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American Morning
Showbiz Today Reports: `Moulin Rouge' Falls Short of Ambitions
Aired June 01, 2001 - 11:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Somebody else who puts things under microscopes is our showbiz unit. They take a good look at films and other things, tell them how they're doing.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And Laurin Sydney doing that for us today.
Hi, Laurin.
LAURIN SYDNEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi. And we're here to tell you how a very popular one is doing, because Dreamworks is going to make lovable green ogre No. 2. The studio has announced it is going to make a sequel to the box office animated hit "Shrek." The fairy tale starring the voices of Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy has so far made over $112 million.
Host Bill Maher and his usual diverse compliment of guests celebrated the taping of the 1,000th episode of "Politically Correct" (sic) last night. Maher started the irreverent talk show at Comedy Central and then moved to the post-"Nightline" slot on ABC.
One of...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MAHER, HOST, "POLITICALLY INCORRECT": It feels good, since I never thought we'd make it through one. I don't know. The bad part is it means I'm old.
DAVE MATTHEWS, MUSICIAN: It's really nice of him to invite me. I'll come do this show anytime. It was nice that it's a poignant one for him, too.
FLORENCE HENDERSON, ACTRESS: Well, I've learned you can sit next to somebody like Dave Matthews and just see a side of him you never knew existed. You can sit next to Marilyn Manson, which I have done. G. Gordon Liddy. Marilyn Manson -- he was very nice and very smart. So you just don't know until you get on this show.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SYDNEY: One of the mainstays of the golden age of television has passed on. Arlene Francis, who was a panelist on the popular game show "What's My Line" for its entire 25-year run, died yesterday in San Francisco. She was 92. While best know for "What's My Line," Francis also was also a Broadway and movie actress, and hosted several television programs.
When we return, our "HE SAID/HE SAID" film critic Peter Travers stops by to give us his take on this weekend's big movies. He will let us know whether he thinks "Moulin Rouge" is cest magnifique.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SYDNEY: Bonjour once again.
The box office has a French accent this weekend as "Moulin Rouge" hits the big screen. Here's a peek.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NARRATOR: He entered a world where fantasy is real; where he could be anything he wanted; and where he would discover the most dangerous temptation of all.
NICOLE KIDMAN, ACTRESS: Come and get me boys.
Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
I believe you were expecting me.
EWAN MCGREGOR, ACTOR: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SYDNEY: And now it's time to bring in Mr. Peter Travers, with "Rolling Stone" magazine to find out what he has to say about "Moulin Rouge" and other new offerings on the big screen.
Peter, do you like it better than you liked it two weeks ago? I think I know the answer.
PETER TRAVERS, "ROLLING STONE" MAGAZINE: No, it hasn't grown in my estimation. You know, this movie opened in just two cities two weeks ago, and now everybody in the country could see what the Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, who did "Romeo and Juliet," with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, has done in terms of reinventing the musical.
I have to say I wanted so much to like this movie. I love musicals -- you know that; we've spoken about it many times.
SYDNEY: Yes.
TRAVERS: I thought, Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor -- this thing might add up to something other than something gorgeous to look at. You look at those clips and you go, oh, do I lick the screen? What's going on here? It's beautiful.
But it isn't. And why isn't it? Because to me, it's not romantic. When you do snippets of songs, when the songs really make no sense in context, when they become camp instead of romantic, what's there to love?
SYDNEY: But what about it's originality? Do you applaud that?
TRAVERS: I applaud it; and I applaud the idea that risk was taken. But I thought there were cowardice in the fact that the great musicals were always -- if you looked at Fred and Ginger on the screen, you watched their full bodies dance and they completed their song. It wasn't the MTV boom, boom, boom. When Ewan McGregor, in 1899, walks in and starts singing "The Sound of Music," you go, what's that? I don't get this. What's happening in this movie?
And it becomes something that just falls apart. When you get too much excess, too many snippets, you're not in love with it anymore...
SYDNEY: But to be fair, there were only one Fred and Ginger. I mean, that is a hard...
TRAVERS: Well, I could just go on to -- Gene Kelly -- take anybody. When you look at the great musical, when there's romance -- Fred Astaire wasn't a beautiful looking man, but when Ginger sang to him and danced to him, he suddenly was. And that was magic.
This is not magic. Instead of feeling dazzled by all of this, I felt mauled. I just felt this was just too much.
And what's it going to do on a weekend up against "Pearl Harbor," up again "Shrek"? I think people will go a little bit because they're curious, and once the word gets out on this one...
SYDNEY: I think you said your word.
Speaking of the mauled: What about "The Animal"?
TRAVERS: OK, "The Animal"...
SYDNEY: Not a musical.
TRAVERS: It is a movie from Rob Schneider, who comes from "Saturday Night Live" who is well known, I'm sure, to everybody out there for "Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo" in which he played what he called a man whore in that movie. In this he's a man beast. He's a kind of wanna-be cop, gets in an accident, almost died, but a scientist puts him together with the internal organs of animals. So he starts behaving like an animal.
Does this sound like a movie that every 13-year-old boy in the country will probably want to see? Yes.
SYDNEY: To me it sounds like a movie that's going to make a lot of money.
TRAVERS: It will make money, but it won't make it because it's only those 13-year-old boys. Now, those 13-year-old boys could be all ages. But it's going to cut out the audience. I don't see this as a date-night hit. I see it as these boys going and laughing while they watch Rob Schneider do a love seen with a goat where they play Marvin Gaye. It becomes musical. They play Marvin Gaye...
(CROSSTALK)
TRAVERS: They do. But "Let's Get It On" with the goat, no, it's not for me. I would think this is not going to live anywhere but infamy.
SYDNEY: OK, now, you've got to hand it to these filmmakers, it took a lot of guts to name a film, "What's the Worst That Can Happen?" (sic).
TRAVERS: Isn't it great when they make movies like that, when they say "What's the Worst That Can Happen" (sic) and you can say: It's wasting $8 on this movie. That's the worst that can happen. And, yes, that would be the worst thing that could happen to you.
Martin Lawrence has a big fan base, though, so expect this to open -- and he's playing a thief in this movie who is robbing Danny DeVito, who's sort of a white-collar tycoon thief. And he steals the thief's ring, and it's all about getting it back.
You know, last summer at precisely this time, Martin Lawrence got dressed up, he had fat lady drag to do "Big Mama's House" and did big box office. And so there's going to be some box office for this one, again. But you know what? It's a formula. We keep waiting -- or at least I keep waiting for somebody to say, let's be mischievous, let's take a risk and let's not just do the same thing over and over, which is why I give "Moulin Rouge" points. Even though I don't like it, the people that sat down said, let's not do the same thing over and over again.
So if you were going to see any of the movies that were out there, I'd still pick "Moulin Rouge," despite the fact that it doesn't work for me, because somebody involved in it -- a lot of people involved in it said, it's worth taking a shot at something new.
SYDNEY: Well that's good. So you wouldn't stay home and watch "Sex in the City" and the Tony Awards?
TRAVERS: Of course I would. You know I'm going to be watching the Tony Awards. And there's my musical: "The Producers," Mel Brooks. You know, it will gum around, it will go on tour, and then you'll see a musical.
SYDNEY: OK, let's go and see Daryn in Atlanta because I know that she has a question -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Well, my first question, Laurin: Peter, have you gotten tickets to "The Producers."
SYDNEY: No.
TRAVERS: I've actually seen it.
KAGAN: You have?
TRAVERS: I've actually been there, you know...
SYDNEY: Can I touch you?
TRAVERS: People want to. They really do that. And it's everything that you hear about. It is really as good as people say it is. And people go to that theater expecting a party, and they get it delivered to them.
KAGAN: That's great. Getting back to the movies, the question is on behalf of Laurin and the other girlfriends out there: Where is the movie, when's it coming out -- that romantic comedy movie -- I think Julia Roberts has one coming out -- when -- the movie that people like us want to go see?
SYDNEY: Yeah, Daryn. When?
TRAVERS: Yes, even though I told you to see the Charlotte Rampling movie...
KAGAN: Not playing in Atlanta. I checked; we tried.
TRAVERS: Not playing in Atlanta? Well, I'm going to make sure it is.
But that Julia Roberts movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones and John Cusack is called "America's Sweethearts," and you have to wait until July 20 for it to come out.
SYDNEY: Have you seen it?
TRAVERS: I haven't seen it yet. No, they're still working on that one. But -- see, it is. It's going to be a long, hot summer until that happens.
KAGAN: That it will.
SYDNEY: Daryn, come up here, we'll go together.
KAGAN: You got it -- come on up to New York.
Very good. Laurin, Peter, thank you so much.
TRAVERS: Thank you.
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