Burlesque: Movie Review
Burlesque proves that great entertainment isn’t always driven by great plot lines. This is the sort of film that you walk into with a group of girlfriends, and skip out of hugging said girlfriends.
Cher and Christina Aguilera are brilliant together. I don’t know, nor do I much care, how the two of them came to be cast together, I just know that I’m delighted that they were cast.
The story is the same old story, Iowa girl runs to Hollywood. She can sing and dance, no family blah blah blah two men fall for her, one is a starving artist and looks fabulous naked (Cam Gigandet), the other is a tycoon (Eric Dane), and rocks the business suit. What’s so wonderful about Burlesque is that the blahness of the the story doesn’t matter one bit.
The beauty of Burlesque is in the dancing, the choreography, and Christina Aguilera’s amazing voice.
It’s strange for me to see Cher not being the “big talent” in a movie. She opens the movie with an act that I’ve already mostly forgotten, but smack dab in the middle she sings You Haven’t Seen The Last Of Me. I sat in the audience of 300 or so, and I know we were all thinking Oh Cher I sure hope not.
Another thing that made Burlesque great was that it was sexy as hell without being uncomfortable. In the tradition of burlesque there were love scenes, and sex was absolutely had by characters straight and gay, but we never saw a nipple or had a weird moment where you wished you weren’t sitting in the dark with a stranger. I’m not saying that I’d bring a child to this movie, but sometimes it’s hotter when you don’t see everything.
Women will want to be dancers.
Men will want to be with women who want to be dancers.
This movie is fun, but it’s for fans. I loved hanging out with Heather and we *might* have squeed every time Cher did something fabulous (she has a lot of fabulousness bottled up in her), and I’m pretty sure that if I was with Mr. G there would have been snark.
It’s great fun to sit in an audience that is gasping, clapping and cheering at the screen. It’s not a typical movie, and if you’re lucky you’ll get an atypical audience too. An audience who will appreciate the movie for what it is. Delicious.
Peter Gallagher, Julianne Hough, Kristen Bell, and Stanley Tucci were fabulous. Who knew Kristen Bell could dance? There were contortionists, revue dancers, and cameos by everyone but Babs (hello James Brolin).
Burlesque was fun and sexy, with just the right amount of everything.
A special thanks to Steve Antin and Sony for making Burlesque available to everyone who supports Project Angel Food.