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Movie Musical Masterpiece Favorite Movie Quote: ""All that jazz!"" I took my kids to see the original production of "Chicago" on Broadway in the mid 70s. I couldn't follow the story, we weren't that close to the stage and I thought the whole thing sucked. I was embarrassed to have taken my kids to see a dud. So, I was surprised by all the buzz around the movie version and reluctantly went to see it, if for no other reason, I was a big fan of Renee Zellweger ever since I had seen her hot, road film, "Love and a .45" with Gil Bellows and an outrageous Peter Fonda. I went to the ancient, local cheap theater that didn't have a large enough screen (Christ, their feet were cut off! Who knew if Richard Gere was actually tapping? I couldn't see his feet, they were cut off!) and a real train occasionally passed right by the theater blowing its LOUD, LOUD, LOud, Loud, loud, lou... whistle. Worst possible conditions to see any film, especially one I have now crowned a legitimate masterpiece. What I did see and hear was magnificent performances by every performer. Catherine Zeta-Jones belted and danced like the musical theater pro she is, even overshadowing the gutsy, amateur Zellweger (she never quite finished her moves while Jones nailed every one and then some) BUT nobody overshadows Renee's acting creds although John C. Reilly more than held his own and killed me with his rendition of "Cellophane Man". Not that Renee didn't hold her own and then some with her soulful singing, great stuff! And she was the star of the movie, she was the horse you rode on this musical merry-go-round. But folks, I've earned a living as a film editor and even been honored for doing so, and this is the best edited musical I've ever seen. And we're not just talking cuts. We're talking intercuts and flashbacks and breaking up songs with dialog and more angles of a dance routine than an NFL Super Bowl film. And nothing so quick that you couldn't follow what was going on. This was not the wide, long shots of Fred and Ginger that worked back then, but this was the new model with air conditioning, power steering and fuel injection. What a visual ride! The honors go to the brilliant directing and choreography of Rob Marshall, his first film for crying out loud, but he was already a Broadway director/choreographer par excellence. His editor, Martin Walsh, was of great assistance but he didn't set up shots that transitioned into whole new scenes like Mike Nichols did in "The Graduate" where Ben is leaping out of the pool and landing between Mrs. Robinson's legs. Delicious. But "Chicago" seems to have dozens of those clever moments and they all have to be planned before-hand. And they are. I bought the DVD and Marshall confessed he had to put a shot in backward to make one of the transitions work in "Cellophane Man" and it worked. Then there is the script by Bill Condon with the collaboration of Rob Marshall. This movie has something to say about fame and the media, that tabloid stuff we're all so fascinated with. It's really our own nuttiness about the smoke and mirrors of life and our willingness to overlook the lies and bullcrap that passes for reality while the real drama gets shoved to the side. Beautifully realized by Richard Gere's outrageous performance as the slick lawyer who gives the law and the press exactly what they want; not the Truth but razzle-dazzle, a manipulator of the knee-jerk press and the outfoxed jury. A double murderer rats on a single murderer and both walk free. Very cynical but believable. And so entertaining by all involved, each supporting the other. In my small, living room or as my daughter calls it, my "media room",where I have the TV and the stereo, I have 5 movie posters on the walls. My two best films ever made: "The Seven Samurai" and "Ikiru" by Kurosawa, "Gone With The Wind"(I start crying earlier and earlier at each viewing), "The Wizard of Oz"(we're talking iconic here), and the latest entry on my Walls of Fame, "Chicago". email this review to a friend
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