Moulin Rouge Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There's no doubt Baz Luhrmann is one of the more colorful writer-directors in Hollywood. His latest film, Australia (now out on DVD), has just recently become the second biggest Aussie flick of all time, while his other films -- like Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet and Strictly Ballroom -- have gone on to become huge fan favorites around the world. Because we have so many Baz fans here at Cinematical, we decided to do a little something different and allow several of our writers to contribute questions ranging from Baz's work on Australia to the much talked-about musical number he put together for this year's Academy Awards. We also touched upon the writer-director's future film slate, including his planned adaptation of The Great Gatsby and whether he'd like to once again dabble with the musical-movie down the line.

Contributing to this interview were Scott Weinberg, Peter Martin, Elisabeth Rappe, Jessica Barnes and Erik Davis.

Cinematical: When Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman's characters were being developed for Australia, did you have any particular classic Hollywood pairings in mind?

Baz Luhrmann: I very overtly drew inspiration from the films that inspired me to make this one as they were classic romances. The coupling of the main characters is the most important decision that you can make. Indeed in Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman I was looking for a Gable/Leigh, Bogart/Hepburn, Redford/Streep - like chemistry.

Cinematical: What's the toughest part about producing a film that "performs" below expectations?

BL: Of course when you work on a movie with many people for a very long time it was sad that in the US we failed to get an audience in on the opening weekend. Having said that, I am pleased that the film has gone on to do so well throughout the rest of the world and in our home country

How do you spice up the Academy Awards this year? How about adding more Judd Apatow! That's exactly what show organizers plan to do for the Oscar telecast on February 22, as the director of films like Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin and this summer's Funny People has created a brand new short film to debut during the ceremony along with "fresh live material on stage." While we don't yet know what the film will be about, apparently "filmmakers of all stripes will participate" and it will air during a special tribute to comedy.

Apatow isn't the only one producing fresh content for this year's Oscars; last week we were informed that Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, Australia) would be creating a production number featuring show host Hugh Jackman, and Capote director Bennett Miller is tossing his own film sequence into the yay basket. We kid, of course, but if they want to get this show back on track, a good place to start would be by bringing a bunch of talented filmmakers together to create ... fun content. Stuff to entertain us in between having to watch multi-millionaires accept gold statues while thanking their agents and managers and dog nannies.

What do you think: Does Apatow's involvement make you want to watch the ceremony just a tiny bit more?

[via USA Today]

There are a few classic films that I simply refused to rent while growing up, specifically for the reason that I knew I should see them for the first time on a big screen. Of these, I managed to see both 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner in a theater, while others, such as Lawrence of Arabia and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, were on television too often to ignore them on the small screen first. One film that I'm still dying to see in a theater is Terrence Malick's Badlands. A few years ago I actually went to a special screening of the film in Connecticut, but it was disappointingly (understatement) projected from a DVD copy. Then two months ago it played one show at NYC's IFC Center, but I had to miss it for another engagement.

Last week Entertainment Weekly presented an article/photo gallery titled "23 Movies You'd Like to See on the Big Screen," which lists these kinds of films (there's actually many more than 23 cited), most of which should ONLY be seen on the big screen, as they were originally meant to be. The list includes obvious epic choices like 2001, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, The Greatest Show on Earth and The Ten Commandments, as well as other classics, like Malick's Days of Heaven, Casablanca, Once Upon a Time in the West, Star Wars, High Society, Halloween, Singin' in the Rain, To Kill a Mockingbird, Psycho, Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Searchers, Stagecoach and The French Connection.

You really gotta feel bad for the movie studios. Once a movie like Mr. & Mrs. Smith grosses $478 million at the worldwide box office, nets huge contracts for foreign and domestic cable and network rights, and sells about $40 million more at the DVD shelves ... that's it! No more money! How awful, right? Well, this explains why, when you head out to your local DVD shoppe, you'll find re-issues, re-packages and "unrated" editions galore. It's all about putting the same old movie in an enticing new package -- and it looks like Fox has a new approach to the madness.

Hitting the shelves on November 7th is a new collection of Fox "themed" box sets, and -- trust me on this -- it's easier to show you the boxes' contents than to explain the new maketing gimmickry.

1. The Romantic Tales Collection: Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! and Ever After
2. The Love is War Collection: Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Down With Love and The War of the Roses
3. The Lies & Deception Collection: True Lies, Entrapment, Black Widow and ... Mr. & Mrs. Smith (yes, again)
4. The Legal Legends Collection: Runaway Jury, Class Action, The Verdict and Compulsion
5. The Funtastic Adventures Collection: Ice Age, Once Upon a Forest, Robots and FernGully: The Last Rainforest
6. The Christmas Classics Collection: Home Alone, A Christmas Carol ('84), Miracle on 34th Street ('94) & Jingle All the Way

Yes, that's right: In an effort to repackage some old bargain-bin movies, Fox has resorted to calling the undeniably execrable Jingle All the Way a "Christmas Classic." And that's just a downright lie. Snark aside, though, I'd recommend numbers one, two and four to those who don't already own those flicks. (Yeah, that's right: Down with Love rocks.)

And I gotta ask: Six new collections and they couldn't give me a horror set?

Director Simon West, whose recent projects include The General's Daughter, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and remake of the moment, When a Stranger Calls, is hoping to go in a very different direction in the near future: he's planning a movie about surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. The film will have a rather massive scope, covering Dali's life from his teenage years to his death at the age of 84, and focusing on his "incredible and romantic life story." Though the movie is still in the talking stages (West describes it as "getting very close"), the director is already fantasizing about his cast, and he claims that "There are a couple of Spanish actors that are interested." While it's not clear that they're the ones with whom he has talked, West goes on to specifically mention Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem as possible stars.

Despite what seems like a small potential audience for such a film, West insists that it will in fact have broad appeal: "I believe in getting as many people to go and see rather than deliberately trying to make it for a small audience. Like Amadeus [meets] Moulin Rouge.” Whoa. So, melting clocks, but with songs?

[via Moviehole]