The Movie: This is easily the my favorite movie of 2001. Since I already made an extensive review of this movie after I saw it in the theater in my June 4 update, I will just reprint what I wrote then, here:

Last night I saw one of the greatest movies I've seen in a long time, and I'm guaranteeing what some of you will absolutely hate it. Moulin Rouge. The previews really let very little out about the true nature of this movie, which as it turned out, was a crazy, wacky musical. The experience however, was something akin to being half-conscious while under the influence of a powerful hallucinogenic drug while listening to a "cheesy listening" radio station like KyXy in San Diego or KOST 103 in LA, or whatever the equivalent is, in your town, the station that plays only the cheesiest love songs from the 70's 80's and 90's interspersed with the pathetic whinings of phone-in listeners dedicating songs to people that don't love them anymore.

Doesn't sound that appealing to you? Ok, so I guess that was a bad description. But the movie does have some really crazy arrangements and medleys of some songs with themes that just about anyone who has ever been in love, or wanted to be in love could relate to. And they are put together in a very smart manner that conveys the message, which when combined with the story, and the absolutely stunning visuals, you get one very bold artistic statement.

Which obviously was too much for some people to handle, as a lot of people I know that saw this movie really like it, Cami noted that there were a number of people who walked out of the movie theater in the middle of it. So if you watch it... go with an open mind. It bucks a lot of the conventions of what we're used to seeing in American film and television. I guess one of the reasons I liked it so much was that it was very theatrical. No, not just in the sense that it was about a stage show, but in its presentation. Over the years, we've been conditioned to look for strict realism on film and TV. Most television shows are made to look as close to real life as possible. Even in the crazy fantasy or sci-fi type shows and movies, everything is supposed to look as "realistic" as possible.

You look at an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, or any sitcom, and you see the inside of homes. And even if the things going on inside these homes are completely absurd, the insides of these houses still look exactly like real life homes that people would actually live in. Absolute realism, all the time.

Live theatre, on the other hand, well, it's pretty impossible to recreate real life like that on the stage, unless maybe your show is set only in one place and it's inside somewhere. But if you're doing a show where the script calls for multiple locations, inside and outside, well, for all intents and purposes, it's impossible to recreate every scene with perfect realistic accuracy, just because there is a finite amount of space back there in the theater, and there's only a limited amount of time that your audience will be willing to wait around for you to bring up the next set.

So in many ways, in this century, the live theatre has responded by moving away from strict realism (or naturalism, if you wanna get all technical on me), and in many shows now, we see very stylized visions of the set, where even the set design itself speaks some kind of message, and can look very different from anything resembling real life. Or it can have no set at all (like Our Town). Or whatever. But theatregoers have come to accept that. Whereas on film or TV, if something just doesn't look anything like it would in real life (like a gigantic blob for a room), people get confused, or just don't like it or think something like "that's so fake" or something.

Well, Moulin Rouge is sorta like that. It's not a movie that's a representation of anything close to what real life looks like. It's more like an artistic expression of a story that represents what certain moments in real life feel like. So don't get all freaked out when you watch it.

I just like it so much because it was so creative in many ways, so bold, and the story was nice too. And it also sorta made me miss doing live theatre. Like it reminded me of a lot of the reasons why it's good and why I liked doing it in the first place.

Especially with the people walking out. If you can make a show that makes almost everybody happy and everyone likes it, and yet, it's still pushing boundaries enough to move a couple people enough to get them to walk out of the theatre in disgust... well then you know that you're sitting there, right on the edge. Which to me, if you're an artist... is right where you'd want to be. Indeed, it was those moments hearing the head stage manager say over the headset "I see a couple getting up and leaving" during a show that were really some of the most satisfying moments in my theatrical career. Especially when the rest of the audience was having a great ol' time :)

The DVD: What we've got here is a typical 2 disc set, with disc 1 being the main feature, with director's commentary and other "runs with the movie" type special features, and a second disc full of more special features that are not dependent on running the entire film. The main feature is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen format, and the clarity and color of the film transfer are nothing short of excellent. It really does justice to the vibrant (and contrasting) colors in this film.

The menu's are better than your average "thrown together" DVD, but nothing home to write home about... and one majorly irritating thing about disc 1 is that it takes about 5 minutes from popping the disc in to actually watching the movie. There's an incredibly long FBI warning, followed by a completely unnecessary "this film has been rated PG-13" screen (both not bypassable), followed by a Fox DVD promo (bypassable). Then once you hit play, there's Fox DVD splash screen followed by the THX thing, and then finally the movie starts!

Disc 2 is full of special features, some much better than others. Most of the interviews (as most DVD interviews are) were boring. The rejected edits of different musical numbers were pretty interesting (some were cut down for length, others were completely redone). There was one section of footage which was made in preparation of some reshoots -- featuring some live motion, intercut with still frames of actors over which the director Baz Luhrmann imitated the voices of the actors, saying the words he wanted them to say in the reshoots... god damn this section was one of the funniest things I've ever seen! It was also an interesting insight into the filmmaking process.

Another interesting thing on the special features disc was the inclusion of theatrical trailers for both the American and Japanese markets -- and you can see how they used completely different marketing plans for the two very different markets. In America the film was marketed as a sexy and exciting love story, full of sex, dancing, and excitement... in Japan it was sold as a tragic love story, full of death and tragedy... like woah.

Also, unexpected for me, was the fact that the "cast" section of the special features disc wasn't just a bio and filmography... but actually led to interviews with the cast members. A nice "extra mile" touch.

And now the very irritating (for me, anyway) feature of disc 2... non-anamorphic, letterboxed widescreen format! It's actually very common for the special features on a DVD to not be in an anamorphic widescreen format -- that's because most of the time, they aren't in any kind of widescreen format at all! But this disc... every last bit of footage (that I can remember anyway), was in a letterboxed widescreen format.

The entire thing is widescreen, so why wouldn't you make it anamorphic? Admittedly, Rush Hour 2 is the only DVD I've seen with entirely anamorphic widescreen special features, but still, it just seems kind of weird to me that the movie and entire lot of special features would be shot in a widescreen format... and while the main feature is anamorphic, the special features aren't? WTF? I guess for those of us with standard televisions it doesn't make a lick of difference, but for those of us with widescreen TV's... it's pretty irritating.

One of the poorest parts of the special features was the still photos photos section (they are so tiny, you can't really see anything), and again, most of the interviews were pretty boring.

Overall though, I'm very glad I got this DVD -- I just love the movie, and it looks and sounds really great on this DVD. The special features are plentiful, but a mixed bag of great content, good content, and mediocre content. But hey, I got this for the movie anyway :)