All That Jazz

Coming up in future blogs: some quotes and discussion from Tozer, some reflections on the year 2002 (a good year for me personally), and some resolutions and goals for 2003.

But for right now... here's a quick take on the movie-musical Chicago, currently in limited release, starring Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere. Saw it tonight with the whole family.

I typically write plot-specific spoiler-type stuff in "invisible font" so as to not distress those of you reading this who like to be surprised. Fortunately, there's not a whole lot to spoil in this movie...

Plot synopsis - we're taken back to Chicago in the Roaring Twenties, where everything is sensationalized, the media can make imprisoned murderers into popular and sympathetic figures, and show business/vaudeville is at an all-time high. Zeta-Jones is Velma Kelly, a singing-and-dancing diva who is imprisoned for killing her sister (the other half of their sister-sister act) and her husband when she catches him being maritally unfaithful. Zellweger plays Roxie Hart, a younger woman married to a mechanic, who has dreams of becoming a big star chorus girl. She is also imprisoned for killing the man she's having an affair with when he tells her that his supposed connections with show business were all a lie. The rest of the movie revolves around how Roxie hires Chicago's smarmiest and most successful lawyer Billy Flynn (Gere) in order to not just be acquitted but to also gain enough public notoriety to launch her stage career.

Personal thoughts:

- this is quite the production. As another movie review I read put it, the story here is just to put some space in between the songs. Unlike last year's basically plot-and-character-driven Moulin Rouge, this is not so much a movie-musical as it is a musical on a movie screen. Dialogue is short and over-the-top, character development is just about nil, but the song-and-dance numbers are well-choreographed and aptly performed.

- I'm typically not a big fan of over-production, tending to prefer story/plot and memorable dialogue from a good screenplay. For example, I'd probably rather see Les Miserables again than see Chicago again. However, there's a certain delight in seeing actors and actresses that you know from other work up there strutting their stuff. Apparently Zeta-Jones used to be a dancer before she went into acting, and both Zeta-Jones and and Zellweger don't do too badly on the singing (ZJ has more of a throaty, resonant diva voice, while Zellweger's is much more thin and sultry, lending itself more to a lounge feel). What I got a real kick out of though, was seeing Richard Gere on the big screen tap dancing, flipping hats around, and singing. Now, his singing wasn't bad - everything was on key and did a good job of portraying the smarminess and sleaziness of his character - but his voice is very thin and it almost sounds like he's singing everything with his mouth half open - kinda nasal.

I'd have to say that I probably wouldn't have been nearly as entertained if there were a bunch of no-namers headlining the flick... I think some of the charm in this and in Moulin Rouge was seeing these actors and actresses stretch themselves into an area where we haven't seen them before. Who knew that Nicole Kidman or Catherine Zeta-Jones could sing? I remember reading a while back about a trend where several top thespians, such as Kidman and Kevin Spacey, were taking time off from Hollywood to study theater in London. I can totally see how it would be a natural avenue for an entertainer to go in order to try some new things and stretch themselves in new areas.

- Zeta-Jones is Welsh. Yet in almost all of her movies she's been able to eliminate any trace of an English accent.

Some favorite scenes/production numbers (invisible, click and drag to view):

- Velma Kelly's opening number, "All That Jazz" - serves notice that this isn't a typical movie
- Queen Latifah's song, "When You're Good To Mama", was pretty good, and she exuded confidence in performing it - perhaps because she's the only member of the main cast for whom singing is a regular part of her career.
- the interplay between Billy Flynn's "We Both Reached for the Gun" and the press conference he's holding. The stage direction and choreography in this song is probably the most innovative; all of the media members act as if they are puppets being played by the strings that Billy is pulling, and Roxie acts as if she's a ventriloquist's dummy just saying the things that Billy wants her to say. Very clever.
- the editing between Flynn's "Razzle-Dazzle" and the courtroom trial, where Flynn pulls off some fast cross-examination of witnesses while then singing in the next scene. Kinda reminded me of A Few Good Men on speed.
- Lucy Liu has a cameo. I get the sense that she will never escape her image as a butt-kicking man-hater.