They say the movie musical is dead, but with three entertaining musicals being released on video/DVD in 2001, I'm beginning to wonder. 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 impressed me with its 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)
This high-energy movie has just the right mix of music, comedy, and heartbreak. 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.
3. "Dancer in the Dark" (2001)
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.