Moulin Rouge!

Luhrmann drops in some Bollywood numbers for good measure (because why not?) and captures all the manic action in a whirlwind of canted angles, speed ramping effects, and rapid-fire edits. The result is inspired chaos, an unapologetic sensory assault capable of overwhelming even today’s YouTube-savvy audience.

There’s no doubt that, then and now, Moulin Rouge was a force to be reckoned with—even its loyal detractors must admit that it’s really something (I recall getting word of one highly respected film professor calling it a “tremendous piece of shit”). But there’s serious strain in its attempt to subsume and regurgitate a century’s worth of high- and low-brow… Such mega-movies feel rather mini in retrospect, and the grandness of Moulin Rouge feels positively Lilliputian now.