Review of Cabaret (63)

Plot
Brian Roberts, a British scribe, and his comrades - including a flamboyant American nightclub entertainer named Sally Bowles - chronicle the debauchery and turbulence of prewar Berlin. Existing in a morally ambiguous void, the characters doggedly maintain their facades as the world outside the cabaret gears for war.

Jason's Thoughts
I really thought Crystal was going to dread Cabaret before we set out to watch it.  Boy was I ever wrong when I found out that she loved it and I was the one who hated it.

Although there are a few exceptions, I usually don't like musicals.  I will give Cabaret credit in one aspect, and that is the musical numbers were kept with the walls of the nightclub and nobody just broke out into song at some random point in the movie to further the plot.  

The songs and stage theatrics were alright, however, it was what was going on outside the walls of the cabaret that really bored me to death.  This amounted to most of the story, mind you, and I could really care less who was romantically involved with who at any point in the movie.  I've seen better stories than this on daytime television.

The one interesting aspect of the movie was the surroundings in the nightclub of prewar Berlin.  At first we see Nazi soldiers being harassed and thrown out of the club, but as the story moves on, the Nazi amount to great numbers of the audience and are no longer messed with.

Movies with World War II as the backdrop usually entertain me, Cabaret was one of the few that didn't.

Crystal's Thoughts
Prepare yourself Kuntz, my review will put a smile on your face because for me, Cabaret was an amazing movie!  I am not sure if the film spoke to me on another level or if I just let it all in to fully understand it, but for once in a long time, I am able to say this movie belongs on the 100 greatest of all times.  Part of me thinks that I should start taking notes during these films though because there were so many details and thoughts I had about it while we watched it that of course I can’t recall now.

One aspect I need to point out was the amazing costumes.  One of the main characters, Sally Bowles, didn’t have a lot, but she dressed to the nines.  I think that spoke a lot about the costume designers as they had to keep in mind that the clothes Sally wore couldn’t be extravagant but at the same time needed to fulfill the over-the-top personality of Sally.  Other than Titanic and Spartacus from this list and maybe one other movie I’ve ever seen, I’ve never been so intrigued by the costume design.

Another big draw for me in Cabaret was the story line itself.  It is very complex, and I feel to truly appreciate this movie for all it is, you need to let it in.  After I write this review, I plan to study this film more as I know there is so much more to it.  I don’t want that the skew my initial thoughts though, hence why I am waiting.  The biggest point I took away from it though was how Nazi Germany twisted so many lives.  This movie foreshadows Nazi Germany.  During the movie, perhaps because we already knew what was coming, you could feel the awfulness of what Hitler was about to bestow on the Germans.  Going to the cabaret every night to perform and have performances to focus on was a small release.  It was all they knew to get away from it all as the horribleness loomed.

On a final side note, I was looking forward to this movie as from watching American Idol in the past, I was never quite sure what Simon Cowell was talking about when he always quoted someone singing as being cabaret-ish (or whatever it was he used to say).  I was hoping this movie would put that in better perspective for me, but it didn’t.  Simon I think just wanted himself to sound smart.  Being cabaret-ish to me isn’t such a bad thing after all after seeing this film.

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