Moulin Rouge! Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Burlesque... It's the "good" girl's stripping. At least, these days it is. Teasing, comedy, and lavish costumes, a girl can don some pasties and flaunt herself without the indelible stigma attached to the regular stripper or porn star. It holds weight, class, and a sense of respect. In a recent interview with our Kim Voynar, Diablo Cody mentioned her book about stripping, and Kim politely asked: "Did you do burlesque?" Her answer: "No, I was a hard core stripper, worked at peep shows, did phone sex." Having hit it big in festivals and productions across the country, burlesque has started its attack on film. We already have Darren Grant getting into the theme, and now Screen Gems is cooking up a burlesque musical.

Variety reports that Glass House director Steven Antin has been tapped to helm Burlesque -- a modern musical that will include 12 song-and-dance numbers, like a modern Moulin Rouge!. Oh, and for a bit of trivia: he's the preppy, jerky jock Troy from The Goonies. Antin wrote the script, and then Diablo Cody was brought on to revise it. (I imagine this won't be the last time she's brought on to spruce up a script that includes stripping or burlesque.) The film will follow "a young woman who tries to escape a hollow past and finds it performing in a neo-burlesque club in Los Angeles."

If it seems like surprising material for Antin, who wrote Chasing Papi and Sidney Lumet's Gloria, Variety says he has been writing and directing live burlesque shows for the last ten years. He says: "Neo-burlesque is a contemporary take on the traditional burlesque that derived from vaudeville, with singing, dancing, comedy, and more tease than striptease." Clint Culpepper, Screen Gems president, says he convinced Antin to write a spec script after seeing his first show and continued: "This will be a sexy, music-filled film set in a provocative and artistic world." But who will they get to lead it? Any suggestions?

2008 should be a very big year for Jim Broadbent. In May, we'll see the Oscar-winning actor appear alongside Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (as Indy's academic colleague). Then, later in the year, we'll see him in another giant franchise. According to Dark Horizons, Broadbent has definitely been cast in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as the new (formerly retired) potions teacher Horace Slughorn (hmm, from crystal skulls to crystallized pineapple -- next up: a Crystal Gayle biopic?). As one of today's finest English actors, it's hard to believe he hasn't already appeared in the series, which is known for its casting of the best of the Brits. I guess it just took the perfect role to come around for him to finally be considered. Sure, Jette had suggested Simon Callow for the role, but I think Broadbent will do a much finer job. Plus, we already know from Topsy-Turvy and Moulin Rouge! that he looks great with a big mustache.

I must remind that Half-Blood Prince is the first Potter book that I didn't read, and so I'm not too familiar with Slughorn, aside from what I've read and seen. The character returns to his position at Hogwarts, at the suggestion of Dumbledore, after many years of retirement, because he's to be a valuable asset in the battle against the Death Eaters. With Snape now moved to the job of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, Slughorn takes over the potions class he had taught for near-half a century. He also re-starts the Slug Club, an exclusive extra-curricular society made up of celebrated or favored Hogwarts students, including Harry, of course. Compared to J.K. Rowling's description of Slughorn, as well as Mary GrandPré's illustration of him, Broadbent may be too tall and not quite fat enough. But rest assured the actor will be perfect in his "tweedy" costumes and aged makeup. And hopefully the fans think so, since Broadbent will likely be required to return in the role for Deathly Hallows.