Moulin Rouge! - Depression Beards, Parisian Geography & a Huge Talent

I've noticed lately the podcast I've listened to often we'll start with a trigger warning, feel like, you know, there's something upsetting that we're gonna discuss in this episode, just a trigger warning. And I realized two things. One, we can't do that, because that's the that's the show. If we're like trigger warning and we just start talking and never stop. Trigger Yeah, Goldo's weird sex, every kind of weird sex. We can think of,

jokes about death, everything, it's all gonna be in here. But then I was like, and usually those trigger warnings are about very reasonable things, but I was like, where are my trigger warnings? Like I want a piece of art that I'm consuming to open with trigger warning. A woman gives birth during this sure and you're gonna want to die in there is a dare I say it again? Wet sneeze? There is a wet sneeze moment in this trigger warning. A man will discuss jazz in this trigger warning. Juaquin

Phoenix is in this. That's that's for me, a great actor, but something about his face I just can't. I can't. Trigger warning. Mark Wahlberg is in this for me? Yeah, trigger warning, Yeah, trigger warning. They're gonna We're gonna show you a rodent. Okay. I was watching a movie based in Venice the other day and I was having the best fucking time watching that movie, and then at one point, a rat runs across a woman's foot and I was like, well, this is ruined.

I am not going to tell you anything other than this. I listened to a podcast the other day that a rodent came up, and my my literal first thought was, I know Erica does not listen to this podcast, but if she did, if there was even the slightest chance, I would have texted you immediately be like, you cannot listen to this episode. Absolutely not. Your trigger has been warned. Yes, I'm telling you delete it from

your fucking feed immediately. Hey in America, and this is that aged well, yesterday's pop culture today and it's it's a grand final of June, Erica. We are out of Gemini season. We're closing THEA a month, We're closing THEATA month with a with a classic. I think with this is a modern classic. This is by far, in my opinion, the movie is better than the show. But we're going to talk about We're going to talk

about that. Yep, we're going to get into it. We're as we are going to get into it. We do have a five star Apple podcast review. Would you like me to read? Sure thing? Okay, So this is from Islain three Icelean Islan, Eileen is Lean is Lean three three. They write addicting. Accidentally found the podcast after a few friends referenced Steel Magnolia's and instead of IMD being it, I typed it into my search bar on Spotify. Oh my god, girl, I feel seen right now.

That's like when your mom texts you, but if she accidentally does it on Twitter, or when they text you and it's it's from an email address. Yeah, it all comes to your email. You're like, what is going on here? This is very so ii Leen three he goes on, decided to give it a try, and it was love at first Listen. I love movies, but never have time to see them. However, I do

have a long commute to work. We are perfect for that. That is our niche Yeah, it has become my new favorite podcast to listen to while I drive anywhere or get ready. Well that's delightful. I am curious. It sounds like ii Leen three had never heard of Steel Magnolias. Oh is that possible? Because they write instead of imd being it, they were just like, you know, looking for it. Yeah, like someone tell me about this. Oh, I Lean three, I really hope you got you

got a chance to watch Steel Magnolia's. I know you're very very busy, very busy, but that is a true Dolly Parton motherfucking classic. Yeah, that's one to put on the top list when you do have time. Yes. Yeah, and you can also yet tell Annell to drink bleach. Drink bleach. Annell, you whore. I hate you. She's not a whore. That's the actual opposite. That's true. Who would be the horror in Steel Magnolia's there's a good there's an answer. It's it's it's Dylan McDermott.

Yes, that's a correct answer. I was gonna say weeza, but you're right. It's still all right, Eileen three things. Oh I didn't, Erica, I didn't finish reading the review. I keep interrupting. I'm sorry, I interrupted myself. Okay, all right, sorry Aileen Three's review finishes. I know it's a quote unquote newer movie, but I would love to hear your commentary. On any of the Twilight films, Can I tell you I've only seen one and I loved it. It's the last one, the

very very last one that has the ridiculously violent twenty minute battle scene. And I don't remember a single thing about the rest of the movie. All I remember is that ridiculously long, twenty minute battle scene that is so good. I feel like that, like this is the kind of thing like, hey, we'll probably do Twilight. We'll just break the rules at some point and

do Twilight. But like that would be something really good for the Patreon too, to be like we're gonna talk about Twilight in two weeks, like when we get to two hundred and fifty subscribers. Sure, yeah, we'll do that to Twilight. But also if you have twenty minutes of time, the fourth or fifth or I don't know how many of those movies that came out. So the only one I saw it's the last one. It's because someone knew I would love this scene. There's a twenty minute, super violent scene

with a bunch of vampires killing each other, and it's really excellent. So, Eileen three, if you would like at that agebel tope bag, please go ahead email us let us know this is you, that Ajeel at gmail dot com. You can dm us on Twitter, on Instagram, anywhere you are and I will send it off for you. Erica, what is the film that we are finishing theater month with? Today's film is the two thousand and one Paul writes here, jukebox musical romance. I vehemently disagree with that

assessment, really I do. We'll get into it, but today's film is the motherfucking masterpiece Moulan Rouge exclamation point. That's right. Mulan Rouge was requested by Stewart, by Ka, by Austin and our patriot ends. We decided this month that we were gonna go to Paris. We're either gonna go with mulin Rouge, Nicole Kinman, or we're gonna go with Victor Victoria and Julie Andrews. And it turns out that our patrons prefer Nicole Kimono Julian Andrews sixty

percent to thirty nine percent. Do you know why, Paul, Why? Because in here even heartbreak feels good. Heart break feels good in a place like this. Every time I go to the movies now and that people applaud. It become a midget every fucking time, and it makes me so happy to be in at a theaterful of people who are like what, I literally never go to amc Oh, there's a bunch of AMC's by me. That's

all I go to. Gotchah. So yeah, I will admit I like this movie, like I've always liked this movie, but I secretly was pulling for Victor Victoria. I was, Oh, that's fair, some other time we will because I've actually never seen it. And I was like, what a perfect excuse for me to watch Victor Victoria, which is a movie I really want to watch, Alas this is what we're doing instead, and I'm perfectly happy about it, perfectly happy. Yeah, no regrets, all right.

So Moulin Rouge was written by Boz Lherman and Craig Pierce. It was directed by Lerman and stars Nicole Kidman, You McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, and Richard I'm gonna go with Roxborough, but maybe it's Roxburgh. Not sure what Roxborough? Roxboro? Okay, mulon luge exclamation points, exclamation don't forget the They put it in there for a reason. They're put in

there for a goddamn reason. Was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, and winning for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design, both won by Catherine Martin, the Great Katherine Martin boz Lhman's wife and collaborator. Yes, she has like twelve oscars for his movies and he has, I believe still zero he's got. He's clocking it at zero. Look if he's gonna take swings in his movies and like they're not all gonna hit,

they're not. So I get why he's not winning awards because he's He doesn't make perfect films, he barely makes good film. But what he makes is magic, My pure fucking magic. We come here fan Midgic Moulin Rouge arrived on Broadway in twenty nineteen with a book by John Logan and directed by Alex Timbers. It starred Aaron t Fwight, Karen Olivo, and Danny Burstein.

It was nominated for fourteen Tony Awards and won ten, including Best Musical, Best Actor, and Best Featured Actor in I would like to just put this caveat in the COVID shortened twenty twenty season. Okay, this is where I tell this story. So, look, jukebox musicals are just not my thing. They aren't. They're absolutely not. They're not my thing either, but they're even less. You're like, I barely like musicals and will I

will not tolerate a jukebox musical. But on my birthday that year, we went on my birthday, we decided, you know what, I love this movie. The New York Times gave this a like orgiastic review of like, this is one of the greatest things you'll ever see. I blame you, Ben Brantley. I want my money back, Ben Brantley. I remember that because we were kind of iffy on it, and then it got like these

incredible reviews. Yes, And so we watched the first half and the audience, by the way around us loved it, ecstatic, singing along, clapping along, cheering at everything everyone does. So like I'm in the minority here, and I turned to pondering in immersion, and I go, is it just me? Or is this fucking terrible? And like you all were enjoying it more than I was. Yeah, yeah, but even you were like,

it's not great. Great, it's not great. It is one of the rare occasions I think where like a movie so so supersedes like a piece of theater. I'm trying to figure out why the movie is so magical and wonderful and why the theater piece did not work. I think I think the reason is two words Nicole Kidman, oh throwing you and McGregor, yeah, like a this is this is actually genuinely not a cut on the stage actors who Karen leave It was great. We've we've discussed our feelings on Aaron Dwight's

general acting abilities, and Danny Bernstein was fucking amazing. I think I think Nicole Kidmit I think literally the the the medium of film allows her and Annul McGregor to get us to believe this love because it because it's they're being helped by all of these costumes and the close ups and the fireworks and the like. It's all of this stuff. Visual poetry is such a part of it.

And they they make a couple of crucial changes in the plot and the musical that change Setine's arc because in the musical, and if you remember this, so if anyone hasn't seen Ulan Rouge, we're gonna spoil a little bit.

Setine has consumption. It's rent ye. Trust. In the movie she doesn't know until the end, and in the musical she knows the whole time, right, And that so I why they did it, because you're like, we want to we want her to be making choices, right, She's she's working with a full deck, right, So I get why, Like that makes sense kind of dramaturgically, but it it doesn't give the actress the

moment of finding out that she's dying. Yeah, it doesn't give the actress that like operatic moment of like, oh shit, I have to like, like I have at that point, literally hours left on this earth. God, if I ever die of consumption, may I look like Nicole Kiman does in the final moment? May I have just the lightest bit of mist on my forehead? And as that is the only way you know she's sick? Yeah, I did. I like the musical more than you. Overall,

it is it's so much. If you think this movie is too much, they took this movie and they turned the volume up on this movie, and it's it's something you're gonna have to like let go and just go with. Yeah, just enjoy the music. And the dance more. Just save just save yourself one hundred dollars, Turn on the radio and listen to four seconds of eight hundred songs because that's what it feels like to watch the musical.

Yeah, it does. Yeah, you're not wrong. Mulan Rouge has a seventy four percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an eighty nine percent audience score. It has a seventy seven percent on Cherry Picks. I actually think that's about right. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean the movie's insane. The first twenty minutes of the movie. I actually I've seen it before spoilers, but like I was like, am I not gonna like this this

time? Am I too old to enjoy the funny duddy? Yeah? Like then it just like slows down a little bit after like the first twenty minutes, But like the first minutes is like did am I on speed? Did I did I snort coke? Like? What is happening? It helps to know, like Boz Luhrmann's whole thing. Yeah, when you're like, remember when we were discussing Romeo and Juliet, is the same thing of like the first ten minutes, you're gonna feel insane. Yeah, you're gonna be wildly

disoriented. You're not gonna what the funk is happening? Yeah, and then it'll calm down, yeah, and like moving and it'll settle. And that's every single I haven't seen Elvis yet, don't I hear. Yeah, I've seen parts of it, but not the whole thing. But I remember, like, same thing with the Great gas Feet. You just gotta settle in. Relax, you just got it. Buckle up for the first twenty minutes. Just breathe through it. But I think like seventy four seventy five critical,

but then like ninety percent audience that makes it. That makes a lot of audience. I would say could even be higher, but like ninety percent is pretty high. There are going to be people that do not like this movie. That's fair, Which is fair. Look, I love this movie, but I am also here for people who are like nosolutely because I felt that way about the musical, I was like, no, yeah, yeah,

you really just liked the musical a lot more than me. I was like, this is a this is just not as I was let down, I think because I went in with super high expectations. Yeah, or Erica when did you first see Mola Roche exclamation point. I have a really good

for this. Actually I saw this opening weekend. I think I saw a midnight showing, like Thursday night at midnight at the zig Field, which, for those of you who don't live in New York or who recently moved to New York, the zig Field was this like old, opulent, like red velvet was a house movie house. Yeah, it used to be an old Zigfield Follies theater. So there was all this like ephemera in the place. You could see like old costumes and playbuilds, and it was like an elegant,

cool, fun night at the theater. It probably also sat like fifteen hundred people. I think they were playing. They played the score of Follies constantly in the lobby there. Yeah, that's not a score poll. Those are the ghosts of the old deadvillions, actual ghosts. And I saw it with a full house with like fifteen hundred oh wow, and the audience was all in like it was the kind of thing where it's not just going to

the movies, it's a whole experience around it. And so I was already predisposed to loving this Stivie, but I love this stupid movie, and I've seen it twenty times. Maybe. Okay, how about you, Paul, when did you first see Mula Rouge? I first saw Mulan Rouge when it was in theaters. I don't have that cool of an experience to recount. I think I probably saw at Union Square or something like with some friends and

stuff. But I liked it. I mean, look, we were both in theater school in two thousand and one, like this was for us. I had an interesting kind of journey with it, though, because I saw it, like I would say, like four or five times, like kind of around that time, and then I haven't seen it in years. Yeah. My prevailing like hot take on the movie has always been I think Nicole

Kimman's kind of miscasting it. We've argued about this, yes again. I was prepared to argue more about this today, but and I watched it this time, and I maintain, I look love Nicole Kidman. We come to her from magic. She cannot dance, and she a fine singer. She's fine. Her acting is so good in this movie. She she horks that thing up the hill on her back, and she has the more difficult role a whoo I kind of disagree with you on that. I think she's magic.

I think she's magic in this film is magic. She's magic. But I also you got it like this does not work without Ewan McGregor. Oh, really, like the earnestness that he brings to it, that is like completely unironic. The first half of the movie, the hard part of the movie, the part that you really have to buy into early. It's all on his back, that's true, And if it didn't, if it was

not him. I think I read on IMDb or on Wikipedia that they had offered it to a bunch of other guys, including and I love him, but including Ethan Hawk, And I was like, I don't I love Ethan Hawk, but I don't see even Ethan Hawk pulling this through. Well yeah, Like there's something extraterrestrially like magical about Ewan McGregor specifically that makes this shit

work. It's his boyish trip. It's the face and the boyish charm you and never believe this is a guy that loves nothing more than pulling his dick out in movies like he will show will show, will flash hole on screen at a moment's notice. But because he looked like he's what he's probably like thirty when they did this or something. He's thirty and she's thirty three.

And you could have told me the kid was sixteen, and you're like, well, the actor's not sixteen, but he has that level of like boyish wonder coming off him in Rolls. I I agree, I shouldn't say that Nicole kimen Hork's up. He's there too, and he is a crucial part of it. I wholeheartedly agree with you that Nicole Kidman is excellent in this film. And we should also mention it is not just them, it is everyone. It is the man I can't remember his name, I'm sorry,

but the man who plays the Argentinian. Oh, the Polish man who's playing the Argentinian Polish playing the Argentinian. It is the woman who plays like the mean girl in the film. The Princess of Musical Theater of Australia is in this movie. It's ever it's John like Guizamo who It's a swing and a miss for me, but I don't care. It is the whole thing. It's like he magically got all these people to invest in this idea and like live in the same world at the same time. I think that's why I

like the movie so much. Okay, fair enough, fair enough, All right, Erica, you ready for this tagline? You're like this fair warning. You are gonna hate this, Okay. The tagline from Mulan Rouge is no laws, no limits, one rule, never fall in love. That's so stupid. No law, no limits, one rule. That's it. You have. You have used six words, and you have you have contradicted yourself. Also, this person didn't see the movie. They literally didn't see

Freedom, Truth, beauty and love. Yeah, right there, right there, right there. Yeah, that's bunkers. The tagline for this should have been may warning may affect photo sensitive viewers. May have just been like a dollar sign next to nat King Cole's name. If you have ever had a seizure, Not for you. I do you want to read the Iteen synopsis? Sure. When an idealistic poet played by Ewan McGregor is drawn into the dark, fantastical underworld of the Parisian nightclub the Laouge, he finds a CD

glamorous haven of sex, drugs, and electricity. Electricity. That's interesting, that's something that's not wrong. There's electricity there so much electricity this movie. It's not commented on, but it's there. I feel like if there had been that much electricity in the Mulan Rouge in eighteen ninety nine, we would have had a famous conflagration. I feel like the rest of France had no electricity because it all went to this one fucking place. All the wires in

France were in the Mulan. It's like, okay, we're gonna have another revolution, now get out the guillotines. Christian also finds himself plunged into a passionate love affair with the club star who was also the city's most famous courtisan, Nicole Kidman, in this tragic love story from filmmaker boz Lerman. Yeah perfect, that's perfect, fucking perfect, the opposite of the tagline actual synopsis for this movie. Have you ever dropped acid and gone to the opera?

You're about to You're about to buckle up, buttercup, All right, stick around, We're gonna come right back after just a couple messages for any non patrons. If you don't want any messages, you can sign up at the three, five or ten dollars level on our Patreon and you will get no ads ad free episodes. If you don't want to sign up, that's also cool. We'll be back right after these messages and we will take you through Mola Rouge and we're back. We open on a tiny orchestra conductor meant to

look as though we are in an actual live theater. Do we think this is Bradley Cooper's big break? This was his moment, This was him conducting for the first time ever. Yeah, it's like the bottom of the screen, right there's a little man conducting an orchestra. We can't see. He waves open the lush red curtain, and we hear the prelude of the music that we're gonna hear throughout the movie. And if you've never seen the movie, you're like, did I just hear the sound of music? Huh?

That's a o car or carr. Maybe it's like a history of musical theater here, though I don't know what's happening. It's already a little disorienting. We see the opening credits and then a title card that says Paris nineteen hundred. Then in CPA tones we see Henri to lose Lutrek played by Jean Leguizamo there's a lot there. I don't have time to go into all of them. Look, there's nary a French person in this film. Just deal with

it. A Columbian man is playing this real life French person. Moving on. He is dressed as a sad clown right sitting on a rooftop in Paris, singing the opening lines of nature Boy by Nat King Cole. Little like tiny thing for this, because I know it's gona annoy some people. I did the recap for this one. Whenever I name a real song, I name the artist who sings it, not the writer. So like I know, someone out there is screaming into their phone the actual writer of Nature Boy.

I don't know who that is, Okay, frankly fair enough to me, it's a Nat King Cole song. Deal with it. So the camera zooms in a very luminesque way through the decadent and impoverished village of Montmartre until it finally zooms in through a window into Christian's apartment. Christian is played by

Ewan McGregor. He's crying, he's drinking his sorrows away. The cipia tone fades into normal color as Christian goes to his typewriter and writes quote, the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. Do we think that's going to be important important theme in the movie. Do we think we're gonna hear this line so many times that Nat King calls great great great great grandchildren? Are gonna be able to eat off of this? Yes? Yes, yeah, I think so. I think that's right.

You know what I love about the scene. So obviously Christian's in his depression era, right. He has an overgrown depression beard, and it is groomed. I have had a depression whatever passes for a beard on my face, let me tell you it was many things. Groomed was not one of them. Attractive was also not one of them, to be fair, But I was like, so he's growing the beard, but he's also making those sharp lines to make sure it looks good. That's what Catherine Martin thinks. Depression

looks like She's never had a sad day in her life. The camera pans over the Moulin Rouge and we see slow motion images of the wildly decadent party inside. As Christian says in voiceover in a British accent to be clear, very a French person in this film. Everyone else is supposed to be French. Christian's the only one who's supposed to yees, he's actually he's canonically British.

The Moulin Rouge a nightclub, a dance hall, and a bordello, a kingdom of nighttime pleasures where the rich and powerful came to play with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld. The most beautiful of all these was the Woman I Loved Setine, a courtesan. She sold her love to men, and she was the star of the Moulin Rouge. The Woman I Loved is dead. Excellent performance. Thank you, thank you. I give myself Goosebine. I thought you were. Gregor was in the room with me right

now, he stops typing. By the way, we are we go into the Mulan Ruge. It's like it's it's slow motion, it's sped up images. It is it is an orgy of like just stimulation. I mean luerrman esque is the only way I can describe it. If you don't know what that means. It's like, I literally is like taking acid and speed and then hitting your head against the wall all at the same time, it's like

Buzzby Berkeley got like some a little fire under Buzby Berkeley. Say So, Christian stops typing long enough to look out the window towards the mulan Ruge. Tears are streaming down his face, and then Christian begins typing again, and he launches into his origin story of how he came to Paris. So we find out he came to Paris one year ago from London against his father's stern objections, to live a penniless existence as a writer among the children of the

revolution. And we hear an eighteen ninety nine version of the t Rex song. Right, Yeah, so that's what the that's what these young bohemians and mar people who studied French history must hate this movie so much. But yeah, they're calling themselves the children of the Revolution. Yep, he came to write about truth, beauty, freedom, and most important of all, love again. You and McGregor. I don't know how he makes this work because

there is not an iota of irony or cynicism. You and McGregor in the nineties and early two thousands fucking owned cinema. Yeah, he was genius in everything. He owned the loins of every single woman I knew, oh for sure. Yeah, like every there was the girl who was frustrated. He was it. Yeah, he was it. I can attest to that. Okay. So the only problem with Christian's plan is that he's never been in

love and had no idea how to write about it. Luckily, right at that moment he's sitting in his apartment, an unconscious Argentinian man falls through the ceiling and into the apartment and is quickly joined by This is the movie's terminology. A dwarf dressed as a nun. That's exactly what the movie says. But because to loose the track, actually he did not have dwarfism, but he had like yet, he had some genetic disorder because he was he's aristocracy,

and he's front aristocracy. He's deeply inbred, which is not funny. I don't know why I laugh because it's uncomfortable. It's a little funny. Yeah, so he's got a lot going on. They don't. I'm not sure he had Dwarfism. I think he had just his legs never formed. Yeah, yeah, I think so. Okay, So this is of course to loose the track. Who is dressed in costume for a play they were rehearsing upstairs called Spectacular Spectacular. Before Christian even knows what's happening, he is

whisked upstairs to step in for the narcoleptic Argentinian. That performance. That man is so he's very funny, he's so good. So he said, he's stepping in so the rest of the cast can continue to rehearse and also crucially right the show as they're rehearsing it, which is exactly how theatre were. That is what you should do. That is exactly how every That's the perfect

process. You just you just show up in the room, you start taking notes, you start making things up, you start talking, and then whatever anyone says, you just write it down. Every single thing that happens in this movie is how theater works. I want to stress that point. This movie is a documentary on how to launch a show. This is how pitch meetings work. This is how rehearsals work. This is how pit orchestras work, artisans work, this is how sex workers work. This is how the

Mulon rouge worked. I think so yeah. My favorite thing I ever heard about this movie was someone bitching, like really bitching about it, and because he hated it, and he was like, I went to see a movie called The Mulon Rouge and I got four seconds of can Can and that was his whole thing. He was so pissed that he only got four seconds of can Can. And what an angry, bitchy little queen you're listening too? Was it? Me? Okay, bro, calm down. I think there's

other shit you can watch can Can in a shopwrite commercial for instance. So right away, Christian notices tension between the temperamental playwright Audrey played by I can't remember, write and write his name down. I think it's David Wenham is his name? This actor who is in three hundred and he's so hot and this he's playing like like a gender bendy playwright, like it's so fantastic. So Audrey is the sensitive playwright. And Audrey's lyrics are terrible. There's one

I have to just say that. He starts off like how do we get this song going? And the line is the hills animate with the euphonious symphonies of desk cant That's how Audrey writes. So Christian, seeing a chance to help, just chimes in with how about the hills are alive with the sound of music, and everyone goes, you're a genius. They're thrilled by his natural talent. He continues to sing the sound of music. I will not

put the audience through that. Audrey, who was already feeling threatened, becomes furious at the suggestion that Christian writes the show with him, and he's like, absolutely not. He quits on the spot. Suddenly to lose is like, congratulations Christian on your first job in Paris, and he's toasting him with a giant glass of absence. So this all escalated very very been here for

twenty minutes. So I think now that we're talking through it, I think I know what your objection to the describing as a jukebox musical romance is. And is it because it's actually a farce for like the first half of it, like a full comic bedroom farce. Yeah. Well, because what it is is it's more than a musical. I think of it as a film pastiche rather than a musical, a jukebox musical, because I think a juke box musical takes like one work of art, or like a few works of

art, and kind of create like hangs a story on it. This was clearly written. This is Labom first of all, so they already have the story. They don't need to worry about that. But then they just infuse it with modern like music from the last hundred years. But they also have old op music. And they also like fucking Placido Domingo sings in this at some point. Yeah, like that's like crazy. I don't think it's a jukebox musical, Okay, I just don't think it. I think it's bigger

than that. It's more interesting than that. Okay, fair enough. The group patches a plan. They'll introduce Christian to Setine, the star of Spectacular Spectacular and once Setne hears his poetry is on board with Christian writing the show, Shiel convinced the confestors to put their faith in Christian too. The way like the movie like delivers all this stuff. It's so like when people move

their hands their sound effects like it it is a cartoon. Yeah. At this point, Christian panics that he's not ready to write a truly Bohemian musical, but the group convinces him to spread his message of truth, beauty,

freedom and love to the world. And they give him his first taste of absinthe, which causes him to hallucinate the Green Fairy played by Kylie Minogue and voiced by I believe Ozzy Osborne. I read that on Wikipedia too, although I can't hear Ozzy Osbourne's voice in there at all, so I'm not sure what that person was talking about. Yeah, I believe them, but I'm like, are we sure that's Ozzy Osbourne? Well, I think because her

voice gets distorted, and I'm like, are they mixing? I don't understand, but sure, but sure, Yeah, they're dancing and singing all around him. They go to the Mulin Rouge. It's more like more orgy for the senses. Just just go with it. This scene is the full bas Lerman effect of like there's a million shots cut together really fast. Everything's in your face. It's huge. It's it's a visual orgy of like fast camera cuts and saturated color. Yeah. So this is where we meet impresario Harold

Zidler played by Jim Broadbent. So good in this movie, so good in this movie actually manages to create like because Nicole Kidman and Ew McGregor have to be so I don't mean this a bad way, but like simple, like you. McGregor is just like the innocent young lover. He actually has shades of gray in this movie. He's like almost a real person. Yes, Harold Ziddler like he he does some good things, he does some bad things, does some bad things for good reasons. He does good things for bad

reasons. Like he's actually morally gray and he cares about people. He cares about them too. It's not a full villain either. Yeah, it's really good, by the way, small thing, but Harold's The actual man who co owned the Mulon Rouge was Charles Zidler. So okay, then the last name is correct, the first name is. I'm assuming they had to do that to be like, that's not who we're yet, this is not You're not doing a real dude here. For some reason that was not a problem

with to Loosla Trek. But yeah, we wanted to cover our ass on Zidler. So he introduces his sexy skirt twirling dancers known as the Diamond Dogs. We get a mashup of Lady Marmalade because we can can can then smells like teen Spirit and I think Diamond Dogs here too. I don't think I wrote that in but yeah, we also get dimes in casey who were wondering if why there's that too. The audience, which consists mostly of like well dressed upperclass men, rushes the stage. They try to pawt the dancers.

They mingle with the crowds, and Zidler addresses the camera directly as we see him flying down from a neighboring rooftop and swooping into the Mulan rouge. We see acrobats, snake handlers, tack two men waltzing together, circus performers, nobleman in Tutu's it is. It is just like everything they could possibly throw at the screen. It's amazing, Yeah, it's absolutely amazing. Everything crescendos

right and then the lights go dim and it gets a little quiet. Glitter falls from the ceiling and everyone looks up to see the Great Sateine played by the Great Nicole Kidman. Yep, she's on a swing, gliding over the crowd. She launches into her solo number, Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, with a soussl of material girl thrown in as well. The audience is enraptured, none more than Christian who's dazzled by Setne's beauty. Fucking Nicole Kidmen

is a ten. There's just no there's no way around it. I understand why they cast her because she is such an unapproachable Yeah, she's like an ethereal otherworldly kind of like goddess kind of looking. Yeah, she does not look like a French prostitute from eighteen ninety nine. Speak for yourself. It's exactly how I presure the ladies of the evening. My great great grandmother was a French prostitute in eighteen ninety nine, and she looked exactly like Nicochie.

She was also six feet tall and forty pounds and Australian. Unfortunately, he's not the only one there with an appointment to meet Setine that night, because Zidler and Satene have conspired for her to meet and seduce the Duke. We will never learn this person's actual name. He's just referred to as the Duke the entire film. This is another performance that like you can't sleep on because it is incredible, so fucking good. This is Richard Roxborough as the mustache

twirling like villain of the film, and he is doing everything everything. He is bringing the comedy heat like no one else is in thee, like he saw what the the Polish man playing the Argentinian is doing, and he goes, hold my fucking beer. Yeah, hold my beer. Yeah, that's my that's my Australian accents. Perfect, it's perfect, hold my fostas. So Zidler and Sateene want to do to invest in spectacular, spectacular and also to become Setne's patron so that she can go on to greater, bigger and

better things. Right, her dream is to become like Sarah Bernhardt. Satine asks Zidler to point the Duke out while they're like on stage dancing. There's a series of miscommunications and problems here, but she mistakes Christian for the Duke since the two men are ultimately sitting next to each other. Ye, so

she's like, got it, I found him. While Zidler is changing his costume backstage because he's also part of the show so he's not watching her, Setine approaches Christian and asks him to dance, and she flirts outrageously with him, and he is stumbling over his words. He can barely say anything, and she is just like, oh boy, this is all right. Kids,

come on opening her vagina and come on. He shyly asks her to attend a private poetry reading with him so he can show her his stuff, and she completely misconstrues his meaning and suggestively agrees to I'll read poetry with you all night. Setine gets back on the swing to sing the last line of Diamonds are a girls best. I I hate sudden onset consumption. That's how it works, right, It just comes upon you like like like a fart. I have so much to talk about consumption later. We're gonna get to

it. We're gonna get to it. She falls from the swing and into the crowd. Luckily, one of the male dancers, the only black person in the movie with lines, who's one line, one line, whose character name is At first I thought it was shock a Lot, but it's not. It's let's shock a Lot, which I think is worse. Do you know that's a real person that actually makes it so okay? I have so

much to say about this character. I think the movie's wonderful. It falls down on a couple of things, and in terms of not aging, well, this is where I think it really falls down. Let's Chock a Lot is a real person, real performer in Paris at the time would have been at the Mulin Rouge, was a circus performer. They decided to put him in the film. Cool, right, Like interesting that, Like I can totally see the meeting where they're like, let's put some people of color in

this, let's diversify who would have been around Paris at that time. Cool, let's let's put him in the film. You know what we should do? Make him a magical negro. And I'm just like, no, you were so close, you were so close to making it good. And like he barely speaks in the film, and he only shows up to save Setine over and over and over again. It is. It sucks, it sucks. It's not good. It's not good. So she is taken backstage for

medical treatment and Zidler pretends it's all part of Satin's act. Meanwhile, backstage, Schetine performs the universal movie language for it a Bitch, Go and dive. At the end of this movie, she coughs blood into a handkerchief that's Chekhov's bloody Hanks check offs bloody hanky? Is is this? I know is obviously not the first movie to do it, but I feel like this was like the turning point in the culture where everyone was like no more. But it continues to happen. I see it all the time. Oh no,

no, there's blood in my hanky. I can't believe that Snel doesn't have one where like a cough and they like, oh god, there's a dog in my handkerchie random ship. Still that doesn't stop her from rallying. She puts on a sexy red gown. Okay, I have to point out that she puts on this red gown. She looks incredible. Va. I mean, it's it's the poster for the movie. It's that it's that gown. Yeah, she's putting this on to go seduce the duke. When we next

see here, she will be in lingerie. Takes off like, I don't think anyone, no one even saw you in that except Zidler. What was the point you had? You had, Marie, You're like, you're handmaid like coarsening the fuck out of you. No one saw it. Did she have to poop? Do you think that's what happens? Happened? She shipped herself walking from her from there to her apartment. Marie, clean this and get me some lingerie guys. The saying good. That's why I had to

put that big bustle on it to hide the stains. We kept ripping one every time every time she like tightened the strings. I don't imagine I have worn like pants that are too tight, like you know, like and then you sit down and is so uncomfortable and like like almost nausea inducing. And then then you remember these women are just like literally can't breathe date just for the whole day. Yeah, and then at the end of the night they

must like get out of these things and be like I'm free. I mean I can attest even now, and I wear the most comfortable bra I could possibly find it. Yeah, barely a bra, it's a T shirt. And even then when I get home, I'm like, oh, thank god, I hit your bras just someone you pay to walk around holding your breasts up very soft gloves. I walk into my apartment, I just slap the hands away, get out, get away a pray. So Seteen goes to

meet the duke, but really it's Christian. We know that in her I have an apartment, and she's playing a very easy to get She's not even trying to like, oh, no, I'm a lady. Right, we're back in the sticket portion of the evening stick it in. She lays across the bed in this seductive pose, and Christian, who still thinks he's there for an audition, is like, what the fuck am I supposed to do?

He's like, okay, well, why don't you get comfortable because what you know, it's a bit long, uh huh, and I'm gonna be using some modern techniques, so it may feel a little funny at first. And obviously we as the audience know he's talking about his poetry uh huh. And she's like, the fuck is about that happen in this room? What

does your penis look like? Because I can't tell you enough. She's laying on the bed and he is fifteen feet away from her, across the room, and he's like, no, no, stay on the bed because you're want to get comfortable because it's very long and very modern, and it might feel uncomfortable at first, but I think eventually, if you just breathe into it, you're gonna like it. You just give me a minute. If you're open, If you're open, that's he actually says it. If you're

open to it, I think you'll enjoy it. She suppresses this laugh and she's like, Okay, go on, and he gets nervous, and so he starts to fumble. He's tried to He's he didn't come there with a written poem. He just came there to, like, to be fair, he is currently hallucinating and on absent, so you're right, I forgot that part. And he was not like he didn't know this was happening. This has been a real whirlwind. What if he goes straight into nineteen nineties deaf

poetry and he just starts to use the N word way too much. He's like four score and seven years ago. So he starts to fumble. He's like, he's like, oh my god, oh my god. He's nervous. He's blowing it. He says, I'm so sorry. It's just sometimes inspiration doesn't come to me right away. And she's like, oh, let me inspire you. So she throws him on the bed, She jumps on top of him. She starts to like paw at his pants, and she

goes, let's release the tiger. She just goes all in on this insane premise, and so it's like tiger on top of him, and he's like, what is happening? What is happening? And she like takes his penis out of his pants. We don't see anything because the movie is PG. Thirteen much the disappointment of you and McGregor, and she goes, oh,

big boy. Then we see that the rest of it, like to lose La Trek and all the other Argentinian and all the other cast members of the show are watching this from a rooftop across the way, and to Lose La Trek goes, he has a huge talent, so okay. Christian pushes her off, gets up, buckles back up, hauls his fire hose, coils it up back into his pants. It takes the elephant trunk, wraps it around his waist like a flesh belt, and he starts to like, like

recite the lyrics to your song by Elton John. It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside. Yeah, I'm not one who who can easily hide. He's saying the words, he's not singing it yet, right, And she, of course misconstrues his intentions once again, and she thinks this is all some for some form of weird fucking four places for some reason, the court is On seems to think men have a one track mind. She's she doesn't know what he's doing, but she is positive and it's about sex well,

because she knows that's like the whole thing. She's not wrong. Yeah, She's like, hey, how about I fuck you? You give me so much money that I become a star, right, I am very willing to funk my way to the top. Yeah, I do not have any moral quandary here. So she's like, oh, I see naughty poetry. Yes, give me her naughty words, and she starts writing. He was like, there once was a man from Nantucket. Dick was so long he had suck it, he said with the grin, And she's like, yes,

he wiped off his chin. Yes, So she starts writhing on the floor. She's like, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, And I'm telling you people, Nicole Kidman has earned every single Oscar nomination she has ever fucking received just for this scene alone. Finally, Christian is so uncomfortable he breaks out into song and he goes, my gift is my song, and this one's for you. She stops this whole seduction act and she actually starts listening to him as he serenades her. Now it's her turn to

be completely enchanted. Right. He's so sweet, He's singing to her so earnestly. We talked a little bit about Nicole Kidman's voice. You McGregor also not the greatest voice. Charming though sweet, lovely to listen to, but not He's not gonna be like a musical theater star. This is not Hugh Jackman. Yeah. She fantasizes as he's singing to her about the two of them, like on the foggy rooftops of Paris. Like suddenly she's she's in

her head and they're dancing along the rooftops. By the time he finishes the song, she's completely in love with him. She's like, I cannot believe my luck. I'm in love. I'm actually in love for the first time ever. And it's with a hints some talented duke, and Christian smiles at her and goes, I'm not a duke, I'm a writer. Wait, like, throw some cold water up and Setine soils her second set of panties for that to night. Setine barely has time to absorb this turn of events.

She's like, you need to get the fuck out. Why are you here now, who I thought I was meeting Zidler and the Duke burst in on her and she has to hide Christian behind her legs. This is very theatrical, it's very stagy, it's very like, there's literally no way these two would not see Yeah, like, you know, I want to say, Christian bale you and McGregor in this room. But you know, she's like hiding him behind like a flimsy neglige and they can't see him. Suddenly

it's fine, all works, fine, it's a cartoon anyway. Yeah, it's the first tragic farce I think, right, Oh, yeah, that's what it is. It's a tragic musical farcee. He invented a new a new genre. Well done, Buzzler me here you go. So she's trying to direct the Duke's attention away from the door so Christian can make a clean

get away. Now she's kind of doing the same thing that she was doing with Christian with the duke, only now the Duke's the one is confused, and she's like, oh, look at me, look at me, look at me. She is now Nathan Lane in the bird case. Yes, Madonna, Madonna, Martha Graham Arthur Graham. Arthur Graham, I meant Nathan Lane, but now that I think about it, she's actually Robin Williams in the bird Age. Yeah. She starts singing your Song to the Duke,

which really works on him, and now he's enchanted by Setne. There's a sweet moment where there's actually like sparkles in his eyes, like the movie Magic, where he's like, holy shit, now I'm in love. I remember the first time I watched this, I was like, oh, they are they not going to have a villain? They do, I mean they do, but he's also like such a silly character that it's it really really work because the movie almost doesn't need a villain because you know, the villain of

the film is Consultation. But the the they do push him pretty Farah, there are a couple moments in the movie where they do give him a little bit of humanity. Oh honestly, like it, had Christian not walked in there, this would have worked. Oh yeah, like he would have been super into her. She would have been perfectly happy with this guy. He's kind of an idiot, but whatever. He's he's not ugly, he's weird looking and weird in general, but he's not ugly, like he's rich.

He's super into her, Like I could see another path this movie takes where it's just like and We're gonna ride this until I'm the most famb for another two months and I'm gonna die to berculosis. That is faded at this point if you think about it. He really dodges a bullet. He dodges a TV bullet, like at some point Diddler should pull him aside and be like, listen, I don't like you're dodging a major fucking bullet here. Be

thankful because she is spreading to perculosis to everyone. So Christian's trying to get out of the room, but the Duke's manservant, Warner is guarding the door, so he's stuck watching Setine make out with the Duke as a teen. Can't fuck the Duke with Christian in the room, so she tells the Duke they should wait until opening night to consummate their love, and she shoves him

out the door. She turns on Christian and she starts berating him for complicating her plans, but she loses her breath and oh, she faints again. Another bout of sudden onset tuberculosis. Christian's very concerned. He puts her to bed, and the Duke walks back in just in time to see Christian on top of Setine and he's very upset. And I mean, Richard Roxborough is doing the Satine kind of voice, like super weird accent. He also literally

says, I've never seen anyone do this in real life. He actually or even on film. He goes foul play like I've never heard anyone actually say

foul play before, and it's so good foul play. Yeah. So Setin manages to come back to herself, realizes what the situation is, and she tells the Duke that she was so inspired by their flirtation that she called an emergency rehearsal and to loosen the rest of the cast, who have been watching the entire scene from the balcony remember Russian side, to validate Setine's story,

and they all pretend this is a planned rehearsal. Meanwhile, Zid, who's been watching everything from his office, I mean, draw a fucking curtain, bitch. How many how many views in are this elephant? Is there like a pay per view situation happening in Paris at this time, where people like anyone who lives on the top floor of the buildings in the neighborhood have to give Zidler, like I don't know, ten cents ten francs. Yeah,

and watched the teen Fuck what's her cut? Because she's apparently very good at it, and again she looks like Nicole Kidman. So there's gonna be interest. By the way, I've never been to Paris. Is the elephant still there? The elephant is there? Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, So I'm so glad you asked. This is exactly what Paris looks like. I just want you to know, like they got it so so right. You don't even have to go there anymore. Just watch this movie, Okay,

you'll know exactly what Paris by the numbers. By the numbers, like it's scarily accurate. Frankly, in case anyone doesn't know what we're talking about, Like outside of the Moulin Rouge, like kind of just in the middle of the street yard, there's an enormous elephant that's the size of like like a building. Yeah, it's like three stories high. Yeah, and it's also se teen's apartment and it's a teen's apartment and all of this, this

scene takes place in like the hollowed head of it. It's not it's it's a building, to be clear, It's not like any any kind of real elephant. It's entirely a construction. Yeah. And it takes place in the head of the elephant. Yeah. And again in the full view of God and and all of his all of his earthly all of his creatures, all his creatures. Yeah, that's exactly what Paris looks like. Every other building is shaped like an animal. Okay, that's surprise. You haven't seen it

in pictures. Zebra. No, no, there is a famous zebra building. Okay. The Eiffel Tower is actually a monkey's penis. It's the Eiffel Tower, I believe, is exactly how long Christian's peace. He calls it his little Eiffel Tower. But when he says that he's referring to the Eiffel Tower, Eiffel Tower, his Eiffel Tower is the is the actual most majestic Eiffel Tower being brought around Paris in those times. Okay, So Ziddler, who again has been spying on this this sexcapade. He's using a telescope.

He rushes over to explain to the Duke that this is all just a terrible misunderstanding, right. He did not see the first part with Setne and Christian. He was just checking in to make sure that, like the Duke was balls deep as planned and found him not, you know, like every father figure does. Yeah, this is not at all a weird relationship that she has at all. He calls her his little cherub, his little strawberry,

like there's a real father daughter sweetness to their relationship. Then like, yeah, if you really dig even a centimeter deep, you're like, yes, if you take out an espresso spoon and just pick up one bit of dirt, you're like, ooh, I like that kind of like that. Setine

quickly catches Ziddler up on the emergency rehearsal story. She just that thing like, oh, Harold, we're still glad you're here for the emergency rehearsal that I just called because the Duke came in and he inspired me so much, like that kind of thing, and he jumps right on board their lie. These people are yes, ending their way out of a very sticky situation. This is the greatest improv troop of all times, of all time. Step

aside groundlings, the Duke asks to see a sample of the show. Since he's being asked to invest, Christian and Zigler quickly improvised the plot, location, and theme. Basically, it's exactly this story that we are already watching, but it is set in India because they did not know about cultural appropriation back in eighteen ninety nine. I genuinely forgot they said it in India, and like, ultimately I think it's okay. Oh, I think so too.

It's also because the Elephant Apartment, that's the theme of the apartment is like it's not India per se, but it's like like Asian Asian Eroonica. Essentially, it's like the Kamasutra. Yeah, and so you know, Catherine Martin had extremely explicit statues that they had to take out. Oh my god, there was the sex life of Catherine Martin and Bozzerman must be extraordinary. I think some of the beads hanging from the wall are actually anal beads.

It cannot be proven. It came right out of Baslherman and onto that one. Yeah, I think so too. The movie does a lot of that later in the film. The whole show is Yeah, it's Indian, It's Indian. It's Indian inspired, but like, I think it's fine because A it's a forest. B it's eighteen ninety nine. Like, no one's gonna take anything seriously here. This is not. No one's like, wait a

minute, I came to this film to learn about Indian rutter. I just I just literally genuinely forgot they did it, and I like grip for a second. They're like, no, we're good, We're okay, And I should mention the only Indian song I think they use in the movie. There might be more than one, but I think it's just the one is an actual Indian song. I'm a famous Bollywood filmmachama, right, So like, it's not like they're because I could see other movies doing this, like inventing

an Indian song like Wolf don't do that. Like they're actually using some Indian music in the film. So the story goes like this, it said in India. The Argentinian, obviously, will play a penniless tango dancing guitar player no questions, you cannot stop here. Ziddler will play an evil maharaj, and Setene will play a Cortison caught between saving her home and her one too true love the penniless guitar player, right, Zidler promises, and I'm quoting

this directly because Jim Broadban fucking gives the scene. He goes, this show will be quote a magnificent, opulent, tremendous, stupendous, gargenhuan bedazzlement, a sensual ravishment. Central ravishment is the other name for the Eiffel Tower penis that Christian has. Yeah. Yeah, central ravishment is what I call just my left boob, not the right one. The right one knows what it did. The right one is uptight. Let's say it. She is on

blast. Frankly, I wrote that down too, because you're right. He just gives the way these actors are trusting Baz Lherman to not make them look stupid, to not let them look obviously Nicole Kiman looks silly, but like for this to not go off the rails. Yeah, because it could go off the rails in two seconds. Yeah. So Zidler's start to sing the pitch for the show. It is set to the music that we associate with

the can Can Ye Dun. Yeah, so we know the song, right, So he is starting to sing the pitch for the show, right, The rest of the cast and crew join in. By the end, the Duke is all in on Spectacular Spectacular. He agrees to invest. They all cheer Rah. The rest of the performers go and have a rager Intulus's apartment. Christian tries to write the show, and Setine goes to the roof of her elephant and she sings, one day I'll fly away, leave all this

too. Yesterday by Randy Crawford. I literally until yesterday when I was writing this recap, did not know but that's a real song. Yeah, I thought it was written for this movie. I only knew that it was a real song because I know the only song written for the movie was come what May? I just remember that bit of trivia from the early two thousands. So Christian's in his apartment, he can see her on the roof of her

elephants. They're all in the same courtyard, basically. Yeah, he goes and he gets to the roof and he said, and he startles her for a second, says, I just want to thank you for getting me a job. And he asks sweetly if she meant it when she said she loved him, and she says, no, I am a courtesan. I am paid to make men believe what they want to believe. I can't fall in love with anyone, and Christian says, well, that would be terrible.

You can't resolve yourself to a life without love, and she goes, no, living on the streets is terrible. Point Setene, You're right, this is better. And then we get the very famous Elephant Love Medley, which which the musical kind of took and metastasized into a three hour like it like literally added forty fucking songs to an already like twelve song mel liked medley. Uugh. Yeah. The ask of having these two singers, these two actors

who are not singers. They're fine singers, but they're not singers, like do I Will Always love you? Yeah? Is mean that's a lot, that's a that's a huge fucking ass. Yeah. I will say though, man, that just because it hits every time, Because at this point there's again fireworks going like boz Lehman is throwing every trick at it, and it gives you like Goose, I loved it. You're like, oh, I'm

being swept away. I'm in love with them both. I can't remember how I felt watching this movie the first time, because I've seen it so many times, I'm sure I was. I had that same sense of like, oh no, disorientation. Yeah the first time I saw it, and I I hope I liked this as much as I like it now. But I wonder if twenty years ago, when I first watched this movie, I was like, oh no, what is happening? Oh there's too many songs here? And I will always love you. No, I know, I loved

it. I've always loved it rewatching it like millions of times, and then again yesterday. It is so magical and like, up where We Belong is my favorite moment they start to sing up where We Were? I get so happy. Setene obviously doesn't stand a chance against his full frontal charisma assault that Christian is doing, and she ends up in his arms. Yes, she says, You're gonna be bad for business, I can tell. We cut to Zidler and the Duke and they're ironing out the details for the conversion of

the Mulan Rouge into a legitimate theater for Spectacular Spectacular. The Duke is proving to be more savvy than Ziddler perhaps anticipated m h and he has a ironclad contract that stipulates that he will require Steam to be exclusive to him, like, because it is transactional, to be fair, like, I think a modern audience would be like, whoa, that's awful, but like it is.

It was always supposed to be a transactional relationship, right, And remember, sexually transmitted diseases are very real and very untreatable at this point, So I could see a man being like exclusive to me and that's it. It's also too late for that because she has a fatal disease that is extremely coitious, coughing all over every dancer, so long to lose lutrek. It was nice knowing you. Yes, can I say this is a slight bummer,

but I'm gonna say it anyway. I actually know someone who passed away from tuberculosis this year, like it is still it is still. They were older, they had a host of other medical issues. So yeah, it was sad obviously, but it like, yeah, it's so weird that tuberculosis is still a thick Yeah. I thought it was one of those that went the way of like polio. Yeah, yeah, I thought, oh, we don't have that anyway, you know, polio's coming back, well, I

know, making a comeback. Yeah, it's coming back. We stand a comeback, queen. You know what I'm saying. You go polio girl. Why aren't they all more freaked out by her? They should know about quarantining by now. You would think consumption has been around for a while. How does she not know she has it? What does she think is happening? You cough blood into a handkerchief. She just like, she thinks they're tightening

her courses too much. She's just internally bleeding. She thinks that's her period. She's like, wait, that's that's supposed to happen. They're like, yeah, every month, right, So okay, So the ironclad contract requires se Tina be exclusive to him, and also very importantly, he will take over the deed to the Mulan Rouge until his investment is paid back. He also sort of threatens Zidler with violence and also anyone else with violence who dares

to come between him and this plan. He says, it's not that I'm a jealous man. I just don't like on that paper touching my things. Oh wow, there's another line reading in the scene that I love and he goes, if there are any shenanigans. The Duke invites Stine over for dinner that night and every other night that week, but guess what, she keeps putting him off. She's like, no, busy, sorry, she claims she's rehearsing. Right, Obviously, she and Christian are doing lots of quote

unquote rehearsing. It's not entirely a lie, though, because they are writing scenes in between love making. There's a non sex scene here. It's like a dinner scene between her Christian and to Lose. Christian is delighting Satine and to Lose with a breakdown of the final act right, in which the courtisan con is the penniless guitar player that she doesn't love him, and then he throws money at her feet and says, thank you for curing me of my

ridiculous obsession with love. Do you think that's gonna come back? No? No, no, no no no, you can set it and forget. It's done. It's done, don't worry about it. They're all delighted. Oh what a brilliant love, Like like twist in the plot, you love it. Finally, the Duke is fed up by Setne putting him off and complains to Zidler that Setina is spending all of her time rehearsing with Christian. He is kind of a room. He doesn't get it. He does not

get it, get it. The Duke threatens to pull out of the entire scheme, and Zidler promises him that Setine will meet him that night at the Gothic Tower for dinner. Zidler confronts Setine and tells her she has to break it off with Christian and keep her date with the Duke that night. He has the deed to the Mulan rouge. Go fuck the Duke, Fuck the Duke. This for everyone. You consumptive horror. I mean, a whore is one thing, but a consumptive horror. How dare you? What a

terrible investment? Hah. Satine is so upset at the aspect of losing Christian that she she fades again. This time, She's so sick that she's bedridden all night, and she misses both her date with Christian and her date with the Duke. The Duke is truly fed up. He's like, she's she ghosted me again. Zidler shows up to the tower and his only excuse that he could think of is she's confessing, she's with her confessor, and the Duke is like, how stupid do you think? I am very, very

stupid? And then Zidler says very because Zidler says, she wants to confess and be like a virgin for you, because you make her feel like she's been touched for the very first time. And then Jim Broadman and Richard Roxborough perform an unhinged version of Like a Virgin by Madonna that is so fucking delightful. It is my second favorite scene in the film. We haven't gotten my favorite one yet, but it's coming. Yeah, this is number two.

This I can't even see. It's perfect. It's for my Kingdom. For the outtakes, because what happens is, oh my god, yes, Grim Broadbent throws like a tablecloth over him, tends to be the titular he's the titular virgin, and Richard Roxborough like chases after him, and he has like on those long waistcoats and he's holding it out so it almost looks like a

vampire or a bat chasing after him. It's also a little bit like Mattador Matador and like and it's it's unhinged and like they must have cracked up laughing eighteen times. There's also a dozen male dancers stress as waiters because because it's supposed to be this romantic dinner for the two of them, right for Setina and the duke, and so like all the waiters are obviously dancers. It's so good. Yeah, if you have never seen this film, just google

this scene. This scene is I must watch. It is so stupid and the best way. The next morning, the doctor tells Ziddler and Setine's made Marie, this is important that Setin has consumption and is dying. We are an hour and ten minutes into the movie at this point, and finally, and we all know we're watching La boim, Let's get fucking real here, and finally, finally they're like, she's dying of consumption. I would have loved to have been in an audience where someone's like, ooh, surprise.

My favorite one of those moments, can I tell you all I stap here was when I went to see the film Lincoln. Yeah, about Abraham Lincoln.

I don't know, have you've seen the film Lincoln. I have Abraham Lincoln, very famous person, and they're having a scene at the end of the film, a long, stupid scene where they're counting the votes about emancipation and whether or not they should really should, like actually pass the emancipation into law, and the two women sit with my brother, and the two women sitting in front of us were like, oh no, And every time someone voted against emancipation in the film, and I wanted to be like, what

do you think is about to happened? I thought you were gonna say they were shocked when he gets shot. No, it's a dumber than that. It's actually dumber than that. It's like they're like, oh no, what if they don't pass emancipation. I'm like, do you own somebody? Because if you own somebody, that's illegal. We're not allowed to do that anymore. This movie should not be how you learned that? Anyway? Back to the show anyway, any crap. By the way, PSA for this episode

if you're listening to this, Emancipation pass. Yeah, oh yes, sorry, spoiler for the film Lincoln and Lincoln gets shot in the theater. Paul, Come on, man, you didn't have to tell us that part. That's a bummer. Way to bring everyone down. Fall by way back to the scene. Back to the scene about consumption. So okay, so the doctor tells Zidler. Ziller decides to hide the news from Satin so she'll keep working on the show. That sounds bad, but he also, I think

is doing it as an act of love. Yeah, he I think Ziller genuinely loves Satina and feels fatherly towards her, and he's like, look, let's not tell her she's dying. She doesn't need to know. There's literally nothing she can do anyway, so she may as well live her like the rest of her life out. Christian watches Setine as she rests in bed and asks her where she was the night before, right so that she's like, bitch, I am physically ill. Do you not see that? Right now?

This scene drives me insane, well because it's him starting to do like because before he knew she was a courtisan when he started this, this is not news that she does this, and he's starting to do that like annoying thing of like I don't want you to sleep with other men. She's like, but that's my fucking job. That's how I roll. And also I didn't but also like I'm you can see how sick I am, right,

like I'm sweating. She tells him she was sick, and he doesn't fully believe her, and for the first time, he's feeling jealous and he's feeling possessive, and Stine breaks the news to him that they have to end their affair. She says, look, everyone already knows about us, sooner or later, the Duke is going to find out, like he's only so stupid, event he does have a functioning brain on some level, like we have to stop. She tells Christian that she promised to sleep with the Duke on

Opening Night and she has to go through with it. I cannot get out of it, and she's worried that his jealousy will kill Christian, but Christian promises that he won't get jealous, and he offers to write a special secret song just for her so she'll always know how much he loves her. It's sweet, It's sweet. He somehow pulls it off. He pulls it off with me, even saying that I wanted to roll my eyes, but I was like no, But in the movie, I was like, that's beautiful,

Christian. We cut to a rehearsal of the two of them dueting this secret love song. It's called Come What May. I am learning now for the first time. It is the only original song in the film. It's also the song that they kept for the musical. And as I said, I like the musical more than you did. What they did to this song in the musical is unforgivable to me. I don't even remember. I was

rolling my eyes too hard. Well, you know, the end of the song is the line, uh you until oh my god she dies singing it. No, no, they just don't sing that part. They just end on come what May, and that's it. They leave I will love you until my dying day out. Yeah, they say it like earlier, but they don't like they don't end the song on it. It's so irritated. That is musical blue Balls, and I don't care for that. It's terrible. I honestly I blacked out most of that musical. I was so annoyed

when we were watching it, like, this is my birthday. You are ruining my birthday. So they're singing come what May. They are so obviously in love with each other, they're not even trying to hide it anymore. One of the other dancers points out to the duke hang on one of the other days. I know I'm going to talk about her later. I was going to talk about her. Her name. Should we stop and talk about

her now? I just want to say her name, CAROLINEA. O'Connor, But her character name oh Nini Legs in the Air, Ninny Legs in the Air. I like a descriptor. I like to know what I'm getting. Yeah, it's a Cancan dancer, Paul Legs in the Air, Legs in

the air. That's how she does Ninny Legs in the air, played by the great Caroline O'Connor, which I have to say, I don't think I've ever seen in anything else because she's very Australian and she only does Australian TV movies and film, and she's not had like a huge breakout here in the States yet, but like, if you do even the slightest deep dive on her online, she's basically like the Cheeta Rivera of the Gwen Verdon of Australian

theater. She is like an Australian theater like icon. And when you see the movie, she has a few lines. She has a very strong character. She makes a very strong character choice of like I am the bitch, I'm the messy bitch. You loves drama and the mula rouge. And she's so good. She's captivating. Every time she's in a scene, you your eye goes right the right to her because he's got a set of eyes on her too. She's got a set of peepers, she's got a striking face,

and she's obviously the dance captain for the movie. Like she's she's front and center. Every time, there's like a big grin. And then she finally gets the dance solo, like the squeal I let out of me, Like, thank god, someone who can dance is dancing in this fucking movie. Fine, yeah, yeah, that's when I was. Yeah, so we'll come back to her. But she's wonderful. She shows up in this scene and she's like, I don't understand this ending. Why because she's talking

the most cogniaco ever. Why would the quota zant fall for the penniless writer. I mean, oops, sitar player just just being a bitch for no good reason, blowing up spots, just giving cut left and right. The Duke finally starts to see it. He looks at Christian insanteen singing moonily at each other while they stare into each other's eyes, and he's like, wait a minute. He petulantly stands up and he's like, hey, hey, I don't like this song. This song's no good. We're cutting it from

my show. Everyone gets real quiet. They're like, I'm sorry, what's going on? And he's like, and this ending is stupid. The courtisan should choose the maharaja over the gitar player because why wouldn't she choose security over fleeting infatuation, And Christian freaks out and scre because she doesn't love you, and everyone goes, oh shoe shit, he goes, I mean him, she doesn't love him him in the show, Yeah, because we're talking about

the play and not real life here. That's right. This is one of the dangers of like just putting everything from your real life directly into the theater piece that you're making. You get real pissed and someone's like, lines can get blurred. I don't like this choice, and you're like, well, I don't like your face. That's my mom So okay. So Teen's like, okay, I gotta fix this whole thing. Everyone's fucking up left and right. Gotta I gotta be the hero here. She coolly approaches the duke.

She goes, she goes, Harold, the duke is being treated appallingly. She's also wearing like this gold head dress and this gorgeous like maroon brocaded. Yeah, down, it looks so good, and like again she's coursed. Don't know how this woman breathed. Maybe that's why she's sang like that, I don't know, like that in the recording booth. But yeah,

she goes, she goes. The duke is being treated appallingly. And she goes up to the duke and she's like, how about this, You and I will have a little dinner tonight alone, wink wink, and we'll discuss the ending of the show and see if we can't come to a compromise. Yep, the Duke is all in on this plan. He's like, okay,

great, let's have dinner together. As Satine is leaving the theater, Christian asks her again not to sleep with the duke, and she tells him that she's going to do what she has to do to save the show, and she reminds him that he promised you want to get jealous, She whispers sings, come what May into his ear, and he nods, and he lets her go. He waits in the theater with everyone else to find out the fate of their show as Setne heads to the Gothic Tower for her assignation

with the Duke. I love this movie so much. It's so it's like hat on a hat on a hat and hat on a fucking sombrara. The person originally wearing the hat has been crushed under the weights of all the hats on a top, hat on a chapeau on a fucking It's so good. Yep. Niny legs in the air taunts Christian about Setne being a whore, does not care. She's mad. Yeah, I think she wanted the lead. Yeah. I think she's a little pissed. Frankly, it's very all

about Eve. Yeah. This prompts the Argentinian to teach them all a dance of lust, passion, obsession, born after the brothels of Buenos Aires, the tango. I fucking love this scene. This is my favorite scene. Fucking rocks. It's so so fucking good. Everything about it, this song, the choreography, the cinematography, the performances. No notes, so the cast performs a tango set to Rocks and you don't have to put on the red light by the police. The Argentinian warns Christian not to fall in love

with a woman who must sell her body to survive. The jealousy will drive him mad. Christian can't take it, and he leaves the theater. Meanwhile, intercut with this right at the Gothic Tower, setine wearing an unmade sorry the sentence. Meanwhile at the Gothic Tower, what Paul, What? I

don't see what? Meanwhile in the elephant's head, it's a teen wearing an unbelievable gown, convinces the Duke that Christian has an obsession with her, and that she only indulges his little fantasy, his little crush, because he's very talented and she's She's not stupid. She's like, Hey, I'm the lead in his show, and the more he's in love with me, the better songs will write for me. That's what Angel Lansbury did to Stephen Sondheim.

For first, he todd he was obsessed with her. The Duke is pacified. He offers to use his money and influence to make her a world famous, legitimate actress. Once the show opens, that's the other thing too, is like, while he's a villain, he does like it's exactly what she wanted five minutes ago before she met Christian, Like, boy, did Christian derail this woman's life? Yeah? Well and left? He made her last

two weeks interesting. We can only hope for so much. That's that's like a prayer I wanted, Like, may you may the last two weeks of your life be filled with hot sex? Yeah? Absolutely hot monkey lovin Yeah. The Duke also gives her again hat on a hat on a hat, a giant diamond necklace. She asks him about the show's ending. She's not happy with just literally everything she's ever asked for, plus a priceless diamond necklace.

She's like, and the show. Yeah, And he's like, let Ziddler have his happy ending, right, Like, fine, all is forgiven, Let's keep going. You've convinced me, Like that's what she said earlier, right, Like I am paid to make men believe what I want them to believe exactly. Just as the Duke starts to kiss her neck, Setine looks out the window and she sees Christian looking up at the tower like a

creeper. This this one moment's not It's not anyone's fault. I get I get it, like I do. But it's like I can't imagine like looking out of a window and seeing some up there staring at me. Excuse me, sir, I'm trying to fuck up here. Yeah, could you not? Could you go up to the third floor in that building over there and watch to a telescope like everybody else in this neighborhood. She realizes he can't

go through with it, and she says no to the Duke. The Duke does he take rejection well, you know, like a lot of aristocracy, not used to hearing the word no. Uh huh, doesn't care for it, does not Yeah, not a fan processed it. It was like absolutely no, I signed a contract and I actually own you. Yeah. Yeah, just to let me carry the yes. He pushes her to the ground. He spits out you made me believe you loved me, and he rips the necklace off of her neck. She tries to run away, but he

chases her down by the way. The music for Roxanne is still going. This is all still intercutting. This is intercut with not only the music for Roxanne, but they're performing the scene with the tango. So it's a bunch of men dancing around Nini legs in the air. Well, she's well, she's doing this like sexy erotic tango and then they start to tear her apart basically through choreography. Not actually, I cannot tell you again how good this

part is. This is my favorite scene in the movie as well. It's where the movie, like all of the movies excess, all of the movies, different genres, it all comes together perfectly. Like the song is perfect, the performance of the song is perfect, the dancing, the actual like the book scene that's happening. Yeah, it all fits together perfectly, and it's like exciting to watch. Yeah. So the duke rips off Setne's dress, he throws her onto the bed and just he's about to assault her.

Les Chock a Lot we spoke about earlier just appears. We don't know why. We don't know if he was was he stationed outside of her door for some reason. It's a rock Sands scene at the beginning, and he kind of gets like a feeling the something's up, I don't know, because he's magical, right, almost as though he's magical. Paula a Lot is played by the way, my apologies if I slaughter this name, but the performer's name is Dibia Opare. Yeah. A British like very well known actor playwright.

Yeah, so he's learned his dues playing this bullshit part. Yeah. He knocks the duke out and he saves se Tine. He gathers her into his arms and he gets her out of there. Tatine runs to Christian's apartment. She's a mess. She's crying. She confesses that she loves him and she just couldn't go through with her promise to bed the duke. She is so good in the scene, like this is what I'm like, what we were talking about earlier, where it started out so silly and Nicole Kidman is

has to now play high melodrama like all of this is real. Yeah, and she does it. She makes you believe it, like it is impressive. I think that's what I meant when I was like, I think her part is harder because the range of things that she has to play is like feels like two ends of a wild spectrum. Yeah yeah, yeah, Although when he starts to just break down and cry at the end of the movie, it's it's so heartbreaking, Like, I don't know how he pulls that

out. Frankly, it's very hard. He has to uncoil it first. He has to make sure the pants are fully unzipped and all the way down to his knees. If they're only halfway to mid thigh, it's gonna get caught. It's gonna get caught. It enough. I don't know how he pulls that out. Title of you McGregor's sex tape A haha. I wish he'd had a sex tape. He really, you know, he absolutely does. It just hasn't been released. It just has just never found its way

to the public. Shit. If you if you have a U and regrego sex you're sitting on look, don't put it on the internet. That's a violation. But send it to me. Somehow, that's not a violation. Somehow, that's fine. Moral gray area. The two of them decide to run away together. They're gonna leave everything behind and start a new life somewhere else. Meanwhile, the Duke is telling Zidler that the show will have the

ending he wants, with the courtisan choosing the Maharaja. I don't know why he cares so much about this why why He's not just like, guess what, I'm closing your theater. Yeah bye, And he warns them that if Setin does not go through with the show and with fucking him on opening night, he will have Christian murdered. Oh that's an escalation. This just got yeah, this just this got real serious, real quick. Zidler confronts the

Tin as she's packing her belongings. She's freaked out, but she's resolute. She's like, no, we're leaving. We're gonna go somewherehere the Duke can never find us. Zidler finally tells her the truth. Listen, bitch, you got you got the consumption, you got the tb bitch. He tells her that she's gonna die soon, and she looks to Marie and Marie confirms it. So he says, look, either way, you're gonna end up breaking Christian's heart right like, you're gonna die imminently. What if she had

got to Marie where he was just wearing a mask has mess? What if like earlier, she was with the Duke in the Gothic tower and he kisses her neck. She goes no, and he's like, what do you mean? And she just goes and coffee blood all over his face. What if she's in the middle of giving him a blowjob and she just like starts bleeding all over his dick, And He's like, I don't care for this anymore.

I'm still picturing Marie in the Hamas. So he convinced. Zidler convinces Setene to break it off with Christian by hurting him so badly that he'll leave on his own accord, saving his life, right, Like, look, you're dying soon anyway. Don't make christians life harder than it needs to be, right, he reminds her. He says to Setine, we're creatures of the underworld. We can't afford to love. That's really heartbreaking. Yeah, he mournfully sings, the show must go on, by queen, it's so

fucking good. Uh huh, as he walks through the theater. So he leaves Setine, and you see all the people working hard on the show. Yeah, to make it happen. Setin gets dressed in a gray suit with a black veil, and she goes to Christian's apartment and she coldly tells him that the Duke made her another offer, an even better one, and she's decided she's going to choose security over love. Look, I get this is a romance, and I get that it's you McGregor at his gargantuan penis.

Girl, you are eighteen ninety nine Paris, even if you didn't have TB. Maybe go with the security A hundred. So she walks out before Christian can stop her, and he runs the steps of the theater and he screams out her name, Stella, I mean such eh, and she doesn't come to him, and he's apprehended and he's beaten by the Duke's man. Christian sells his typewriter, but he can't stay away from the Mulan rouge. She has to go back one more time. So he goes to the opening night

of Spectacular Spectacular. Because there's nothing a drama queen loves more than Rubin salt in his own wound, like why would you do this? Setin has a few stumbles during the show as her illness is getting the better of her, but she's performing the hell out of it. She is a triumph. I look Erica wrote this, and look, look she's fucking great. I would pay so much money to watch Spectacular Spectacular. I would pay double what I

paid to watch fucking Mulan Rugs with Sutton Foster in the lead. So okay, it just drives me nuts. It is a trope when you have it a performer and they're in a musical and they can't dance, the answer is always make the chorus carry them around. They fall backward and they If Catherine Zada Jones could a hork to Renee Zellwegger up onto her back and done the hot Honey rag at the end of Chicago, maybe it would have been a good dance. But it's not. I claim. She doesn't even have to

do. She's wearing like fifty corsets in a one hundred pound dress. Just let her stand in the middle stage. Thing, well, then hire someone thing like that. That is That's what I think. When I was younger, like irritated me a little bit. Oh and now you're fine, now you're cool. Well, now, hand he stated that I'm cool with this, and I buy it, obviously, But obviously the bitch can't dance and she can barely sing. Let's call the truth. I think she's a pretty

voice. I think it's not it's a pretty voice. It is pretty. It's pretty and I'll give you that Annie crap. The Argentinian has another bout of narcolepsy backstage and passes out, and that, you know what, we should recast him earlier. This is this is on us. This is why you don't cast a failing consumptive and active narcoleptic as the two leads new musical. That's a problem. That's the problem. I see it now. You know what, you know what that's on me, that's on me. Difficulty,

you know, ensuring that. Would you imagine if they actually if they put a show on together and it's just the two of them. She keeps coughing blood in his face and then he just falls over every single time, and he's dead for like, he's asleep for like ten minutes. You have to just wait it out. It's very postmodernate. We should have gotten an

understudy. We're so sorry. Very Brechtian, all right. So Christian, who's wandering around the backstage, takes the Argentinian sitar player costume to the coat and puts it over his clothes, and he sneaks into Setine's dressing room and he yells at her that he's come to pay his bill for her services. He's like, taking all the money out of the bank. She's like, not now, your queen, right now, I am I am literally dying. I have another act and a half of a show that we wrote yesterday.

I am actively expiring as we speak. I need to put on all of this weird a fake Indian makeup right now. The only thing that's keep me from projectile vomiting blood onto your face is this corset that's broken three of my ribs. Okay, not fucking now, Christiane, we played this little fucking tantrum scene you're having later. Uh. She tries to get away from

him, and the two of them have a confrontation. Backstage, she sees the Duke's man servant pointing a gun at Christian and oh my god, and she's about to scream when suddenly the doors of the set open and she and Christian are thrust onto the stage, which stops the man servant from killing Christian, from shooting and killing Christian. Yeah, and now he's on stage, Remember in the guitar player's coat, so he looks like a guitar player.

And Steen is back on stage. There's a great moment here. Ziller fucking yes, ends everything in life, and he's like, aha, you have put on a disguise, but I still know it is you, the penniless guitar player. And the audience goes, oh, I love how dumb audiences were one hundred years ago. You can really get away with anything. Yeah. Christian plays out basically the same scene he came therefore in the first place,

only now he does it on stage. He's like, I've I've paid my whore and he throws money at her and he tearily says, thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love. But he does it. He's like crying and he can't get the words out. It's you. And McGregor sells this moment so fucking well. This should drive me insane. This

should be my least favorite movie. Honestly, Like, on paper, this should be we should be tearing this movie eighteen assholes right now, we all though, I should be loving it, and you should be like, grow up, grow the fuck up, cough into a hanky and die because this is bullshit. And yet and yet cut to me on my couch watching it with like a pillow in my mouth, going no, I cried, Oh do you think like when he starts to weep at the end, and like

you and McGregor fucking goes for it. He does an ugly, giant like screaming cry at the end, and I don't know what he's imagining from his own life to get himself there, but it is working, and I am fucking weeping. And again, we are watching La bo M. We know the plot. We actively know the plot of this as we're watching. I

can sing you the entire score of Rent right now. Yes, do you know I have actually seen the boss Lermann La Boem that was on Broadway like fifteen years ago, which was fucking excellent, by the way, And like, yeah, I've seen labo I again though, you and McGregor selling the fucking shit out of this, both of them. So he throws his money at her feet. He walks down the aisle of the theater to leave Forever yep Seteene weeps on the stage, unable to go on. She's prostrate to

Lose who's been watching everything from from the rafters. He's up in the rafters. He's like, oh shit, I gotta stop them before they they all make this terrible mistake and break up. I don't know why he is so invested. Yeah, so, he screams from the rafters, the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in red and you can't see him like so the audience just hears this disembodied voice shrieking yes, fines

and man Jelly was almost going for it. Yep. Setne hears what Touluse says, and she starts to sing come what may to Christian, changing some of the lyrics to come back to me and forgive everything. Yes. Yes, Christian turns around and sings with her. The two of them reunite on stage. The Duke, driven mad with jealousy, signals Warner to shoot Christian. This this goes on so long with the gun, This farce with the gun, I know is minutes to Louise sees the Duke's signal. Warner.

He swings from the rafters, He knocks into warners, the gun gets dropped onto the floor to Louse gets on the stage and screams, they're trying to kill you. But of course the audience thinks it's a comedic bit. They start laughing. We forget to mention he is dressed like a sitar. He's literally playing the character he is playing in Spectacular. Spectacular is a talking citar that I can't believe. I neglected to tell the audience that before now pandemonium

ensues. His actors and dancers flee the stage or shout freedom to the audience, and Warner keeps scrambling for the gun, but he keeps getting knocked out of his hands in the melee to loose starts the cast into a medley of songs that some up the ideals of beauty, truth, freedom, and love, and Warner eventually gets his gun back, but one of the cast members drops a sandbag on his head and he ends up shooting the lights, causing

sparks to fly all over the stage. As the medley crescendos to an end, the gun drops at the Duke's feet and he grabs it and he points it at Christian and Seten, and he starts to run up the aisle and he's shouting, ending my way, and Zidler punches the Duke and the gun flies out of his hand out the window all the way across Paris and clinks against the Eiffel Tower, by which I mean you and McGregor's dick, Yeah,

yeah, yeah, which is canonically now made of iron. That's right, it's an iron dick, It's an iron claws, an iron claus. What he's working with? Paul once again, I just want everyone to know, if you've never been to Paris, this is all entirely geographically accurate. Ok. This is exactly what would happen if you threw a gun out of a window in the Mulambrouge. It would fly over to the Eiffel Tower, by which we mean you and McGregor's iron claw, clink on the side and

fall down to the ground. Just want everyone to know that that's correct. The audience roars, What a fucking show we just watched. I wonder how much of it they thought was real? Did they think the Duke was part of it the whole time? By the way, they cut to the duke at one point during the show, the seat next to him is empty. He has purchased it, and it's just filled with flowers for Setine. Yeah, I mean it's a small thing that's not even like dwelled on, and

I'm like, that is the most perfect rich guy thing to do. He's like, I'm gonna buy my seat and I'm gonna buy the seat next to me for my stuff, And by stuff I mean the flowers I'm gonna shower this woman with. Oh no, she's choosing someone else, live on stage, live on stage. My favorite part about it is that, like obviously, they start to improvise at the end, and the pit just plays along with them. Oh yeah, it's just like, okay, let's segue into

a different song and just goes together. At one point, Warner decides to join the cast. He picks up a tambourine and just starts playing it because he doesn't know what else to do. The movie is so messy, there's so much happening at all times. Yeah, it's so fucking good. So the audience is roaring. The curtain comes down, Christian is a teene embrace, and of course then she falls down to the ground, coughing and bleeding from her mouth. So he definitely has TV now a hun she's given him

TV of the penis. Yeah, penis. This is coughing of blood into a hanky right now. This isn't this moment. She's like, guess what I'm dying. Good news, bad news, Christian. The good news is your show is a hit. Yeah, and I choose you. Bad news though, however, is I'm going to be dying in about four seconds. Remember when I said I would love you till my dying day. This is it, This is it, this is it. We're at zero zero hour. I don't know, I don't know if you took me literally on that,

but I meant it literally. So she's like, I'm dying, you must go on and tell our story. He starts to cry. He goes, I can't, I can't. I won't go on without you. He fucking sells the shit out of the scene. Eventually he promises he will, and she says she'll always be with him. I'll always be with you, and then she dies in his arms. Huh. Christian weeps over her body. Yeah, and the camera kind of zooms up and over the cast.

You see the audience behind the curtain still applauding, but it's all kind of quiet and hushed. The camera keeps zooming out of the theater and we are now in the courtyard outside of the Mulin Rouge. We see it changing of the seasons. Outside, Christian is spending day and night writing his and setines love story. We know it's current day Christian because he's got that perfect, perfect depression beard, depression beard. And finally, on a sunny spring morning,

we see him finish the story. The curtains close on the screen that we're watching on, right, and we see the little conductor from the beginning come back, Little Minnie Bradley Cooper Mini, Little Minnie Bradley Cooper, Little Minnie Lydia Tar Yeah, and he finishes the show right if he plays out the orchestra. The last song we hear is nature Boy once Again. And the last line of the film is the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. End of film of film. All

right, So that's so subtle. It's if there's one thing that bos Lehrman likes, it's subtext, subtle te Yeah, yeah, all right, is the end of Mulin Rouge. Stick around. We'll be right back after a couple of commercials, and we will give you our random observations and final ratings and de retur. Oh no, oh no, I don't know what that means. It must mean we're back, according to Google. Okay, that's what Google said, so it must be true this movie, Erica, I

don't know if you realize this passes the Bechdel test. It does. It does because Marie and Setne talk about Setne's career and Nini as well. Someone someone says Someone's uh, Marie says, be kind Ninny. Ninny's like, funk off, I'm the lead. Now I'm glad the bitch died. NINNI is actually I'm now realizing, uh, not exactly Elizabeth Berkley, but the other lady in Showgirls who like throws the marbles on the stone. Yeah, yeah, that's our the famous Lemore sign. I feel like Adlerman fans would

not let would not forgive us if we let that one go. It's in every one of his movies. I've not seen Elvis, so I don't know if it's in there. It really wouldn't fit in with all. I honestly fell asleep during Elvis, so I can't see for sure, but I'm I'm

I'm guessing. My guess is it is in Elvis, and it's like on the television while someone is watching footage or something in Paris, and or like it's in a it's like an advertisement in that film that has to be in there, but it's in It's in uh, you know, it was in the labo I'm on Broadway that I saw. It's in this film. It was in uh Romeo and Juliet, like it's in all of his films. It's kind of his calling card. Yeah, it's iconic. Okay, So I have a weird I had a weird read, one weird read on the

movie, and I'm just wondering if you caught it at all. At the after the Elephant Loved Medley, Christian and Setina and just said that, like it's a thing. That's what it's called. After the Elephant Loves Medley. The elephant love Medley is what is when they when elephants have an orgy. They try to tastefully say, the elephants are having a love Medley. We're having a love Medley over here. You McGregor is invited because he's the only

one who has an elephant cock. There is a polyamorous group out there that absolutely calls their relationship belove Medley. That is one hundred percent true. And guess what they are gross. I don't care that they're polyamorous. I care that they call it and love Medley. No, no, no, you know what you don't deserve to be polyamorous, you should have weird, sad vanilla sex with one person forever. So she it's the end. Satin says,

you're gonna be bad for business. I can tell, right, and Satina Christien are in love and we kind of swoop away from them and we see John Leguizamo in his sad clown makeup again. Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about, and he sings, how wonderful life is now you're in the world. There's this moment and like he is so singularly obsessed with Christian the whole movie that I was like, there's like a your subtext going on or something. And to be clear, I don't think that's what boz

Lherman meant. And to loose the Trek was famously fucked a lot of French prostitutes, so like female prostitutes, to be doubly clear. So I don't think there's any I just the way it played to me. And then at the end where he's like chasing after Christian and like and trying to make sure the Christian's happy, there's this very like he's in love with Christian and maybe

it's supposed to be like he's in love with his talent or something. But this and I don't remember thinking this when I was younger, but this time watching it, I was like, there's there's something queer going on here. Do you want to hear my less generous take on this, It's not, you're being very generous. I think it's a similar issue where we've taken a real person who is a marginalized person and made them a magical figure in the

film and made them the sidekick essentially to the to the hero film. Because I know nothing that makes it not queer, but it does make it less generous you being kind. I think I think it's a it's a small like blind spot in the movie. Yeah, Like, look, I'm gonna be real clear. I love this movie. I think it has its heart deeply in the right place, but it has these blind spots when it comes to and it's weird that it happens to also be two famous like actual people,

like not like characters they invented. But they've taken someone with a disability who's a real painter and a black man who was like a real artist in like this era in Paris, and has marginalized them to the point where they are like accessories, not even like guardian angels to the two main characters. I know exactly the scene you're talking about. He is nailing that scene, John Leguizamo. He is. It's a mixture of like melancholy and ecstasy. And

I also see why you think it's queer because he's wearing women's clothes. To be clear, he's not cross dressed. He's I think the implication is he's just had sex with someone. Yeah, and he's wearing her robe and her like feather boa around it. But he's also wearing the clown makeup. Still, he's got makeup on. It's Piero, I believe. So he's got like tears streaming down his face, and he's obviously very drunk on absence because

he's holding like a bottle of absence. So there's there's so much visual stuff going on there. There's a gay panic moment in the film that I did not care for, and I'm bummed it's in this movie, this well otherwise super queer movie. Yeah. I know it's about heterosexual love, but it's

it is the gayest movie. And it's a moment when the narca left of Argentinian wakes up during the first rehearsal after Christian says something brilliant and he's like, oh, I love it, and then he goes, the boy has talent, and then he kind of puts his hands out and accidentally grabs you McGregor's crotch, and which would have been fine if they had left it, it would have actually been funny, but he like pulls away and then the

actor like looks really deeply embarrassed and goes, nothing funny, It just like talent. And I'm like, oh man, it's so two thousand. It's like the nineties are rearing its ugly head where they're like, all right, we'll put this gay panic joke in this movie because that's like what's in right

now. And it's so funny too, because hey, there's the like right after that, there's the shot of the two men dancing like waltzing together, the two catching men waltzing together, so like it is really truly just like it's a product of the time, Like the movie is queer, right, and I mean the character of Audrey, Yeah, we really, I mean that, like absolutely, come on. It's it's like they're writing a musical they're writing a musical. They're artists and like and like sex workers in Paris,

like in the yeah yeah, yeah, it's so. It's it's just funny that they like because you could even have him do that and then pull like, look, if you accidentally grab someone's crotch, it's okay to be embarrassed, that is it. Though Oops, I'm so embarrassed. I don't want anyone who accidentally grabs my crotch to be embarrassed. I hate when I accidentally grab people's crotches. But I had the same thing. I was like, why is this here? This is like, it's it's so two thousand

and one, one hundred percent. It feels like it doesn't make sense in this movie. Absolutely just another Richard Roxborough line. Reading that I absolutely tickled

me. When when Setne is hiding Christian and somehow Christian's penis and that tiny little elephant head up there and he comes in and he's there obviously they both think they're gonna have sex, like the plan is for them to have sex, and she goes, oh, it's a pleasure, and he goes the pleasure I fear will be entirely mine, self owned, self owned, duke. Oh, I love him so much. There's two Zidler lines that I want to point out, Okay. One is well, when they're like selling

the show to the Duke and he's pretending to play the Maharaja. He's like, bye, I'm the evil Maharaja and Setin goes, oh, Harold, no one could play it like you could, and he just goes, no one's going to Diva. Yeah, fuck yes, Diva, take it, take your part, take it the other one. And this is just a creepy moment between him and Setne when like the he first like is backstage with Setine and she goes, is the Duke here? And he goes, Leipshin, would Daddy let you down? And I'm like, what is their whole

thing? Well, like he said, he says he found her on the street, like like he picked her out, like he saw a street sex worker, a stunning who looked like Nicole Kidman and was like, I think I can do something with you. Yeah, come on, inas Like basically, look, that's probably a pretty common tale back then. I'm sure. Yeah. Leipshin like, I'm like, why are we speaking in German? All of a sudden, would Daddy let you down. I only have one

more. It's two words. I think these are the only two words I'm gonna need to get the point across to you and to anyone who's seen this movie. Aspic tits. Oh my god, yes I have that note too. It's during like a virgin. It's the like a virgin. They're they're rushing and they they run up to this this The waiters are holding a tray of these jiggling jello molds that just looked like tits. It's a set of tits for no real reason, because it's visually hilario and that's what this scene

is for. Yeah, yeah, Paul. How shall we rank Moulage one to ten? Sensual ravishments? Sens youman, I still can't roll like to lord it over you? One to ten French people with English accents played by Australians. Is at least three of them in this movie. I want to be clear. There is not a single person in this film with a French accent. The default accent for everyone is English, which is a bold choice considering the main character is someone who came from England to France and should speak

differently from everyone else. What have they given you and McGregor a French accent. Now we're getting into some good stuff. He should have had the French accent and the rest of them because they are one hundred percent English, Cockney English, except for the Argentinian, which, again, as you pointed out, is a Polish actor who's honestly doing a pretty respectable or just Argentinian accent. It's not I mean, it's not great, but it's pretty. It's

not bad. Yeah, if you didn't know that actor was Polish, you would actually be like, it's probably yeah, maybe you might be Argentinian. I don't know. Yeah, why not. One to ten animal buildings in Paris, famous famal buildings. I love the Flamingo. I want to visit the Flamingo absolutely. I cannot wait for the Olympics to happen this year and we get a full skating rink inside of the Ladybug building. Yeah. The aquatic center I think is going to be in the Dolphin Yep, the famous

Dolphin building. Yeah, it's a dolphins building in Paris. One to ten luremanesque visual orgies. I'm surprised there wasn't a more traditional orgy at some point in the actual one they wanted to get a PG thirteen. I think they want they wanted the PG thirteen. But also it is so deeply implied. Yeah that it's like, but we did everyone's fucking We maybe didn't see it,

but we saw it, you know what I mean. I was when I was doing researched for it. You know, in the beginning, there can can so you see all the bloomers, right, And like I was reading reading about the movie, and they were like, the actual Mulan ruge the dancers dance was split knickers, but they didn't do that for the movie

because they wanted to get a PG thirteen rating. And I'm like, also, you don't want to hire a bunch of dancers and be like, we're gonna show off your badge every time you kick up your dun badge badge, judge, badge, badge. But you're barely gonna see those badges because we're talking eighteen ninety nine badge. It is bush. You're not seeing badge. You're trusty. It's just hair token through the pantaloons trying to fight its way out, just a full shrub. They did not know about grooming back then.

They didn't know what we know now there's a huge lady bush poking out through those pantaloons. You let it grown up, You're don't have to wear nickers. Then everything gets aired out more. Ah ha. Have you ever tried to like can can? I thought you were gonna say you ever tried to grow your bush? I mean we've all grown up? Yeah, right, Well, the pandemic hit everyone hard, right I can't. I can't say I haven't gone back to the way things used to be. I'm pretty

much still there. From being honest, I've progressed a little bit. I've progressed the touch. I'm sorry. Have I ever tried to can care? Like the actual dance? It is so so hard. Yeah, it's really hard, Like I like people like I think it's like silly sexy dance that women used to do to like entice men, And yes, but it is one of the most athletic things I've ever seen. You want to who I've seen do it? The entirely male chorus of Lakasha fall. Oh yeah cool.

Yeah, that's fucking hard. Yeah yeah. How about one to ten euphemisms for Ean McGregor's giant hog enormous Ewan McGregor dicks, enormous, enormous, you McGregor, Eiffel towers, Yeah, Tour de frances. His penis was the one that gave them the idea for the bridge across the Seine in the middle of Paris. Yeah, his penis is actually this the chanzes arc. Yeah, it's the size of you McGregor's penis. If you doubled it in half, you can walk under it. People have gotten married under can jump

rope with you and McGregor's. You could try, You could try, but I don't think I can jump that high. Frankly, he'll never do this pod now, damn it, we've ruined it. You are wrong. I'm telling you. The man he has given quotes. I'm not making this up. When he did Star Wars like too bad we couldn't get my lightsaber out. Like he loves being naked. I have seen him naked in a couple of things, and you know what, there's a reason. There's a reason

he doesn't mind it. How about one to ten bloody hankys. One to ten Chekhov's Hanky's covered in blood, TV blood one to ten Harbingers of Death to come. Let's do this one, Okay, it's fun. Do you want to go first or striker first? You know what, I need a minute, you go first? Because I'm not sure how to rate this thing. So I think overall the movie ages pretty well. It falls down in

some expected places. There's the gay panic moment that we talked about that it's not it's not offensive, it's just like, oh, that's just weird, weird, just so two thousand and one, it's like in again the geest movie. This movie is so gay, it's gee, it's gee. There's a decent amount of diversity in the movie, Like there's diversity in the in the in the dance core, you'll see people of different ethnicities. It could

be better. I'm not gonna pretend that it couldn't be better. And then we have like the main like the Hispanic cast member who is playing a little person you know I have. I went back and forth on this a little bit, and like, because to lose the trek was such a specific Yeah, it's a person with like a genetic disorder. Yeah, this is this is a maybe ignorant thing to say. Can you even cast someone right that

has this exact same genetic disorder? Yeah? And also I think part of the thing with him was that he got his legs broken, right, So like it's it's like this whole like, yes, famously like to lose Lutrek's legs were broken when he was young and they never grew. He does not, he does not suffer from the genetic issue that comes with a little person that is not the person that he is. Yeah, and there is a little person in the movie. I was actually gonna say, she's, yeah,

one of the one of the dancers at the Mulan Rouge. And they the movie never ever even comments on it. No one a dancer, No one talks about it. No one's like like, no one makes fun of her, No one even she's a featured dancer and she's a Rhinds but she's around all the time. She's the person who drops the sandbag on Werner and

saves the day at the end. Actually, and the other thing too, she's not overly sexualized in a way, which that could be part of it for them, because she's like the little person in the Mulin Rouge and maybe that's someone's thing. That's not where the movie is going with her at all. It's I thought, really cool. Yeah, it's it's for the fact that the Mulan Rouge is called a brothel, it is a fairly uh upstanding brothel. There's not a lot of not a lot of sexualization. There's not

a lot of great female roles. But we have Nicole kN I think Nini is kind of being made something by Caroline O'Connor. She's just kind of filling every moment that she's on screen with just like personality, personality, personality. Yeah, but there's really like four roles in the five roles in the movie, really, and so it's it's not like there's a sweeping ensemble cast. And you'll see a lot of women in the movie. So it's really fun.

It's going to be for you or not for you. I think I don't think anyone's gonna leave this movie with a oh okay kind of reaction to it. You're either going to be like, I have a massive headache or I want to go out dancing in the East Village. Like those are gonna be your two reactions. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a seven. Okay, I'm gonna give it a seven out of ten. Of blood spray hankies

that are definitely giving tuberculosis to fourteen other people at any given time. What if she just coughed all over the audience, was just coughed in a hanky and then threw it to the audience, coughing another one through out into the audience. The front row is like a splash, something like at a Gallagher show. They have to have a tarp. There's just one person there with Ppe on the plastic mask. How about you. I love this movie,

Paul boy do. I love this movie. And so it's it pains me to even look at it critically because I'm like, oh, yeah, damn it. I never really thought about that before, Like the Magical Black Man that they turned Le'shakala into a real person, like a real person that they turned him into, and the the you know, magical little person that they turned to Lose lu Trek into. They almost they don't even mention that he's a painter. No, I you know, I was gonna ding the movie

on like John Leguizamo playing him. Yeah, And I talked to myself and you both of us out of it, I think, because as I'm saying it in real time, it's You're right, It's not that like the to louse lu Trek had dwarf ism, it was a whole host of other things. And like, I don't think there's there's much you can do to like cast someone with the exact same genetic predisposition that he had. Yeah, And and you could also you could cast a little person to play the role,

and that would be fine too. It be cool if they did or they had, but they didn't. And and I you know, for some reason, bos Lhrman has decided to go all in on John Leguizomo, and I'm here for it. Frankly, I am here for it. John Leguizamo is to bos Lhurman what John Goodman is to the Cohen Brothers. Yeah, yeah,

Canon. You know, my big problem with the movie is what I'm what I said before about like the two kind of the smaller characters being kind of in service of the love story between between like very attractive white people like oof. I'm gonna give it a six, okay, a little lower than you. I'm gonna give a six. I'm gonna give it a million for watchability, Yeah, like a million and a half for watchability. This is my favorite boz Lhrman. I like Romeo and Juliette as well, but I

would be more inclined to watch this again. I agree. I agree even strictly Ballroom, which is the most like quote unquote normal boz Lherman movie is. I liked it very very much and it's very cute and adorable. But this is like, this is bos Lerman being exactly who bos Lerman is meant to be. So yeah, six out of ten blood stained death hankies. Nothing like a death hanky from here. Yeah. I do not have a palate cleanser, but I do want to give a small shout out. There's

a there's a couple of films about the Mulon Rouge. One is French can Can. It's nineteen fifty four film by gen Jean Renoir that if you can't find it, like just google it. I think these scenes must exist on YouTube. There is like this dance sequence that is unbelievable and it's kind of like cool and it's very like, I don't know, maybe gives you an idea of what it would be like to actually see a can can show. Now, it's a nineteen fifty four film, so it's not the sexiest can

can show, but it's fucking cool. There there's no bush there's no full fucking bush. The other one is Mulon Rouge from nineteen fifty two by John Houston. Okay, it takes place from the perspective of Lutrek and he is played by Jose Ferrara, and it is a fantastic performance another Hispanic person. Yeah, playing to lose lu Trek interesting. Realize that's interesting. You get an idea of what not a baz Lerman like cartoon version of the Mulan Rouge

would have been like, but like the actual Mulon Rouge. Yeah, So if you're interested in that topic at all, there are other films that have like a more naturalistic visual style that would give you an idea of what that was like. Okay, all right, so everyone listening can follow us on social media. We are on Instagram, Twitter threads. We have a tea public shop where we would love it if you would go to pick up some

podcast swag. If you're a Spotify user, keep a lookout for questions and polls about each episode, and we would love it if you would leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts or any podcasting platform that you use. If you do that, just like islein three from the top of this episode. You let us know that you did. We will send you a that aged Well tote bag. That aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Keola. That's this dancing queen over here. We would like to think hip. There

was no Abba in this movie. I can't believe I had to watch a ten minute tango sequence and two seconds of can can? How dare they? That delights me to this day. I heard that person bitching about it twenty years ago and I'm still living off that moment. But you're right, it is weird. They didn't have any Abba in this Yeah. I think Muriel's wedding ruined ABBA for all Australian filmmakers. You know what? That's right after that, no one in Australia could even touch Abba. We're done. Yeah.

We would like to thank Stuart Kay, Austin and our fabulous patrons for reaching out and letting us know what they want to hear. This film was this month's Patreon Pick fur. If you want to have a say, you want to choose the films that Paul and I discuss every month, you can join our Patreon. Every patron gets to vote in an exclusive monthly poll to determine one of our subjects, So head on over to patreon dot com slash that Aged Well podcast to find out more. Speaking of which, some tears

and our Patreon come with thanks from a podcast character. And today we're hearing from oh Iago from Aladdin. A new a new guest has arrived. Hello Iago, Hey, Yeah, it's me Iago from Aladdin, and not the one from that awful live action turd voice by Alan Tudik. Disney's feathered scarlet Prince has one voice, and it's this one, the shrill squawk of a guy that once got blacklisted from the Yemmys for telling jokes about Paul Rubin shaking

up his bottle of squirt at a porno theater. If Iago can't make cracks about Peewee Herman summoning the genie who can to quote my Shakespearean namesake, and what's he then that says, I play the villain, So you two Cubic Zirconia is in the rough on me to thank Emma. Thanks Emma, Apparently I brought you joy. Probably not as much joy as pee Wee got churning his own butter to a remastered version of Boys in the Sand, But hey,

a macawkn dream. Everyone remember to polish the parrot every chance you get. It's healthy. Wow, that was loud. That was the loudest PSA about the healthyness and masturbation from an animated parrot that we've ever had on this show. I'm willing to say that, right, I want you put that gauntlet down. Well, the thing about PSAs is you're not If you're not loud, people don't hear them. You don't hear the loudest room. The loudest voice in the room is the one that gets heard. That's right.

Yeah, and good for Yago. Disney pushes down a lot of that good messaging, healthy messaging. Yeah, yeah, young people, there's really not enough masturbation talk in any of the Disney That's true, except for Cinderella, where it is all over too much Cinderella. It's frankly, it's it made me deeply uncomfortable, Bobby Boo, once you learn what that actually means. Yeah, that scene with the three fairies just going to town on each other.

I love a scene usually with three fairies going to town on each other, but that one felt weird. It was weird. Yeah, it was the wings. I think Erica any final thoughts on Mulin Rouge. All you need is love. A girl's got to eat. All you need is love, show wind up on the streets. All you need is love. Love is just a game. Everything. Seasons may change, winter spring, but I love you until my m HM day. Come on, come one now, exc