying to do, then you are officially a dinosaur of the cinematic progressive revolution. What we have here is the onset of the new "Editing" era, to where digitization and special effects are invading the theater tenement like the asseverated pretension of color or the introduction of surround sound. It's a collagen enhancement to spoil us even further. The fearless, continuous prostitution of the movie experience.
Let's face the fact that the old new Hollywood of post-Vietnam is over; Kubrick is unfortunately dead, Spielberg has peaked, and Coppola is off making things like JACK (with Robin Williams; yes that was a Coppola production). The 70's directing generation has reigned, and now let a new wave sweep through the forever changing Hollywood. New ground needs to be broken, and the introduction of such cheeky fireballs like Moulin Rouge are needed to pioneer through the old and stale. And if you're not with the movement, you're against it.
Personally as a film, I thought Moulin Rouge was thin and obvious. To me Nicole Kidman will always have the personality of a wet fish, and don't tell me that when Cameron eventually saw this, he didn't think for at least a minute that Baz was ever-so slightly plagiarizing his $1.8 billion baby. Yet I liked it anyway. As a film, it was meager.
But as a creative statement...it was spectacular spectacular.