| Top Picks - Three Best Musicals Released on Video/DVD in 2001 | ||
| They say the movie musical is dead, but with three entertaining musicals being released on video/DVD in 2001, I'm beginning to wonder. "Moulin Rouge," "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," and "Dancer in the Dark" all once again sparked my excitement about the movie musical. All are modern takes on the genre that nobody would mistake for the MGM musicals of another era, yet they still have that kind of enchanted magic of make-believe that I feel audiences haven't stopped longing for. | ||
|
1) "Moulin Rouge" (2001) Writer-director Baz Luhrmann creates a surreal/super-real world in "Moulin Rouge," a musical drama set in 1899 Paris where the songs are 20th-century pop tunes. Luhrmann's reinvention of the musical genre makes me hope there will be more movies like "Moulin Rouge." I was impressed by the imaginative cinematography which creates an artificial world that makes me forget all about reality every time I watch this film.
|
||
|
2) "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2001) John Cameron Mitchell's charisma and tenderness in the role of Hedwig is what drew me into this story. Hedwig's tour with her band shadows that of her former boyfriend Tommy Gnosis. Flashbacks reveal that Hedwig was once a gay young East German man who underwent a sex change operation, so she could marry a U.S. serviceman and come to America. Unfortunately, the operation was badly botched. This high-energy movie has just the right mix of music, comedy, and heartbreak. |
||
|
3) "Dancer in the Dark" (2000) This is an incredibly moving film and an audaciously modern musical. Bjork is flat-out brilliant as Selma, a woman who is going blind from an eye disease. Selma's young son has inherited the disease, and she's struggling to earn enough money for him to have an operation that will prevent him from going blind, too. Although I love this movie, it is deliberately maddening at times. At Cannes it met with cheers and jeers, but this film won the Palme d'Or and Bjork won Best Actress. |
||
| Important product disclaimer information about this About site. |
