Chicago

[DealsR4theDevil]

Chicago Blu-ray
Chicago Blu-ray Review

Is this musical any good? I like musicals, but not all musicals.

I like 1776, The South Park Movie, and The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Musical episode (emmy winning Buffy episode)

I do not like Hairspray

In addition I live in Chicago and I love history, so that may be part of the reason I like it.

So what do you guys think of this movie?

Furthermore, what do you guys think of the Blu-ray transfer for this movie?

[turfman1964]

one of the best put on film i think

[bhampton]

I rented it.

I didn't like it.

For some reason,.. I don't like a lot of the Blu Ray's that I rent. Maybe I just rent the ones I don't think I'm going to like.

-Brian

[Rustmonsteru]

I'm not a big fan of Hairspray either but Chicago is really good IMO.

[almy]

It is based on Bob Fosse's stage version. If you liked CABARET you'd probably like this. Great PQ and AQ.

[GregBlu5]

I liked Hairspray and Rent, but whether on the stage or the movie, I haven't enjoyed Chicago. But I am absolutely sure, having seen the SD version, that it's probably awesome in Blu.

[glenn22]

I'm not a big fan of musicals in general, there's just something odd about people just bursting into song spontaneously. I liked Chicago tho, dunno if I'd buy it, but I liked it.

[iammikee]

Didn't like Chicago at all and Moulin Rouge paved the way for it to win the Oscar's...Wish Moulin would go Blu...Think you would enjoy Moulin Rouge better.

[DealsR4theDevil]

I took a chance on it. This is one I have been wanting to see for a while and for one reason or another I never took the plunge. If I am not a fan there is always the trading forum.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by iammikee

Didn't like Chicago at all and Moulin Rouge paved the way for it to win the Oscar's...Wish Moulin would go Blu...Think you would enjoy Moulin Rouge better.

Sorry, I'm hetero, and wouldn't enjoy Moulin at all.
(Tried to once, and they lost me at the obligatory Kylie Minogue worship. Five minutes in.)

Don't fanboy-rival underestimate what Chicago did to kick producers in the pants to make musicals again:
Somewhere in the 90's, after the Disney cartoons came out, producers got into a big blue funk about "Well, like, why WOULD they be singing in public, anyway?"...
And we got an entire ten to twelve years where every single Broadway musical-to-movie died in pre-production heck because increasingly desperate producers couldn't think up a rational answer to that question.
If we saw musicals at all, it was when they were exiled to concert-DVD's, like the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

Chicago neatly provided the "duh!" thump to the head: The musical numbers were all happening in the characters' THOUGHTS.
Which neatly brought back the main conceptual appeal of most musicals anyway (namely, that it's not 100% supposed to be "real"), and reminded us how cool it was when you saw a tap dancer, or collective groups of them, actually dance.

(Yes...You remember--Characters who dance, as well as sing?
Something that suddenly disappeared from movie musicals sometime twenty-five years ago, around the days of Jennifer Beals and Kevin Bacon, when MTV used to be cool, and we thought you shouldn't show a character moving onscreen for longer than a few subliminal edit-room flashes?)

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Sorry, I'm hetero, and wouldn't enjoy Moulin at all.
(Tried to once, and they lost me at the obligatory Kylie Minogue worship. Five minutes in.)

If you can get past that part it actually gets much tamer, so long as you dont mind seeing Horace Slughorn spinning to can can music.

[tjhart78]

Moulin Rouge is better, but Chicago is worth a look. The sound mix is certainly one of the best out there.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by kpkelley

If you can get past that part it actually gets much tamer, so long as you dont mind seeing Horace Slughorn spinning to can can music.

Sorry I had too many memories of Jose' Ferrer in the real 50's "Moulin Rouge" (the John Huston-directed biopic) to accept Toulouse-Latrec as a John Leguizamo midget in a nun's outfit--
I wonder if Ken Russell was doing the same gay-partyboy-drugs in his day as Baz Luhrmann was doing.
(They're both Australian, you know, and amuse wayyy too easily. )

As for Moulin "paving the way" for Chicago to win the Oscar, CtToI, one suspects there may have been a bit of deliberate "...WHO'S gonna 'bring back the musical'??" b*tch-slapping of '01's Biggest Public Nuisance one year later, by people who had longer memories of what Real Musicals were supposed to be....But not say Chicago hadn't earned its award a lot more than that lame fantasy thing with the two towers had.
Simply put, Moulin was the High School Musical of its day.

As for Chicago, I'll only add:
They finally found a role slimy enough to make Richard Gere fun again--And even if he didn't do his own taps, he still gave the original Jerry Orbach a run for the role.

[Sushisake]

First of all - ERICJ - what does being "hetero" have to do with liking Moulin Rouge or musicals at all? Better check your self awareness at the door before commenting...

Being someone who actually like musicals (but not ALL musicals - HATED RENT) - I would say that CHICAGO is a safe bet. Rene Zellwegger is amazing!
I like all blu-rays but feel that we are being over-run by over-hyped action films which require no special talent at all (on the parts of the actors which usually have stand-ins).

That said - to me, when you can see someone (like Rene) - who is NOT a singer or dancer, putting most Broadway performers to shame in a filmlike CHICAGO - I call that talent.

Would be very interested to hear what you think of the film.

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Simply put, Moulin was the High School Musical of its day.

I don't think too many parents would allow their pre-teens to watch Moulin Rouge.

Zac Efron is no Ewan McGreggor and Vanessa Ann Hudgens is no Nicole Kidman. Furthermore, HSM is a made for tv movie.

A better analogy would be that Moulin Rouge is the modern day Rocky Horror Picture Show.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by kpkelley

I don't think too many parents would allow their pre-teens to watch Moulin Rouge.
A better analogy would be that Moulin Rouge is the modern day Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Actually, was aiming more for "Moulin, like HSM, was proclaimed 'phenemonon' by an audience demographic who had never seen a real movie musical for the last twenty-five years, ie., pretty much their entire life."

Originally Posted by Sushisake

First of all - ERICJ - what does being "hetero" have to do with liking Moulin Rouge or musicals at all? Better check your self awareness at the door before commenting...

Baz Luhrmann movies (and "Simply Ballroom" was tolerable, but throw "Romeo + Juliet" on the pile) are, in a way, like what the Village People were in the 70's:
Remember when we just thought they were "having fun", and never suspected there might have been reasons why they were dressing up as leathermen and singing about the YMCA?

Um, go back and watch "R+J" (y'know, the one where Mercutio is depicted as a glam drag queen with an Ecstacy party-drug addiction?) and then figure out whether I was picking on all musicals or just Baz's.

[Sushisake]

I say - judge films on their own merit without the "messages" of others in the same genre.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

'Chicago' as a musical didn't do much for me. The actual musical composition wasn't all that compelling compared to projects like 'Moulin Rouge', 'Rent', 'Evita', and 'Jesus Christ Superstar' to name a few. And the PQ on the Blu-ray kinda blows. It's full of noise and artifacting. The audio on the other hand sounds pretty damn good. It's just too bad that I don't enjoy the musical numbers (aside from 'Both Reached For The Gun' and 'Roxie').

[gumpaholic]

I really liked Chicago but haven't gotten it on Blu (YET), but I will pretty soon.

[Kristin Simard]

I have Chicago and it is a good musical, but it certainly does not rank with the Broadway musical film adaptations of old like Show Boat (1936), West Side Story (1961, The Music Man (1962) or almost anything of Rogers & Hammerstein.

However, if you like the American musical theatre, Chicago has some good song-and-dance stagecraft and it is a good transfer to Blu.