Chicago (2002) Miramax Films 📢 Director: Rob Marshall 💰 Producer: Martin Richards 👫 Cast: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly, Lucy Liu, Colm Feore. 🏆 Awards ceremony: -75th Academy Awards: March 23, 2003. Kodak Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. 🎭 Other films nominated for Best Picture this year: -Gangs Of New York. -The Hours. -The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers. -The Pianist 📕 Plot summary: Set in Chicago (wow, would you have guessed?) in the 1920s, a Vaudeville-wannabe housewife, Roxie Hart (RENÉE ZELLWEGER) kills a man after she lets him bang her with the promise of stardom, only to then tell her she just isn't good enough (for Vaudeville; not in bed). She is arrested and taken to Cook County jail where she is effectively put on Death Row for her crime. Desperate for attention, Roxie enlists the services of a lawyer (RICHARD GERE) to clear her name. When in prison Roxie tries to acquaint herself with her idol, Velma Kelly (CATHERINE ZETA-JONES) who she had seen performing on stage as a singer/dancer. The two women form an uneasy friendship and ultimately team up together as a successful act after Roxie wins her case. 💥 Standout scene(s): There was one song that grabbed my attention for its choreography: "We Both Reached For The Gun". Richard Gere on stage with Renée Zellweger doing their number as puppets. Okay, that was a good scene. 🔑 Facts: -The 75th Academy Awards. -Nominated for 13 Academy Awards, it won 6: Best Picture, Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Sound, Art Direction, Costume Design, Editing. 🙂 Personal opinion: When embarking upon this project to review every movie to have won the Best Picture Oscar, I looked down the list and realized this was one of those films I really did not want to have to sit through. I just do not like musicals - period. To make matters worse, the lead star was Renée Zellweger, a porcelain-looking actress who looks like she has just sucked on a sour lemon and has one of those spoiled-brat faces you just want to slap. And then there is a massive (and I do mean massive) distraction with Queen Latifah's monstrously gigantic tits. Rounding off the cast is Mrs. Michael Douglas and the gerbil-loving Richard Gere. A recipe for disaster. I think you have to really appreciate this genre in order to enjoy this kind of film. I didn't. That said, I did appreciate that the production clearly demonstrated a large budget and a lot of effort went into the staging of a lot of the sequences. Some of the costumes on the women were very revealing but there was just so much singing and dancing and so little of anything else. It tries to be too artsy by intertwining the drama with the musical stuff. I'd had just about enough of what I was watching after less than 30 minutes into it when I shouted at the screen, "And this beat Lord Of The Rings?" [to win the Academy Award for Best Picture]. If you absolutely have to see something like this then go to the theatre and watch it because it doesn't belong in my living room on my television, thank you. Did it deserve the Oscar? ❌NO! That was consecutive years where the first two films in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy were both nominated for Best Picture and both times it lost to inferior films. Well, at least the Academy got it right the following year. 4/10

Review date: 19 May 2025