Simon's Movie Reviews

Part 3 in Baz Luhrmann’s Red Curtain Trilogy, the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge! is the one that fits best in that thematic series since that is literally what the title means in French. There are indeed a lot of red curtains at the Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris, but in Luhrmann’s version in addition to curtains there is a giant elephant, hundreds of dancing extras, and very anachronistic pop songs given the fact the film is set at the very beginning of the 20 th century. This Moulin Rouge with an exclamation mark after all. The story is a tragic love story, but it is still a heck of a show. I will be honest, I don’t have that vivid a memory of seeing the actual movie so much as seeing the music video with Pink, Christina Aguilera, Lil’Kim and Mya where they all dress in lingerie singing Lady Marmalade. I was around 15 years old at the time, so lets just say it made quite an impression especially given what the lyrics of that song mean. But it’s not just me; the video won a Grammy ...

It seems to me that some of the best, or at least the most enthusiastic, filmmakers are film buffs themselves. Quentin Tarantino could tell you who did the lighting on every Western ever made and Martin Scorsese knows film preservation like Carl Sagan knows about outer space. British writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright know their zombie movies, hence the making of “Shaun of the Dead” in 2004. Since they also methodically watched action movie ever made, they teamed up again in 2007 for “Hot Fuzz,” which referenced everything from “Point Break” to “Bad Boys II.” I saw this movie with the perfect crowd for a movie made by action movie fans: other movie fans. It was part of a double feature organized by the film club at the University of Sherbrooke, and of course the other film was “Shaun of the Dead.” I am pretty sure somebody cheered when Nick Frost opens a door to reveal a room full of DVDs. Lets face it, if you’re not a movie nerd, it doesn’t seems like a very good idea...