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Moulin Rouge! (Widescreen Edition)
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Actors: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, and Richard Roxburgh
Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Retail Price (not our price): $14.98
Release Date: 2003-01-14
Theatrical Release Date: 2001-06-01
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Run Time: 128 minutes
Format: Array
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Discs: 1


Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):

1) Amazon.com essential video
A dazzling and yet frequently maddening bid to bring the movie musical kicking and screaming into the 21st century, Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge bears no relation to the many previous films set in the famous Parisian nightclub. This may appear to be Paris in the 1890s, with can-can dancers, bohemian denizens like Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo), and ribaldry at every turn, but it's really Luhrmann's pop-cultural wonderland. Everyone and everything is encouraged to shatter boundaries of time and texture, colliding and careening in a fast-cutting frenzy that thinks nothing of casting Elton John's "Your Song" 80 years before its time. Nothing is original in this kaleidoscopic, absinthe-inspired love tragedy--the words, the music, it's all been heard before. But when filtered through Luhrmann's love for pop songs and timeless showmanship, you're reminded of the cinema's power to renew itself while paying homage to its past. Luhrmann's overall success with his third "red-curtain" extravaganza (following Strictly Ballroom and William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet) is wildly debatable: the scenario is simple to the point of silliness, and how can you appreciate choreography when it's been diced into hash by attention-deficit editing? Still, there's something genuine brewing between costars Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman (as, respectively, a poor writer and his unobtainable object of desire), and their vocal talents are impressive enough to match Luhrmann's orgy of extraordinary sets, costumes, and digital wizardry. The movie's novelty may wear thin, along with its shallow indulgence of a marketable soundtrack, but Luhrmann's inventiveness yields moments that border on ecstasy, when sound and vision point the way to a moribund genre's joyously welcomed revival. --Jeff Shannon

2) Description
A spectacle beyond anything you've ever witnessed. An experience beyond everything you've ever imagined. Behind the red velvet curtain, the ultimate seduction of your senses is about to begin. Welcome to the Moulin Rouge! Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor sing, dance and scale the heights of passionate abandon in the year's most talked-about movie from visionary director Baz Luhrmann (William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, Strictly Ballroom). Enter a tantalizing world that celebrates truth, beauty, freedom and above all things, love.

Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5

1) Baz baby, you're not all that   [Rating: 2 out of 5]
I'm not trying to be contrarian here, really. I'm trying to figure out why post-modern critics and movie-goers get all lathered up over anachronisms in movies. What is so impressive about porting Madonna and Patti LaBelle songs into 1900 Paris? Or about putting modern-day manners and slang into old contexts? Why does this inspire such creative awe with this generation? Monty Python & company did it, for comic effect, 35 years ago, and no one thought it was "genius." Amusing, perhaps, and that's what this film is, for 15 minutes, until it becomes obvious there's no plot and no point. What storytelling or dramatic skill does this technique show that otherwise could not have been shown? Why do it other than auteur-driven gimmick?"Ah, but you're contradicting yourself," you say (or you would if you've read all my other reviews here in Amazon). "You heaped praise on Terry Gilliam's Brazil and talked about its anachronistic nature. Gotcha!" Well, no. Brazil wasn't really about mixing time periods, despite what most of the reviews said. They didn't catch the title card in the beginning that said "Somewhere in the 20th Century." The film wasn't about the future--a future with science fiction technology next to 1940s typewriters and fedoras--but rather an alternate *present*, a warning of how things could have turned out if history had been just a little bit different. This is not, strictly speaking, a case of anachronism, but even if it were, it makes a point, it has a function.I don't see a function of it in this film, directed by ultra-hipster Baz Luhrmann, who, judging from the supplemental materials, seems to have an ego the size of Paris itself. Nor do I see a point in shooting everything in a hyper-kinetic style that has more in common with Looney Tunes cartoons than anything French, anything Moulon Rougish, anything musical. "It stands the musical on its head," the reviews shriek. Yeah, it does. One can stand *anything* on its head; the question is, does doing the headstand reveal anything different than with both feet planted on the ground? If in this case it does, someone tell me *what* in the "comments" section below this review. Be specific, please: nothing like "It's making the musical modern but you old fuddy-duddies can't stand that!" That's a rant, not a revelation.The movie is shot in a helter-skelter style with an editor who to me appeared to be all-thumbs. (How was the choreography? someone asked me. I don't know; there was too much cross-cutting to see it.) Composition of shots was...well, there wasn't any; the director seemed to just line the room with cameras, "spray" the scene and bounce from angle to angle randomly in the editing process. Maybe he thinks this is the kewel new way to make movies, but I'll take the choreography of a Fosse and the cinematography of a Rotunno any day. The story itself is pedestrian, perhaps intentionally, since kitch seems to be in style among filmmakers right now, but it wears thin. We have boy meets girl (but girl is *forbidden to love*!), boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, girl dies (dramatically, of course). No, that last is not a spoiler that ruins it for you. They tell you she is dying in the first 20 minutes, and in case you don't hear it through all the noise, they show her having a coughing fit that would alarm the Marlboro Man, and when someone puts a handkerchief to her mouth, we see spatters of blood. (One of Roger Ebert's movie rules is anytime a character bleeds from the mouth they will die.) This screenplay has the subtlety of the 5:15 from Manhattan running over a chimp monk.Kidman is good, but it's more good casting that good acting, as she's shown before she excels at cool, aloof and unreachable characters with tragedy attached. MacGregor does the best he can, but he's a caricature more than a character (which is the intention, by the way). I know we're all supposed to be impressed it's a musical inside a play inside a movie. Big whoop. Nice art direction and I dug the idea of nestling it all into a period-style presentation, but that wasn't enough.I doubt this review will convince those who are always thirsting for the "brave" and "new" and "cutting edge," so I probably just wore the coating off my keyboard for no good reason. Brave and new is fine, if it has some kind of point to it other than to draw attention to itself. Just because something is different, that doesn't make it "genius." It just makes it...different.

2) The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return!   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
It is rare that a movie causes me to cry, and this one does every time. The acting is flawless, the music beautiful, and the story cuts right to the heart. I recommend this to anyone who believes in true love.

3) A work of genius   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
It is flawed and it is brilliant. It follows the classic boy meets girl - boy loses girl - boy gets girl back again formula, but it does so with a visual and musical imagination which few other directors can match.

4) My favorite musical!   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I adore this film. I love the look and feel of it. The acting is superb and the singing is surprisingly lovely especially by Ewan McGregor, who did a fantastic job. His performace was endearing. I am not normally a fan of musicals, but it is so different from all the rest that I couldn't help but love it. And the soundtrack is one of my favorites. The music is gorgeous and catchy, its possibly one of my most favorite soundtracks. Plus, there are plently of speaking scenes if you don't like the 100% singing movie. It has a great mixture of both and I recommend it to anyone.

5) Ewan at his best   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
As I've said before Ewan is my favorite actor and this movie is a great example why. He and Nicole Kidman are a good match. Their chemistry together is wondeful. The looked like they had a blast making this movie. And they both can sing great. This movie is not for all people but for those who can relax and let your mind go what a wonderful trip you are getting ready to take. 5 stars all around (costumes, songs, dance, acting) and most important of all this movie will move you. Come what may indeed!