Who, as it turns out, can act as well as sing; she’s quite appealing, in fact, as the new kid with the will of iron who’s determined to make it in Hollywood — albeit in a burlesque show. (Are there such things anymore — other than in Vegas? Ironic burlesque sendups in intentionally seedy boites on the Lower East Side, maybe. But full-on extravaganzas with live music and glitzy costume budgets? Oh, right, it’s a fantasy.)
[image-1]Aguilera is less effective after she gets all glammed up in the latter half of the movie, when her onstage persona gets cartoonishly sexualized in numbers like "Show Me How You Burlesque" (the song she inflicted on Dancing with the Stars viewers Tuesday night). Her skittish Brittany Murphy-esque charm comes off better earlier, and those glorious pipes are shown off to much greater advantage in songs like the agonized “Bound to You” (although it’s not quite clear why she’s agonized — right before the song she’s hanging with her gorgeous new boyfriend).
Cher remains a monument to Cher-ness. She looks and sounds fab, she’s still a master of the sardonic throwaway line, and as Tess, the club owner/chanteuse, she gets to show off a fiery temper and moments of touching vulnerability. She and Christina spar and make up convincingly (dueling showbiz chutzpah!) and her connection with Tucci has the good-natured edge of longtime friendship.
She also gets to belt a torch song, just because, well, she’s Cher — a Diane Warren barnburner called “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” — and it’s a credit to Cher that, even though the song succeeds in making a long movie even longer for no particular reason, most audiences will hear it and think, “Good — I’m glad we haven’t seen the last of you.”
Of course, no audience will be happier about the prospect of more Cher than drag queens, for whom she is a goddess eminently worth imitation. Her first number, “Welcome to Burlesque,” seems ready-made for the task, with lyrics like “nothing is what it seems” and vaguely lesbionic come-ons. And come to think of it there is one place where you can still see glitzy burlesque like this — drag shows.
[image-2]In the buildup to Burlesque, gay circles were abuzz about the trailer being the gayest thing ever. Well, the movie’s even gayer. Besides the sequins and the eye-liner (on boys and girls) and the snarky asides, there’s Tucci (who gets a cute boyfriend), bad-girl Kristen Bell, Grey’s Anatomy hunk Eric Dane, interestingly dissolute hunk Peter Gallagher, plus Alan Cumming reprising (ripping off?) his decadent emcee shtick from the Broadway revival of Cabaret.
Throw in the lovingly filmed torso (and moreso) of the extravagantly handsome Cam Gigandet and, well, gay men, this is pretty much Hollywood’s glittery tinsel-wrapped gift to you. And me.
But hey, America, we’ll share.
