If you have any love in your heart for the musical, go see Chicago. More enthralling than the typical stage play (and keep in mind you're reading the blog of a Broadway obsessive), the movie jumps, Moulin Rouge style, between spectacular shots of the same character in a dizzying array of environments. Not only do you get to see the "real" Mama (Queen Latifah) in her mussy prison guard garb, you simultaneously see her mental self, wrapped in silk and sequins, stashing bribes down her ample bosom. (Which leads to the fabulous "tit for tat" allusion . . .) Hindered by physics, stage producers can't jump between the dazzling melange of sets we get to see on the big screen. And it's breathtaking.
Chicago eradicated my previously mediocre estimations of Gere, Zeta-Jones, and Zellweger, highlighting their surprisingly stunning dancing and singing abilities. Yes, even Richard Gere. Never again will I mock him, unless you taunt me with Runaway Bride references. Unlike those of Moulin Rouge, the stars of Chicago hold their own, eliciting applause from flabbergasted crowds. I don't have enough superlatives to describe it; not in several years have I been so unexpectedly thrilled by a movie. It's worth seeing several times on the big screen.
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