> I can't believe it. "Moulin Rouge," the best film I've seen in a long, long time, which, last summer, I "knew" the Academy would snub, didn't get snubbed.
>
> I maintain that it won't win, even though it perhaps should (I haven't seen all the films nominated for Best Picture), but it restores a bit of my faith in the Academy that an original film like "Moulin Rouge," released half a year ago (the Academy's memory is frequently very short) is not only remembered but appreciated.

Now this is curious. I enjoyed Moulin Rouge thoroughly and have seen it repeatedly; however, I have not yet been able to find any reason to put it in the class of movies I consider 'good.' Artistically, it was a beautiful work, and it had great emotional force, but I found it left nothing to take home with me. The storyline, the characters, and the ideas behind it neither challenged my way of thinking nor showed me a new way of looking at the world. It was a pretty picture, but ultimately without substance except for the waves of emotion it created, which passed, leaving nothing behind.

Now, my question is, have I missed something? Did others see something in it that I didn't? I'm very open to interpretations which reveal more depth in the movie than I saw. It may also be simply a difference in criteria; I have been startled these days to find a lot of my friends judging movies on purely artistic merit, while I still focus on story and characters. And this may be fair. A movie uniquely combines story with visual art, and excellence in one area may compensate for weakness in the other. I'm a writer, not an artist, and for myself I will continue to insist on a good story as the foundation of a good movie, but if others want to look first to the visual art side, I suppose I cannot begrudge them that. But I am curious whether that is what is going on here, or if I missed something in the story that made it a worthier film than I thought.

Lire"I felt the same way about 'Crouching Tiger,' by the way"lyn