you don't have to be gay...

Is it un-PC to say that Baz Luhrmann makes some of the gayest movies this side of West Side Story?

Well, I'm not gay (at least, I don't think I am), yet I am in awe of the dude after watching his Red Curtain Trilogy in reverse order.

I watched Chicago because it was the only Best Picture I had not yet watched (yes, I am obssessive in that way), and so it was only natural I picked up Moulin Rouge! next. My cheap-ass Acer projector has trouble de-interlacing VHS tapes even in the best circumstances, but I suspect Donald McAlpine's cinematography gave it a nervous breakdown. Ghosting like mad. The weird thing is I think it actually helped me appreciate the movie more. It added to the surrealism of the whole affair: garish colors, Leguizamo playing a painting midget, Kidman and McGregor singing in their own voices, on top of a fake elephant, flashing impossibly white chompers. I was floored. I guess a title that ends in an exclamation point should have tipped me off to the camp aspect. But for the first time since I fell asleep watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I really enjoyed the camp.

Fascinated by this new director, I rented Romeo + Juliet. The first time, watching it with a friend, I found it hard to decipher Leo and Claire spouting Elizabethan iambic pentameter in Valley Kid accents. We ejected the DVD not thirty minutes in.

But I remembered Moulin Rouge!, and gave it another chance. The second time, I sat still long enough to adjust my ear to Shakespeare (and to stop laughing every time Paul Sorvino showed up). I thought it was okay. Horribly cast, way OTT, but I admired the dude for trying. I mean, how many foreign directors try their hand at Hollywood and fail, whereas this guy went on to do Moulin Rouge!

So this weekend I finally arrived at Strictly Ballroom. While it is clearly related to the other two movies, the story is conventional, the theatrics more subdued. (If you've only seen Strictly Ballroom you probably think I'm high right now, but watch Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet and you'll see -- he even plays with title punctuation!)

Now, I'm the kind of guy who only watched Dirty Dancing because a really hot girl wanted to. (and I wasn't really watching the screen...) I've slogged through countless (okay, 101 to be exact -- yes, I count them) musicals, and my attention almost always wanders when Fred and Ginger start dancing. Betty Grable, now that's another story. What I like about musicals is the music, not the dancing. But by the end of Ballroom, I found myself wanting to take dance lessons. I loved it.

Critical mode on. What's so good about this film? Tara Morice couldn't dance and Paul Mercurio couldn't act. The ugly-duckling story is about as trite as you can get. Heterosexual men such as myself avoid movies about ballroom dancing in the same way we avoid assless pants.

What we're left with is an awesome director. A man who understands that musicals need to live in a fantasy world. Luhrmann claims his movies are only 60% of what he originally envisioned them to be. Now that's a man with vision.

Can someone please get Baz Luhrmann and Peter Jackson in a room together so they can crank out the greatest movie ever made?