A Movie a Day: Chicago

Yesterday, I started things off with a kid's movie. Today, I'm changing to a musical based around the glory of crime. Tone Shifts are fun!

The Plot

Set in the 1920's, Chicago is the story of a lady named Roxie Hart (Renee Zellwegger) who lives in the title city, a young naive woman with dreams of stardom. Due to these dreams, she's seeing a man named Fred Casely (Dominic West) who promises that he knows a guy, who knows a guy, who can get her own show at a local club. Everything is looking up for her and her dreams of fame, when one night, after pushing a drunken Fred just a little too much after a night in the sack, he tells her that there never was a guy and he was just saying things to get into her pants.

Being calm and rational, and because we all know how well crime was controlled in 1920's Chicago, she responds by whipping a gun out of a nearby dresser and shooting him, leaving her husband (yes, her husband), Amos (John C. Reilly) to come home to find a dead body covered by a sheet in the middle of his room, and a wife desperately trying to get him to cover up for her, which he almost does, until he finds out that the body was not of a burglar, as he had been told, but instead of the sleazy guy who sold them their furniture. Hilarity, and by that I mean, a subsequent arrest of a broken Ms. Hart, ensues.

That's the basic plot. I'm not in this to spoil anything for those who haven't seen it (which you should), but the synopsis I just gave you is just the basic set up for the actual events of the movie. It's really an examination of Roxie in jail where she meets her idol Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta Jones), who is also in jail for a murder, which she obviously didn't commit, even though she obviously did. She shoots the breeze with her warden, Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), who is just as corrupt as most of the people who have been arrested, and earns the attention of Mr. Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), a lawyer whose only real motivation is money and the win.

Oh, and did I mention it's a musical? Because it is. It's a musical. I feel like that's important.

My Thoughts

Once Chicago was released on DVD in 2002, 12 year old me promptly convinced my mother to go out and buy the movie, so I could sit in my room and watch it for days at a time. I'm not exaggerating either, I was really that obsessed with the movie. Now, however, well, I'm still obsessed.

Chicago is amazing.

It won Best Picture at the Oscars, the second musical to do so, and despite what some people, who have a grudge because the movie beat out Gangs of New York, will tell you, it definitely deserved it. It's fun and tragic at the same time. It tells a great story, while still building up actual characters, having great costume and set design, and making the city of Chicago seem actually alive. I'm a big fan of Broadway and Cinema, usually thinking that a play is way better than its movie counterpart, but in this case, the movie definitely blows the play out of the water (do research, you'll see what I mean. I don't want to rant here).

The music, which I haven't mentioned yet really, is also amazing. Some of the songs, like "Razzle Dazzle" and "All That Jazz", have actually been part of the public's subconscious since the play opened in 1975 but others, like "All I Care About is Love" and "When You're Good to Mama" are fantastic as well. I honestly can't think of a single song on the soundtrack that I don't, at least, like passionately, and the fact that they're presented as fantasies in Roxie's head, instead of random breaking out into song in the middle of the plot, definitely makes this movie flow a lot better.

In short, see Chicago now!

If you don't, you'll regret it. Trust me. It is one of those movies that needs to be seen to be understood, an experience instead of something to just do in your spare time.

It's an easy A+.