in which some of our favorite and not-so-favorite actors and singers get together to... act and sing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJpwwdOomtY

You know what? This movie was quite entertaining, if ultimately shallow and quite inconsequential...

The story is this: Rome, 1965, Cinecutta Studio... famous director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is about to begin production on his magnum opus, Italia, starring his longtime muse Claudia Jenson (Nicole Kidman)... problem is, he doesn't have a script so he has no idea what the movie's about... meanwhile, he struggles to maintain his relations with a few women, most notably his mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), a flirty journalist (Kate Hudson), and his lead costumer/good buddy (Judi Dench), while reminiscing about his moms (Sophia Loren), and a hooker by the sea that he met as a kid (Fergie -- yes, THAT Fergie)... and then his wife (Marion Cotillard) shows up... musical-romantic complications ensue...

So, yes, it's yet another "gay" Hollywood musical, except with a lot of ass and tittes for the straight dudez (no nudity, however)... and the songs are presented mostly as thoughts that each character has; in other words, there are no scenes of people talking then suddenly bursting into song... there would be a melodramatic scene then a number, then back to the melodrama, then a number, and so on...

The movie is certainly not as, uh, heavy as Rob's last musical, Chicago, nor is it dark as the film I immediately thought of once this started: Bob Fosse's All That Jazz; this movie is all fun and surface-level thrills, which is fine... the score was very cool, the picture looked great (shot by Dion Beebe), and the choreography was on-point... only problem for me was that it all didn't really add up to much... it's just the story of a stressed-out director (Daniel-Day brought the heat as usual even though he really didn't have to do much besides look worried; there's no Fosse-esque health dangers to be found here) trying to juggle various women and thoughts of various women while suffering from writer's block... there's no sense of stakes, or anything that would make the audience want to see Guido start his movie... the problem isn't with the character, btw, he's actually a very cool customer, it's just that there's no story meat here for us to ultimately give a shit... but I still liked the movie anyway for the serious "Let's Put on a Show!" vibe it gave off, which means it was highly entertaining as a whole...

Singing-wise, there were some hits and misses. The actors didn't have much vocal range, of course; Daniel-Day has a very good singing voice and was fine here, as was Marion Cotillard, and Judi Dench... I had a harder time fooling with Kate Hudson's and Nic Kidman's singing, though... Penelope was okay with the singing, but then again I wasn't really listening her words -- and once you see her VERY sexy number, you'll see why... and of course, as the only "professional" singer, I gotta give credit to Fergie for bringing the heat, so OKP should prepare to hate on her once again... each actor got a number to sing, save Daniel-Day and Marion who (if I remember correctly) each got two...

It's a very tight and briskly-paced film, even at 2 hours; I think Daniel-Day, Marion, Judi, Penelope, and the movie itself will get Oscar nominations... I liked it, but didn't love it, or at least love it as much as Chicago...

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