Show Me How You BURLESQUE!

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I had a nice lunch with the fam, probably the best one in quite a few years actually. My macaroni and cheese was a hit…again. (Thank you Patti LaBelle) After our feast my partner and I managed to fend off our food comas long enough to check out Burlesque, which opens today across America.

You will probably see a lot of negative reviews of Burlesque floating around this weekend, and most of them have valid complaints. Director Steve Antin’s movie certainly owes a lot to Showgirls, and Cabaret, and even Moulin Rouge to some degree, and it certainly does not rise to those meteoric heights. It lacks the biting evilness of Showgirls, the artistry of Moulin Rouge and well, Liza but it is fun to watch and beats the heck out of the latest talking animal movie. Yeah the script is predictable. It’s a story we’ve see hundreds….HUNDREDS of times before: accidentally hot Midwestern girl heads to LA to make it big, does, finds love and saves the world all while wearing shiny clothes. The script plays out almost like a Mad Lib actually and there were no real surprises. But I enjoyed the heck out of it. No really, I did. If I just said “It’s great! Go see it!” then you’d be mad at me for not giving you all the facts. Pretend you are cat and Burlesque is the shiny thing you want to watch glimmer in the sunlight and you’ll be fine.

Burlesque plays a lot like a long form music video featuring Miss Aguilera doing what she does best; belting out songs tailor made for her mutant lungs. Sadly the half-dozen tracks she delivers on the soundtrack are a thousand times better than anything on her latest album. Granted, a couple of the tracks do kind of sound the same and I actually got them confused while listening in the car later. But the production really delivers. Christina is a performer and she really shines when she’s in her element. As for her acting it’s back to the Copacabana School I’m afraid. You want to wonder where down-on-her-luck Tess (Cher) gets the cash to fund such elaborate production numbers but somehow that doesn’t matter. If you start applying logic and try to pick apart the script then you are missing the point.

I think if the supporting cast weren’t full of very talented people then the whole thing would have fallen apart. Cher is Cher. She doesn’t play anyone else, and she knows what the hell she’s doing. Stanley Tucci is wonderful…again…playing essentially the same character he played in The Devil Wears Prada. Kristen Bell managed to have a little fun with the villainess Nikki even though the script didn’t let her be as nasty and evil as she clearly wanted to be. I can’t really say anything about Cam Gigandet other than he looks wonderful in a towel and might make you think an unclean thought or two the next time you open a box of Famous Amos cookies. Alan Cumming lurks in the background basically doing what he did so well in Cabaret. And Eric Dane wanders in and out of frame occasionally reminding everyone how hot he is. And you Glee fans, pay close attention. Dianna Agron makes a quick cameo. It’s a shame they didn’t cast her as one of the chorus girls instead of as the screeching ex-fiancee.

The real fun here is the music. The opening number, “Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend” is worth the price of admission alone. It provides Christina’s Ali with her Roxie moment from Chicago and for some insane reason is not featured on the soundtrack. I really wanted that number to go on forever and I may start cutting myself if I can’t find that remix soon.

If you can put away your expectations and just go wanting to have some fun then you will enjoy this movie. If you are expecting high art then go see something else instead. Burlesque isn’t breaking new ground. It isn’t winning any awards, except maybe costume design, but it’s great fun.