Description

With Abbie Phelps!

Baz Luhrmann’s musical mashup is a ravishing, jarring, occasionally annoying wakeup call to the modern movie musical. How did we get from the freneticism of MOULIN ROUGE! — one shot per second, Ewan McGregor as a twee poet musician with a flair for the burlesque, Nicole Kidman as a diseased courtesan overperforming horniness, John Leguizamo as a little person with a lisp — to something like THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (2017) or WICKED (2024)?

Abbie is one of MOULIN ROUGE!’s biggest fans, so who better to help us answer those critical questions? Along the way, we discuss the trade-off of cohesiveness for sincerity, possible parallels with THE RED SHOES (1948), and whether or not MOULIN ROUGE! is kind of insulated from criticism.

Find Abbie…

• On Bluesky
• On Letterboxd
• On Trylove episodes about DRIVE ANGRY (2011), WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005), THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999), TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), THE TRAIN (1964)

**References: **

• Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices!
• Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/
• Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog
• “Courtesan Glamour: Watching Moulin Rouge! in 7th grade” by Olga Tchepikova-Treon for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
• “A Subtle Kind of Jackhammer: Moulin Rouge!, Pop Art, and the Cinema of Baz Luhrmann” by Dan McCabe for Perisphere, the Trylon blog

#NicoleKidmansFearlessPerformances #DCP

Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodcast.bsky.social, and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch!

Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro: “The Pitch” from the MOULIN ROUGE! soundtrack.

Timestamps

Coming soon!