I see a lot of movies every year. A
ton. But this year I’ve decided I don’t see enough movies, so one of my
New Year Resolutions was to simply see more. And to write about them.
See, that’s the other half of the equation: I see a ton of movies, but
I write about comparatively few of them. There are a lot of reasons,
but they mainly boil down to the fact that I feel the need to do long
form reviews, and sometimes – like in the midst of Sundance – I just
don’t have the time.
And
so was born this new blog! I aim to make an entry for every single
movie I see in 2010. Some entries may be very short, some may be
lengthy. Entries may take a couple of days to be posted. Let’s see how
long this lasts.
One
last thing: one of my main objectives this year is to rewatch more
movies. I know this sounds like a strange goal, but there are films I
haven’t seen since high school, which means it’s been almost a lifetime
since I saw them. Recently I rewatched Black Christmas for
the first time since the 1980s, and I might as well have been seeing
the movie for the first time. I’m interested in getting a look at some
movies I loved or hated twenty or even ten years ago and seeing how I
feel about them now.
Let’s begin…
#3 Chicago
2002
d. Rob Marshall
So I’ve been really enjoying Fox’s Glee, and this put me in a musical mood. My girlfriend has been wanting to watch Chicago for a little while, and Kurt did a very nice Mr. Cellophane on Glee, so I figured what the hell – let’s revisit this one.
I ended up having it on in the background because while the songs are amazing, the film itself couldn’t hold me. I loved it at release, but now the main conceit – all the numbers are in Roxie’s head – pisses me off (see my Tyranny of Realism Advocate). I got especially pissed whenever a really nice dance sequence would get interrupted to flash to some ‘real world’ bullcrap.
Richard Gere’s the weakest link here; while he’s actually great casting as Billy Flynn I don’t like his voice. It’s the problem of the modern musical – you need stars, and stars don’t necessarily know how to sing anymore (see Sweeney Todd for this in action).
On the other hand I feel the film is too over-hated. The Oscar stuff will make people go overboard, but taken as a film on its own Chicago is decent. And if you don’t have the real soundtrack handy it makes nice background music.