Moulin Rouge, 2001

By 20th Century Fox and Bazmark Films
Starring Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Rated PG-13 for sexual content
Running Time: 126 minutes
Internet Movie DataBase page
Official Site from 20th Century Fox

Remember back in the day, walking over to the theater on Main Street, plopping down your 75 cents (or perhaps $2.50 in more contemporary terms) and settling in to watch those fantastic feature films of yesterday? The ones that lifted you up on gossamer wings, and took you on a wondrous trip to a place far, far away?

Well, get ready to go again.

This movie caught me entirely off guard. Most of my curiosity came from the sound bites on TV that proclaimed it as "indescribable". Within 90 seconds of the opening, I was enveloped in the moody use of colors and camera wizardry that allows you to zoom in from far above nighttime Paris in 1900, sweep among the dark streets of Montmartre, and burst through the doors of the night spot, Moulin Rouge. With an explosion of visual and aural artistry, you are there!

The story: not unlike other stories you've known... boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, girl becomes unattainable, boy fights for her honorably... well, you know the rest, or you might. So yes, it's predictable, yet it doesn't matter. You'll still find your adrenaline pumping in the nightclub, that rush as they kiss for the first time, adam's apple bobbing when he gets the bad news, and tearing up at the end ....

The actors: I first saw Nicole Kidman in an 80's movie, Dead Calm, and while I've always thought she did a very credible job in that and movies since, I wasn't a big fan. I was very curious though to see how whe would pull off this role, the singing included. I was pleasantly surprised; she handles it deftly, playing a delightful, and yet somehow innocent, courtesan of the club. While Barbra Streisand need not worry about any competition soon, Kidman comfortably handles the part.

I was less familiar with Ewan MacGregor (having not yet seen Phantom Menace, ugh), but was overwhelmed with his presence, and what a great voice! He is, in fact, the central character in this drama, and carries the film from start to finish. I expect to see much more of him the future ... a definite leading man contender as a box-office draw.

Other notables include the versatile John Leguizamo as Toulouse Lautrec, and Jim Broadbent as the over-the-top nighclub manager, Zidler.

The production: This is where words fail. You may have seen one of the trailers, or even the remake/video of "Lady Marmelade" by Christina, et al, but none of these can speak fully to the wonderful direction, choreography, and visual design put into this film. I predict there will be a few attempts in the coming years to match this style of movie, and they'll probably fall short. Some mp3s from the eclectic (songs taken from the 60's-90's) score:

Come What May - Ewan MacGregor and cast
One Day I'll Fly Away - Nicole Kidman
Because We Can - Fatboy Slim

So no, I can't describe what Moulin Rouge is. Countless others have tried and failed. What I will say is: go see it!! This is unlike anything you've experienced in front of a movie screen, acrobatic sexual acts excluded. A piece of advice: this is not the kind of movie where you sit there and try to figure things out. Walk into the theater with no expectations, and just let it wash over you and carry you away. And if you're on the fence, don't wait for it to hit cable or DVD ... you'd be missing that all-encompassing trip of sight, sound and sensation only a big screen can offer.

I give it at least eight hoisted skirts:

Or on a more traditional scale: four out of five.

Allow me to confuse you further:

Part 1: The Dislike of Sunlight.

I’ve always preferred night to day, dark to light. Working a nightshift for the past 2 years has only strengthened this preference. I find I function better during late evening and the midnight hours. I think more clearly. I am more alert. But more importantly, I find myself comfortable. Comfortable with my lonely surroundings.

I like the peace and quiet. The world is asleep. The stars blink in the sky overlooking deserted streets. And somehow I feed off this. I feel in control. I am in control.

I also hate the summer. At least, I dislike summertime in London, even though you could argue that it’s never much of a summer. But when it’s hot, it can be very humid. London, with its over-pollution and high pollen counts, has a devastating effect on me. I have to drug myself up with antihistamines to survive. While people sit out in the sun in Hyde Park sunbathing, I find myself indoors. I would prefer to be abroad to enjoy weather in excess of 30 degrees centigrade. Autumn in London is far more pleasurable. But I much prefer the winter.

Give me dark grey skies over blue sun drenched ones. I like the weather to be epic. Thunderstorms and blistering rain.

This anti-social behaviour continues to evolve. The nightshift that I work has only helped enforce my inclinations. My sleeping patterns have cemented them.

Part 2: Sleep

When working, I sleep from 10am until 4pm. When I’m off, I still tend to oversleep until mid-day, and stay up to around 5am before going to sleep.

As I have already stated, I get this overwhelming sense of control during the night. I write more constructively. I feel more inspirational. I feed off, the fact that while everyone is asleep, ready for an early start the next morning, I am awake, working/thinking. I understand this sounds flawed. You could argue that the majority of people think and work better during the day, and that I am simply anti-social and a loner. Maybe. Maybe not. Probably.

So, night is where all the (lack of) action is. Therefore, sleep is the answer to waste the daytime away. And the act of sleep has played an integral part in all of this gibberish.

Nearly a third of life is spent sleeping. Immense information is given and received during that period. The experiences which are had during this time can be enriching.

You can make what you wish in regards to the break in consciousness between the waking and sleeping states. Some never remember their dreams. Others look forward to them.

And then there are those who prefer to take control of their dreams and live them out in a lucid state. And those who are controlled by them, suffering from sleep paralysis and awakenings.

A while ago, overwhelmed in paranoia, I believed I was suffering from mild narcolepsy. At this time my sleeping pattern was fucked. There was no pattern.

Hallucinations, vivid, often frightening, dream-like experiences, occur while falling asleep or waking up.

My doctor disagreed with me. He felt I was simply suffering from sleep deprivation. Insomnia? I wasn’t too sure. Although I didn’t suffer from decrease of muscle control I did experience sleep attacks, which would often result in extreme hallucinations and sleep paralysis.

So enter hallucinations and enter into the land of confusion. Visions of a vampires and demons first started to occur at this juncture.

Forever tired even when having slept. Tormented in sleep and waking, I was a mess.

Without the help of anti-depressants, I gradually re-structured my sleeping pattern to something that resembled borderline normality. I would sleep for 7-9 hours, but still only during the daytime. So I was on a permanent nightshift. Even when I wasn’t working, I was still up and about during the night. But that wasn’t a problem because of my lack of fondness for the daytime.

Sleep paralysis continued though, but I was eventually able to overcome it. And with this a new problem was created.

When you ‘awake’ within your dreams and became lucid, your environment will depend on when exactly you gatecrashed your subconscious. You could be flying in the skies above the pyramids, or driving a car through a futuristic Bladerunner world.

But when I break out of sleep paralysis, I tend to experience an awakening dream. I wake up (but of course I am still asleep) in my own bed in my own house. It’s always nighttime. At first, it was difficult to recognize whether I was truly asleep or not. Reality tests would help prove if I was. Personally, I have always found that an ‘awakening dream’ experience is more lifelike than a lucid dream.

(These dreams are great. It’s like being in a holo-deck from the Star Trek universe. There’s a lot to say for walking around in you subconscious. Of course, like a holo-deck not everything ‘works’ - for want of a better word. For example, you cannot turn a light on and off in a dream, read, etc. And normal social behaviour tends to be non-existent).

But while I have control of my environment when lucid, during an awakening I have no control of my surroundings.
The same pattern is always followed with such an awakening.

Part 3: The Dream

I * awake *, wearing black clothes. No one else is in the house, and all electrical appliances and the like appear to be missing. No PC, TV, microwave, etc.

Elsewhere in the house there is only dimmed lighting. There are no mirrors. Outside there is a full moon. It is slightly misty, though the stars shine brightly enough to be seen.

I have never seen my reflection, but I can feel the fangs in my mouth.

My neighbourhood in reality differs vastly from the dream state. In real life, I am not too far from a high street and busy road. In the awakening, the area around my house appears to be slightly more detached. There is a feeling of being deeper within the countryside and in another time period.

It’s almost London by Gaslight. I half expect Jack the Ripper to walk past me.

Even though I am lucid and in control of my actions, I feel that there's something within me controlling my instincts.

And my instincts cry out for: BLOOD

So what do I do in this gothic-like dreamscape? Well, I go on a walkabout and vamp out now and again.

I have lost count of the necks I have bitten. I’m a fucking monster. I never used to discriminate against the sex of my victims. Blood is blood, regardless of the person. I need my nourishment. But I now much prefer to lunch out on the neck of a woman. Sucking the blood out of the neck of a bloke is…well, a bit gay.

So, not only am I a vampire, I’m a homophobic vampire. The point is, my dream persona evolves with each dream.

Its such a great rush killing someone...err...I...*cough*...I...better re-think that one. I suppose, it’s not really me running around, sucking the life from people, but a subconscious paradox of sorts. I mean, it's just a dream. So I shouldn’t feel guilty enjoying the moment. Because I’m only killing figments of my imagination...Ok, this paragraph is weird. Please ignore.

I have yet to be chased by a Peter Cushing type character and have seen no stakes or garlic. So, it’s been an easy ride for Count Junkcula.

The dreams always end in the same way.

The way I awake from the dream is almost poetic, in some weird subliminal way. All of a sudden the moon will disappear from the sky and be replaced by a burning sun. I never escape its rays and, as legends tell of vampires turning into ashes when in sunlight – so do I. Well, sort of. I lose lucidity and wake up in a state of shock.

I always find myself thinking: WHAT THE FUCK?

I have no idea why I should be having a recurring dream of this magnitude. It’s fucking insane.

CONCLUSION (?)

Ok, I admit that disliking the humid weather with the conviction that I do is pretty anti-social. I spend half of my waking life awake at night because that’s when I work. So, obviously I must like working nights.

But vampire tendencies? Well, I don’t bite. Well, what I mean to say is that I don’t go around biting strangers. I like to bite apples. I’d playfully bite a girlfriend in a sexual way if she liked that sort of thing as well.

But sucking blood? Never. Though I have an obsession with drowning almost everything I eat with tomato ketchup. Not exactly the same thing. And a while back there was this one girlfriend that enjoyed biting my body. But that’s another story altogether. I do hate garlic, but I like a good well done steak (blame GFY! influence for that pun).

Though, pretty much like a vampire, I have always been fascinated with the concept of living forever. Even though to want to do so would be admission of loneliness. Everyone around you, friends and family, would die as you continue to live. Though it wouldn’t matter much if you were a vampire because they would die on account of you killing them.

So, the evidence? Well, having read everything above this sentence, my conclusion would be that I am utterly insane. What the fuck is my point? Do I have some deep-rooted psychological problem that strives my subconscious to encourage my conscious self to live out a fantasy to be Dracula?

I suppose in reality I am just a nighttime person. But what the fuck are the dreams all about?

The last visit to my gothic vampish existence in snoozeland resulted with me... well, I don’t even know if I should talk about it, but if I said “blood-orgy-in-a-farm-yard” I think you may get the picture.

But the scariest thing of all is, all of a sudden – for no inexplicable reason – I feel sympathy for the vampires killed by that bitch Buffy.

She’ll get her comeuppance someday soon. Till then, I will continue to vamp out and suck blood.

P.S. someone please drive a stake through my heart.

The sophists did concern themselves with man and society though, Protagoros (c 485-410 B.C), one of these influential sophists said, 'man is the measure of all things'. By this he meant that whether a thing is good or bad, right or wrong, it should be measured against and in relation to a mans needs. With the sophists also came the birth of agnosticism. Protagoros, on being asked about his belief in the Greek Gods is said to have answered 'The question is complex, and life is too short'.

The key element of the sophists was that they were all well-traveled men. They had visited many cities and states, in which each had vastly different rules, laws and conventions. This led them to the conclusion that actions could be one of two things, either natural or socially induced. For example, the sophists suggested that some things had to be socially induced, like modesty. The idea that modesty was innate and natural was rejected by the sophists, as they saw that modesty meant different things in different places, and thus it was a socially induced action, and not an absolute norm. As you can probably imagine, the sophists annoyed a lot of people in Athens when they pointed out that right and wrong could not have absolutes, and that absolute norms did not exist. You could say that the sophists were the first sociologists.

You may be wondering why there was the need for this digression into the sophists when I am supposed to be talking about Socrates. Well, Socrates didn't agree with the sophists. He believed that there were some absolute norms in life, and he wanted to prove to the sophists that they were wrong.

So how exactly did Socrates go about approaching this question and philosophy as a whole? The art of Socrates ideas came in his attitude. Unlike the sophists he did not want to instruct people, he wanted to discuss things with them. Socrates just asked questions. He would, it is said, often begin a conversation with someone through a question. Socrates would have an idea of what he believed the answer to be, but he would engage in discussion with people by asking them question after question. The outcome of these discussions was that Socrates often managed to get his opponents to realize the weakness of their arguments and thus use their 'reason' to see the truth. Socrates mother is said to have likened him to a midwife. For as a midwife does not actually give birth she does deliver the baby. In this sense Socrates delivered people to their reason, he helped them give birth to the correct 'insight' in their discussion. By playing dumb in these discussions Socrates was able to make people see that their opinions were flawed, this is what is known as Socratic irony.

A key distinction between Socrates and the Sophists was that Socrates was a true philosopher and the Sophists were pretenders to the throne. The Sophists often took monies for their teaching; they considered themselves to know all there was to know and not be in need of asking questions. You have probably known many people like this. I am of course referring to the likes of school teachers, and opinionated know-it-alls that are content with what they know, and believe that that is all there is too know on a subject. Sophists are those that are buried deep in the hair of the seal.[the analogy did have a purpose after all ;-)] In comparison, the true philosopher, like Socrates, admits that they know nothing, and that is what drives them. Philosopher literally means in Greek 'one who loves wisdom'.

This admission of not knowing is what drove Socrates. 'Wisest is he who knows he does not know' is the key element of Socratic thought. Socrates himself said 'One thing only I know, and that is I know nothing'. This is what made Socrates stand out above the crowd. He was scared by not knowing and so asked questions. The most subversive of people are those that ask questions. For a question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.

As I said earlier, Socrates believed the sophists were wrong about absolute norms. Socrates believed that he had an inner voice guiding him. This voice is what we today would call a conscience. For Socrates it was the conscience that proved that there were absolute norms, of say right and wrong, good and bad. 'He who knows what is good, will do good' he said. By this Socrates meant that the right insight leads to the right actions. So for Socrates, when a man does wrong he does it because he does not know better. This is why, Socrates thought, it was so important for us all to keep on learning. So that we will all learn the right insight. Unlike the Sophists, Socrates believed that peoples ability to make right and wrong actions lied in their reason and not in society.

So Socrates, from this point, believed that no one that acted against his or her better judgement could be happy. Thus, he who knows how to achieve happiness through doing right actions will by necessity listen to his reason, for why would anyone want to be unhappy?

So what do you guys and girls think? Do you think that you can live a happy life if you always do things that you know are wrong deep down? There are lots of people out in the world who do things we know are wrong, do you think these people are happy or unhappy? Is the robber with his stolen fortune happy? Do you think they have knowledge of what is right and wrong by their reason?

As I said right at the beginning, Socrates was an enigmatic man, and his dramatic death is something that helped to solidify his place in history. Do you want to know how he died? Well, Socrates found himself accused of introducing new Gods into society because of his ideas. He was also accused of 'corrupting the youth' [that one sounds familiar don't you think?] A key thing about Socrates' character was that because of his inner voice, he always protested about condemning people to death. He refused to inform on his political enemies and this led, unfortunately, to his own demise. By a slender majority, a jury of 500 found Socrates guilty. He was condemned to drink hemlock as his punishment. He could have appealed for leniency and probably have left Athens in banishment. But as you can probably guess, this was not something Socrates would likely do. Shortly after being condemned he drank the poison in the company of his friends and died.

Now, the only question I ask from all this is; was the tone of this post better for Goatboy and Pangloss? ;-)

1st Place - 'The Superrapper For Your Breathe' by scatmonkey2nd Place - 'Big Baby Jesus' by Paint CHiPs3rd Place - 'The power of the Dark Side' by Roshigoth

Now go forth my children and do nasty things to our great leaders.British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George Bush

Why do I do this? Why do I work in this thankless job, 60-70 hours a week for the shitty salary deemed appropriate for me? I don’t get to put my daughter to bed many nights, and working until midnight or one in the morning makes me irritable when I wake up. My marriage is in shambles and I find myself not even caring about that…in fact, I find myself falling in love with someone else. My life is full…I am busy…I have no time to post on the forum, or send a card to my grandmother (who is dying of lung cancer) or even call my mother.

But I feel so empty.

Is it just because I feel like I don’t have enough? What more is there? I’ve been in love, I have a child, I used to like my job, I have a house, and a car, and two cats. Many people would like my life. All I have are regrets. Why didn’t I study something else in college? Why did I get married so young? Why did I get pregnant so soon? How come I didn’t find Mr. Right the first time around? There are no resolutions for these questions. I have created this pyramid with my life.

All things affect the one most important person to me: my daughter. I feel like I’m stuck. I will never be truly happy with my life until she goes to college and I can take control again. I drink too much, I’ve taken up smoking. I’ve gained weight and I hate the way my body looks. I’m so stressed and so distracted that I almost can’t think anymore. I have an appointment with my shrink Monday morning. She should have a field day with me this week!!!

I wish I could write something truly profound in this space, and not be using it exclusively to bitch about how miserable I am, but they say “write what you know”. I’m going to go have a cigarette before I drive to my “job” tonight. Maybe a beer too, hehe.

The first philsophers were the natural philosophers, the Greeks. They started the whole game of thought off, and the process has rolled from there. But, what did they think and why did they think it?

Well, the natural philosphers came as a reaction to the old world order. Until this point, the beliefs that ruled the world were those of mythology. Every culture had their own, from Norse Gods like Thor, to Greek Gods like Hades. The natural philosophers rebelled against these ideas with their own. So, what was the project of the natural philosphers? Well, the natural philosphers wanted to look at, surpirsingly enough, the natural world and its processes. Essentially, they asked the question: Where did things come from? This was the project they sought to find out. You may not agree with what they found, but what they surmised and the processes they used helped lay the foundation of thought today.

One of the key elements for the natural philosphers was the idea that something had to come from something. In this, there was the acknowledgement that things changed and transformations took place in nature, but all things, however transformed, had to come from something. For the natural philosophers, questions such as how live fish came from water, or huge trees could come from apparently dead ground, were questions of marvel. As they watched these things, they saw that nature was in a continual transformaton. But, how could these transformations occur?

Although we don't know where the consensus came from, there was one among the natural philsophers. They all accepted that there had to be a basic substance to the root of all this change; that there was an element that produced the transformations in the world and nature. There had to be something that all things came from and returned to.

For our purposes here it is not the conclusions that the natural philsophers came to which are important, but the questions they asked in the process of finding their conclusions. How they thought, not what they thought, is what is important because each grouping of philosphers shaped our world view, whether we acknowledge it or not.

The natural philosphers wanted to understand how the world worked without having to resort to the mythological ideas that preceeded them. They sought an understanding of how things are through reason and nothing more. For the natural philosphers, reason was the key to understanding what the world really is. The natural philsophers were, for all intents and purposes, the first of a long line of what became known as "rationalists".

Two of the natural philsophers were Parmenides and Heraculitus and both had very different ideas about how things were. For Parmenides (540-480BC), the idea that something came from nothing was wrong. He said that nothing can come from nothing and nothing that exists can become nothing. He took this even farther and said there is no such thing as actual change. Nothing could become anything other than what it already was. Parmenides could see with his senses that things changed, but he could not reconcile this with what his reason told him. He concluded that the our senses gave an illussory perception of the world that was not in accordance with reason. He chose reason over his senses. His project as a philospher was to expose all these forms of perceptual illussion with the use of reason.

In comparison, Parmenides' contemporary Heraculitus said the world was in a constant state of flux. We could say that he trusted his senses much more than Pamenides. He saw that the world was made up of opposites that were interdependent. If we never became ill, then we would not know what being well was. If there was never a war, then we would never appreciate what it was to be at peace. Without a winter, we would never see the spring. Although limited, it is very straight-forward and sensical, don't you think? "Logos (reason) is day and night, spring and summer, war and peace," said Heraculitus.

Both Paramenides and Heraculitus believed in a "one element" theory to the world. The only difference was that one said that, although things appear to change, they cannot because nothing can come from nothing, while the other said things are always in flux and the sensory perceptions can be relied upon. It took the next natural philosophers to solve this obvious contradiction in their predecessors' ideas. Empedocles (490-430BC) said that both were right in one of their assertions, but wrong in the other. The problem he addressed was the "one element". Empedocles said that this premise was wrong; that there were four elements to everything, namely, earth, air, fire and water.

Everything is made up of these things. Nothing did not come from nothing, but things did change because it was the coming together of the four elements that did it. The elements are eternal, but the things they make are not. One could liken this to the idea of a painter who only has one colour, such as red. If he only has red, then he cannot paint a green field. But, if he has yellow, red, blue and black, he can paint hundreds of different colours by mixing them together.

The four elements were the key to bringing a resolution of the earlier natural philosphers' ideas. How did Empedocles realise this, though? We can only guess what might have caused this realisation for Empedocles. Perhaps, he was one day sitting watching a piece of wood burning. As a piece of the wood disintegrated, he heard the crackling and splutter. That was the water. Then, something went up in smoke. The air. The fire he could, of course, see, and then the ashes that remained when the fire was extinguished was earth.

And there we will end it for now. We can see that the natural philosphers were the ones that sparked the method of scientific inquiry. They wanted to see the world as it was in nature and began the journey down the road of reason. They believed that everything in the world came from the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. These elements came together and came apart to form things and that was how natural change took place. It may not have been right, but it was deduced by reason and observation together and that is the important thing. Remember, we are not interested really in what they said, but more in the process by which they came to say the things they said.

So where do we go next? The next step is to look at the what the big guns of Greece said about nature and philosophy. The journey will move forward in time to the days of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and the marvel of their ideas that have also shaped the way we think.

That's right, now available in our squeaky clean showroom, two versions of the highly sought after AsylumNation t-shirts! Just click on the store link on the menu to the left side of this page, and you'll be transported to our new little piece of Asylum heaven.

Thanks for visiting!

One t-shirt will be given away at a specific time (known by the admins). The first person to say something in chat, at the pre-selected minute, between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. EST, will win a shirt!

The second shirt will be awarded to someone between 6-8 p.m. EST who is the first to utter a certain word the admins have selected. If for some reason no one uses that word, we have a couple spares. And we may drop some hints somewhere along the way.

The winners of the shirts will be announced between 8 and 9 p.m. EST both here and in #wota, and then at 9:00, we'll run a general knowledge version of Asylum Trivia in channel #trivia (for points only.)

And maybe we'll have another surprise or two ...

I am not immune to a woman’s charms and on occasion I fall prey to their wiles. I consider myself savvy to woman’s duplicitous nature, but if that special lady comes by I’ll happily put the blinkers on myself and spend the next few months oblivious and blind to reality.

I know I generalize. I don’t care. I’ve never met a woman who wasn’t a bitch. The most you might manage is to be less of a bitch than your sister.

You’re still a selfish, self-absorbed, whimsical, whiney and complaining bitch.

At best you realize this. It doesn’t of course mitigate your faults; it does, however, make them more tolerable.

I know, it’s my fault you are like this. Man seems to accrue the blame for all of the wrong in your life.

Talking to a woman, especially one who is interested in you, or who you have a relationship with, is akin to skipping through a minefield. Subtext underlies every innocent remark. Failure to pick up on the hidden meanings will bring a swift and damning reprisal.... usually something to the effect of "You don’t love me!"

What the fuck is with that? Are you taking secret classes in Emotional Blackmail 101 or is it an innate skill at making others feel bad about things they have no responsibility for or control over?

Instead of music class do you learn how to play our emotions?

Do you live your life in your own little delusional reality where you are the center of the universe? Do you resent the fact that your best feature is a hot, wet pussy?

I think you do.

PMS? Well I’ll forgive you that one. Sloughing uterine chunks monthly is punishment enough for that sin.

My opinion on that particular abomination is mirrored in Leviticus 15:19.

Should women be allowed to fly planes while suffering PMS?

Not unless we’re at war.

I could go on…

I will.

I know we all suffer from vanity but I must say women turn it into a way of life. Vanity is an obnoxious trait at the best of times; with women it is ingrained so deep into their psyche it is hard to tell where it begins and the anal-retentive behavior starts. Get over it. Get over yourselves.

Enough I think. I have to emulate work now for my boss' piece of mind.

Yes, this diatribe was powered by abstinence.