Fridae

Ever heard of "popera"? As Rufus Wainwright once put it, it's simply "pop" fused with the "operatic" voice and voila! You get contemporary music sung in the tone of a bygone era. That's pretty much what the music from Baz Luhrmann's movie Moulin Rouge is all about.

Baz who? Oh you know him! Remember Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo "Rip-Your-Shirt-Off" DiCutie Pie? Yeah, he's the guy who directed it. Okay, snap out of it, dammit! You can jerk-off with Romeo later when I'm done.

While Romeo and Juliet merged contemporary Verona with Shakespearean prose, Moulin Rouge goes the other way round by having turn-of-the-century Paris sing Madonna's Material Girl and dance to Alka Yagnik's Hindi hit. It's almost hilarious and quite cheesy to say the least.

My reaction to Nicole Kidman singing was instantaneous: "Oh my God she went totally bonkers! Tom, look what you did! You should have never come out to her. Poor, poor girl from Oz thinks she's found the Wizard!"

Okay, she's not that bad. Actually, she sounds like a raspy Olivia Newton-John, and that's good. Ewan McGregor would have still been cute if he had never opened his mouth at all, rather it would have been better if he showed more skin.

I must say Moulin Rouge is two dimes, a penny, and a dollar short of becoming a true "soundtrack" album. Why? Because odd tracks like Children Of The Revolution and Diamond Dogs fuck it up royally when other more deserving tracks (like Like A Virgin) from the film could have been included.

But let's be honest. Everyone is buying this CD because of the remake of Patti Labelle's Lady Marmalade, so what I've just said may all mean French to you. Aw, screw you too!

Now you can jerk-off.