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?Chicago? (2002) was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture. The movie stars Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere, and Queen Latifah appears in an important supporting role. I have never seen a stage production of ?Chicago,? and I missed it on the big screen during its theatrical release, but when I watched it at home recently on DVD, I found it very entertaining.


The DVD provides a feature-length audio commentary track with director Rob Marshall and screenwriter Bill Condon, and there?s also a deleted musical number called ?Class? performed by Zeta-Jones and Latifah.

I laughed a lot while watching ?Chicago,? and it contains about 15 song-and-dance numbers. However, the filmmakers didn?t want the story to stop while the musical numbers are performed, and lovers of traditional musicals might be disappointed. I see the movie as more of a comedy with musical numbers than as a musical.

I?m not sure of the exact reasons why, but ?Chicago? didn?t completely pull me in on an emotional level. I never got caught up in this film the way I did in, say, Baz Luhrmann?s ?Moulin Rouge.

? This may have been in part because the story in ?Chicago? provides no romance, which has been essential to many successful musicals in the past. Also, the editing in ?Chicago? intercuts musical numbers with story in a way that undermines its emotional punch.
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