kellydeal:

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - Wig In A Box

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OK. I’m just going to come out and say it. Moulin Rouge sucked. Fucking sucked. Hear me out— While I think Baz Luhrmann did brilliant and painfully original work with Romeo + Juliette and Strictly Ballroom, he totally bit every Bollywood convention with Moulin Rouge. Critics heralded it as the return of the American Movie Musical and praised Luhrmann and the cast as something something great. It was nominated for six Oscars and won two.

And I couldn’t fucking believe it.

Meanwhile, this little indie movie musical by John Cameron Mitchell bounced along from arthouse to arthouse with more heart, originality and spark than all 127 minutes of Luhrmann’s Bollywood rip and the Academy snubbed it.

Well then, why didn’t Hedwig and the Angry Inch do better? Why isn’t it as popular?

Homophobia. Plain and simple.

See, Hedwig is a transexual, East German girl who, as an adolescent teen boy named Hansel, falls in love with an African-American G.I. who gives him enough cash for a back-room sex change operation. As things go, the G.I. abandons Hansel, now Hedwig, for another boy-girl, in some trailerpark, base-town in Kansas.

Hedwig recounts her story as she and her band do their U.S. tour at Bilgewater Inn all-you-can-eat seafood restaurants. Turns out that an old flame turned ultra-megastar, Tommy Gnosis, played by Michael Pitt is in the same cities at the same time.

Without giving the movie away, I’ll say this; Hedwig and the Angry Inch was the better of the two musical movies in 2001. It stayed away from old hacks and introduced amazingly fresh and original punk and glam rock numbers by Mitchell and Stephen Trask and a story—oh man, the story—of love and struggle and difference.

And that difference is beautiful and painful and rich and hard and tragic and wonderful without once, resting on budget or camera tricks or clichés or big names or medium names walking around on their knees (seriously, WTF up with that?)

I watch this movie at least once or twice a year. It never gets old and I haven’t turned totally gay, yet. Go rent this movie— No better yet, BUY this movie today (Amazon).

P.S. I hate musicals.