20 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate "Moulin Rouge!" for its 20th Anniversary
Tuesday, June 1, 2021 at 11:33PM by Nathaniel R
Moulin Rouge! opened wide in the US twenty years ago today. We had already seen it in limited release on opening night at the historic Ziegfeld Theatre in NYC, a night we will literally never forget. It was immediately polarizing but also instantly beloved to those on its wavelength. Nicole Kidman ascended. Ewan McGregor became the ultimate dreamboat. And Jim Broadbent won the Oscar (we pretend it was for this instead of Iris... hey, it sorta was!) The hit musical made a huge difference for Hollywood, leading to a still-going-strong resurgence of a long dormant movie genre. It also made a huge difference to this very site; The Film Experience had been taking baby steps up until then in various forms and the rise of the movie coincided with a surge in popularity for the site that effectively put us on the map. We will love this movie until our dying day.
Here are twenty ways to celebrate Baz Luhrmann's masterpiece this week. How many will you accomplish? Report back in the comments as to how it went...
1. Recite the bohemian ideals "TRUTH. BEAUTY. FREEDOM. LOVE." each morning to bless your day.
2. Alternate your personality between Wilting Flower, Bright and Bubbly, and Smoldering Temptress all week. How will your friends and lovers react to your trifurcated personality?
3. Cue up Elton John's "Your Song" and sing it with as much passion as you can muster to someone you love whether that's your significant other, you piece on the side, a family member, a pet, a narcoleptic Argentinian, or your own reflection
4. Channel Harold Zidler every time you have to introduce something, begin a new project, or when you feel a dark mood descending. REALLY SELL IT!
5. Pour yourself some absinthe (or any kind of green drink and pretend). Make sure Kylie Minogue is blaring for your background music.
6. Contemplate why Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor never worked together again despite having screen chemistry so potent, it makes absinthe jealous. Let us know when you solve the mystery.
7. Invite someone over for a "poetry reading" (this item is only for the vaccinated)
8. Pick one of the "Four Whores of the Apocalypse" (aka the principal Diamond Dogs) as your spirit animal this week: Will it be Mome Fromage, Nini Legs-in-the-Air, Arabia, or China Doll?
9. Consider how few film entrances have ever equalled Nicole Kidman's, descending from the ceiling of the Moulin Rouge?
10. Remember that Moulin Rouge! won 12 gold (Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Costumes, Art Direction, Original Song, Makeup and Hair, Actress in Limited Role, Kiss, Character Intro, Title Sequence) 6 silver (Actress, Cinematography, Adapted/Song Score, Diva of the Year, Sexpot of the Year, Musical Number) and 4 bronze medals (Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Actress in Limited Role, Villain of the Year, Musical Number) in The Film Bitch Awards... which are therefore far greater than the Oscars in perpetuity.
11. When you sit down to write -- or stand to text -- let yourself get really emotional as you type a la Christian.
12. Draw an elephant. Now doodle your dream apartment on top of it. What would it look like?
13. Restage the "Spectacular! Spectacular!" number with your silliest friends or by yourself playing every role. An emphatic burst of silliness now and then is great for the soul.
14. Only wear underwear worth flashing all week.
15. Pretend you wrote a lyric from any song in The Sound of Music . Caveat: you can't choose "the hills are alive with the sound of music" because that one belongs to Christian.
16. Listen to "Come What May" on loop and gripe at The Academy for ruling it ineligible for Best Original Song, it could have easily been Moulin Rouge!'s third Oscar win!
17. Pine away for a boy who will never love you. (But look really fabulous and colorful while doing so)
18. Relitigate the 2001 Best Actress race. Who gets your vote: Halle (Monster's Ball), Dame Judi (Iris), Nicole (Moulin Rouge!), Sissy (In the Bedroom), or Renée (Bridget Jones Diary) ?
19. Go big this week; risk failing spectacularly.
20. Rent Moulin Rouge! or throw in your DVD or Blu-Ray and watch it for the _____th time.
Reader Comments (28)
Number 6 really is an inexcusable crime of cinema!
Loved this!!!! Such an amazingly energetic and unique experience. Since neither Watts or Tautou were nominated, Nicole easily gets my vote!
I'm ashamed to say i only watched this YEARS after it was released and long after i had worn out the soundtrack. I remember, when i finally did watch it, how absolutely enthralled i was with Ewan McGregor, who no one was really talking about. Yes, I expected Nicole, the direction, the artistic design, the score to be magical and they were at every steps. But boy, did Ewan flood my cinematic basement.
Technically is a wonderful film but not of my favorites and one of the reasons is the #1, the repetitive phrases but you help me to realize how I want a narcoleptic Argentinian in my life LOL
#18 I haven't watch Iris but from the rest of the choices my pick is Renée
I would add #21: List how many of the songs that compose 'Elephant Love Medley' you really love. I was gonna suggest to do a playlist of the songs but I noticed not much of them I like it in solo.
I was afraid you weren't going to commemorate this today, but glad you did. MOULIN ROUGE was such a formative film for me as a gay cinephile. I will love it forever.
First and only time (so far) that I saw a movie one day and immediately had to see it again the next. Such a gorgeously insane ride of a movie, and one that I will love... until my dying day. I had to, it was just sitting right there!
Add this to the list:
Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor Share 'Moulin Rouge' Memories (2017)
So glad to see this homage. I saw MR 4 times in the cinema. I was 33 years old with 3 young children when it came out so it wasn’t that easy to sneak off to the cinema. I saw it 3 times on my own on days when my kids were at school or pre-school. One day I forgot to take my mobile phone (back then they weren’t glued to our palms) and I missed a call from my eldest daughter’s school saying she was sick and could I pick her up. My father in law, who was next on the list had to go and pick her up. She wasn’t even that sick for goodness sake.
I then took my Mum who had been overseas when it was released. We saw it at the cinema at Fox Studios in Sydney about 500m from where it was filmed. It was the reason I bought a DVD player and I have Blu-Ray and digital versions as well. I re-watched it the other day and it never fails to move me. “Come what may... I will love you, until my dying day...” And yes I’m still mad they said that song was ineligible.
Who won best actress at the Film Bitch Awards that year?
@Amory Blaine-Don't know but I think is Naomi Watts
The whole Red Curtain trilogy NEEDS to be on Criterion. A Blu-Ray box set for that would be something every film buff should have.
First: I love the film. Locked in my top 10 of 2001, easily in the upper quintet.
Second... it's criminal how this overshadowed "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", which is, objectively speaking, the better film and musical. John Cameron Mitchell, also deserved the Oscar nom, way more than any MR! performer (Kidman should have been nominated for "The Others", instead, sorry, as great as she was here).
Heck, JCM is my pick for Lead Actor for 2001. Federico Luppi for Supporting in "The Devil's Backbone" and Nicole for Lead Actress for "The Others". Picture and Director for "The Devil's Backbone" and Guillermo del Toro, and "Hedwig" and David Lynch as runners ups in those categories. Supporting Actress, really difficult, but I'd probably go for Laura Elena Harring for Mulholland Drive.
2001 Actress ranking
Sissy
Nicole
Halle
Renee
Judi.
This was so different for a musical at the time of release,at first I thought I hated it but once Kylie appeared I was more into it,and helped Nicole out of Tom's shadow and Ewan out of Star Wars,thankyou.
The Josh Abrams mix on Come What May is one of my go to sad songs.
a) Watts won best actress at the Film Bitches that year. I believe Spacek was third.
b) So many wonderful things about this movie, but won't lie, I expected "Dance to el Tango de Roxanne" to make a list of 20.
c) Spacek would be my choice among the nominees. Charlotte Rampling for the year.
Nathaniel - Any chance you'll republish your Film Bitch Awards for this and other years?
As for #6, Nicole and Ewan never worked together on screen again because no other project has yet been worthy of their chemistry.
Moulin Rouge is just pure perfection. I was only ten or eleven when I saw this first and that was what began a life-long obsession with Kidman and McGregor. Two consummate actors giving revelatory performances.
On that note, can anyone remember what Nicole Kidman's ascension to superstardom was like as it was happening? Must have been a golden thing to witness. Super jealous.
yes Watts won best actress for Moulin Rouge!
andy -- i want to publish them in book form. thanks for the reminder.
Moulin Rouge! is the Film Experience
even if Naomi Watts is missing, that Actress lineup is incredible, one of my favorites of the new century
MR! also deserved to have as many nods as Fellowship of the ring (in addition to the 8 nods it got: Director, Actor, Visual FX and i'm sure it came very close in Original screenplay)
and it's a shame the Score: Adaptation/Treatment category is not given any longer, because it would have won it in a cakewalk
Any regret of not giving Nicole Gold？
Nathaniel,
THANK YOU FOR THIS POST!! This movie single-handedly made me fall in love with film in the modern age. These are a wonderful set of ways to celebrate this masterpiece!
Are you able to post the Film Bitch Awards from 2000 - 2008?
I loved Moulin Rouge. I saw it in a cinema - all by myself! Yep NOONE but me.
It is definitely over the top and in your face - but it is a lot of fun.
But I can understand why many people hated it. It really is a campy movie with great music, brilliant costumes and out of this world production design.
This is one of my favorite films, and it's great to see it celebrated! I was in middle school when I saw it, and though I'd seen Kidman in the Batman film, this is truly when my actresssexuality started. I believe I saw it when it was re-released for Oscar season. What a perfect film.
Hopefully, we'll get to see Nicole and Ewan re-team again! Though, this film is so perfect, as is their chemistry, that it feels special that this is the only time they've appeared together.
If Uncle Harvey had produced Moulin Rouge, he would have won the Oscar and Nicole would have won Best Actress a la Shakespeare in Love, MH being far superior to the film that gave the Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow. Whatever they say about that dinosaur, he fought with passion for his movies and knew how to sell them like no one else.
It's just an absolute crime McGregor wasn't nominated.
His singing in Tango de Roxanne brings chills down my spine to this day, still.
Everything's awesome as well. Campy at the beginning, but so heartful and sad in the end....
I will love you, until my dying day, MR!
Nicole should have won the gold
At the
Film Bitch awards!
It must be said
I want you to thank for your time of this wonderful read!!! I definitely enjoy every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff of your blog a must read blog!
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