Connie, I felt like the use of well-known songs served a couple of purposes. First -- and this is the bit that is lazy -- it sometimes makes for an emotional shortcut. Christian doesn't need to sell us his love poem for Satine as much, because we already associate "Your Song" with mushiness. On the other hand, the use of songs for the "Elephant Love Medley" was pretty brilliant, in the jigsaw way they fit all the pieces together, and many songs are subverted or released from their original meanings (e.g., "Like a Virgin," "Smells Like Teen Spirit") It is worth noting that the single most important song, "Come What May," is an original.

On another level, I felt the use of modern songs brought the story from being a pretty freaking cliched plot we've all seen a couple hundred times to something that kept the basics of that story, kept the emotion of that story, and also rose above its limits. If the movie had played it straight -- if it hadn't been five different genres and postmodern and edited like a music video -- it would have been a standard costume drama, and I wouldn't have liked it.

But the movie does seem to be a bit of a love it or hate it proposition, and I understand that it doesn't work for some people.

I'm going to post the review I wrote when I first saw it:

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Moulin Rouge is unlike any movie you've ever seen, even though it's just like every movie you've ever seen. It is the classic tale of boy loves girl, girl loves boy, one-dimensional villain gets in the way, the lovers spout cliches, and then either they live happily ever after, one of them dies, or they both die. Somehow, though, it transcends all these cliches and becomes something magnificent.

A beautiful and often hilarious movie, it will probably be criticized as being "style over substance." Hogwash. Moulin Rouge is a ride. Not a Tunnel of Love, but more like a Wind Tunnel of Love. A radio DJ said of the movie, "It's like you stuck No-Doze in every orifice of your body and drank a Mt. Dew." For much of the first half, this is largely true. It almost feels like you're watching a music video, with frenetic action accelerated by dozens of frenzied cuts. Luhrmann recalls the slapstick comedy of yore, complete with exaggerated pratfalls and goofy sound effects. He immerses you in this world. I turned to my friend and said, "This is the craziest fucking movie I've seen in a long time." The camera...oh, the camera. It zooms in and out, and flies around the elaborate set. The film is a directorial field day for Luhrmann. He creates a fairytale world, complete with a drug-induced Green Fairy voiced by Ozzy Osbourne.

Like A Knight's Tale, it uses anachronistic music. Although I haven't seen A Knight's Tale, I believe it is far more effective here. In the Moulin Rouge, music and songs from the 20th century become integrated into the world of 1900 Paris. The amazing thing is, it fits. The patrons of the cabaret chant, "Here we are now, entertain us, we feel stupid and contagious." Luhrmann uses the music as if it were actually in existence at that time, and by doing so, he shows the universality of it. Music is one of those universal languages, and the most universal form of all is the love song. Whether it is 1900 Paris, 1987 Chicago, or 1473 Spain, love is love. The words Madonna, Sting, Elton John, and countless others used to portray love would have been just as appropriate back then, but they never had a chance to hear them. In one brilliant sequence, Christian (Ewan MacGregor) and Satine (Nicole Kidman) sing a dialogue about love, fluidly jumping from love song to love song, lyric to lyric. They don't sing these songs as songs; they sing them like they mean them. It is like a very trippy musical.

The fact that Luhrmann pulls together a great deal of love songs is the key to appreciating the movie, because the love between Christian and Satine is idealized. It simply comes into existence and is there in its purest form between them, without logic, without sense. Over and over again, we are reminded that above all, this story is about love. And it really is about love. It is love in cinematic form. It is a visual and aural representation of what love is, what it means, and how important it is to human beings.

The movie would not be able to get this across if Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman (looking more beautiful than ever) did not give incredible performances. You can see it in their eyes. You feel their pain. You feel their happiness. The supporting cast supports, as well it should. Jim Broadbent (Gilbert in Topsy Turvy) plays the owner of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler. John Leguizamo is real-life midget artist Toulouse-Lautrec, a character I believe is akin to Shakespeare's Fool. And all of the cast can sing unexpectedly well, from a hilariously lyricized can-can to a hilarious "Like a Virgin," from beautiful love songs to a disturbingly appropriate "Roxanne."

The music is wonderful, from the orchestral score to the electronica. I advise you to stay and watch the closing credits, not only because you get to hear more music but also because it's not your typical black screen/white letters crawl, and it gives some predictable but (continued...)

( continues...) appreciated closure at the end.

All in all, Moulin Rouge grabs you and hits you with the sheer power of itself. When the movie ended, the audience was completely silent. I couldn't really speak. I felt like I felt at the end of Requiem for a Dream, except less like I was about to die and more like I had just been handed a transcendent feeling to simply experience, enjoy, and learn from. It is the best new movie I've seen since Memento, and as this looks like a slow year for great movies, look for it come Oscar time. Go see it. Now.

old and hackneyed plots never die.

Oh, yeah. The reformed hooker who's now too good to heartlessly shag just one more time, even to save her true love? I can't get past that enough to like the movie.

Hmm. I understand everything you guys are saying about Moulin Rouge having a silly, hackneyed plot, drawn directly from things such as La Boheme (I certainly don't think it's an accident that Luhrmann directed that opera on Broadway, nor do I think that the popularity of Rent can be ignored as backdrop for the film), but I think that's completely intentional. I mean, I knew Satine was going to die from the moment Ewan looked at her because I've seen enough Puccini operas to know that in this kind of setting the beautiful heroine ALWAYS dies - I just don't care.

Sappy love stories are universally emotional. Sappy love songs are universally emotional. And La Boheme is the world's most popular opera because the story is POWERFUL. This movie draws out my emotions. I laugh, and I cry, and I sing the hell along, because the movie takes control of my mind from the first instant (well, that's not true. It takes control of my mind from the first instant it becomes less frenetic, when you first see Satine).

And, as has been mentioned, it is just SO pretty.

However, it is one of those movies that I completely love but also completely understand when others don't. It has lots of elements that are not so good, especially to people with different psychological profiles than mine (those who are much more attached to the modified/bastardized songs, for example, are often annoyed by the music), and I completely understand when somebody doesn't love it. It appeals to my inner sap, my inner sing-along game, and my inner desire to have sex with Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman, and I understand that (most) of these traits are not universal.

Well, let me be clear -- I *liked* the movie. Love it/hate it wasn't really how it worked for me.

I wouldn't say it's style over substance, necessarily, because how much substance can such a hackneyed old plot (it's true) have? Such a plot *requires* style to make the plot into a story we're willing to hear yet again. And Moulin Rouge worked in that sense, though -- for me -- barely.

As for the modern music -- well, I can't get past the anachronism, frankly. Sure, love songs are eternal, blah blah schmoop-cakes, but it took me out of the movie every single time.

I liked it. I didn't love it, and it was the frenetic pace and the farcical elements that were responsible for that... and the fact that I couldn't relate to the way the characters were behaving - Satine's refusal to do what she was so good at to save her lover (hello, ita), or Christian's anger with her later. The music, I enjoyed. Anachronistic music amuses me more often than not - like in Knight's Tale.

I liked Moulin Rouge, and I appreciated the anachronistic music. (On the other hand, I loathed A Knight's Tale, but that had worse problems than just the music.) As mentioned, Ewan OWNS that role, and he makes me all swoony. But it never reached me on an emotional level. I guess I like my love stories to actually show me why these two people are in love. Just presenting it as "hey presto, true love! no, really!" rarely works well for me.

The best way I can think of to describe Moulin Rouge is that it's like a bunch of shards of mostly beautiful stained glass all jumbled together in chaotic fashion rather than given meaning by an orderly framework. There are parts I absolutely loved - David Wenham's Audrey, Ewan singing "Your Song" to Nicole, the Can-can, Broadbent singing "Like a Virgin"... but it didn't hold together for me, and a lot of the frenetic transitions actively pissed me off.

Broadbent singing "Like a Virgin"

::shudder:: This was a total watch-from-the-hall moment.