| | | If you can't be famous, be infamous
Features: DVD, Widescreen
Winner of six Academy Awards (2002) including Best Picture, and starring Academy Award nominee (Best Actress, Chicago) and Golden Globe winner (Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, Chicago) Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones's Diary), Academy Award winner (Best Supporting Actress, Chicago) Catherine Zeta-Jones (Traffic), Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actress, Chicago) Queen Latifah (Bringing Down The House), Golden Globe winner (Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, Chicago) Richard Gere (Unfaithful), and Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actor, Chicago) John C. Reilly (Gangs Of New York)--Chicago is a dazzling spectacle cheered by audiences and critics alike! At a time when crimes of passion result in celebrity headlines, nightclub sensation Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones) and spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart (Zellweger) both find themselves sharing space on Chicago's famed Murderess Row! They also share Billy Flynn (Gere), the town's slickest lawyer with a talent for turning notorious defendants into local legends. But in Chicago, there's only room for one legend! Also starring Lucy Liu (Charlie's Angels).
"Not since the 1972 Cabaret has there been a movie musical this stirring, intelligent and exciting." Desson Howe, Washington Post
"More fun than a high kick to the head..." Kim Linekin, EYE Weekly
"...it's Zeta-Jones who keeps you watching from start to finish." Manohla Dargis, L.A. Times
"The movie is a total blast..." Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
Editor's Note
This Hollywood adaptation of the classic Broadway musical sparkles with glamour and reverberates with the energy of good, old-fashioned song and dance. As the film leaps into its first riveting act, Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), one half of the famous number she performs with her sister, arrives at the night club late, disheveled, and with blood on her hands. Nonetheless, she goes onstage unhindered and wows the crowd with her shimmying rendition of "All That Jazz." Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) a young blond who dreams of someday being famous like Velma, watches from the audience with eyes full of envy. Later, as the cops pick up Velma for the murder of her sister, sending her fame to all-time heights as she becomes a tabloid sensation, Roxie also commits a crime of passion--shooting a lover who falsely promised to secure her cabaret debut. The girls wind up together in jail, where Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), a compassionate guard, is their only hope of redemption; and Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) is the lawyer who can get them out. There, through wonderfully familiar songs like "Razzle Dazzle," "Cell-Block Tango," and "Cellophane Man" Roxie and Velma tell their story of competing for bad-girl celebrity.Director Rob Marshall presents a loveable CHICAGO that shares all the grit and grime of the Bob Fosse Broadway original with phenomenal performances by this grouping of Hollywood stars. The dizzying camerawork and dazzling sets make an easy transition from stage to film.
| Features | Behind-The-Scenes Special | | Deleted Musical Number "Class," Performed By Catherine Zeta-Jones & Queen Latifah | | Director & Screenwriter Feature Commentary | | Widescreen 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio | | Closed Captioned | | Audio: English DTS 5.1 Digital Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Buena Vista |
| Release Date: 1/12/2007 |
| Running Time: 113 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2002 | | Catalog ID: 3070003 | | UPC: 00786936219197 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Catherine Zeta-Jones | | Colm Feore | | John C. Reilly | | Lucy Liu | | Queen Latifah | | Renée Zellweger | | Renee Zelwegger | | Richard Gere | | Taye Diggs | | Maurine Dallas Watkins - Based On Play By | | "Chicago" - Based On The Musical Play | | Bob Fosse & Fred Ebb - Book Of The Musical Play By | | Laura Rosenthal & Ali Farrell - Casting By | | Rob Marshall - Choreographed By | | Dion Beebe - Cinematographer | | Don Carmody - Co-Producer | | Coleen Atwood - Costume Designer | | Colleen Atwood - Costume Designer | | Bob Fosse - Directed And Choreographed For The Stage By | | Rob Marshall - Directed By | | Rob Marshall - Director | | Dion Beebe - Director of Photography | | Martin Walsh - Edited By | | Martin Walsh - Editor | | Ric Wake, Randy Spendlove - Executive Music Producers | | Jennifer Berman - Executive Producer | | Bob Weinstein - Executive Producer | | Harvey Weinstein - Executive Producer | | Harvey Weinstein, Meryl Poster, Julie Goldstein, Jennifer Berman, Bob Weinstein, Sam Crothers - Executive Producers | | Craig Zadan, Neil Meron - Executive Producers | | Fred Ebb - Lyrics By | | John Kander - Music By | | Paul Bogaev - Music Supervised And Conducted By | | Maureen Crowe - Music Supervisor | | John Kander - Musical Score | | Danny Elfman - Musical Score | | Danny Elfman - Original Score Music By | | Martin Richards - Produced By | | Martin Richards - Producer | | John Myhre - Production Designer | | Bill Condon - Screenplay By | | Bill Condon - Writer | | Fred Ebb - Writer | | Bob Fosse - Writer |
| Awards |
Golden Globe (2003) |  | Richard Gere, Winner, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy | | Renee Zelwegger, Winner, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy | |
Oscar (2003) | | John Myhre (art director), Gordon Sim (set decorator), Winner, Best Achievement in Art Direction | | Colleen Atwood, Winner, Best Achievement in Costume Design | | Martin Walsh , Winner, Best Achievement in Editing | | Michael Minkler, Dominic Tavella, David Lee (III), Winner, Best Achievement in Sound | | Marty Richards (II), Winner, Best Motion Picture of the Year | | Catherine Zeta-Jones, Winner, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role | |
Screen Actors Guild (2003) | | Renee Zellweger, Winner, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | | Catherine Zeta-Jones, Winner, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role | | Christine Baranski, Ekaterina Chtchelkanova, Taye Diggs, Denise Faye (I), Colm Feore, Richard Gere, Deirdre Goodwin, Mya (I), Lucy Liu, Queen Latifah, Susan Misner, John C. Reilly, Dominic West, Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Winner, Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture |
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| | Professional Reviews | Los Angeles Times
"...It's Zeta-Jones who keeps you watching from start to finish....She refuses to let you go....If musicals are dreams, she is their greatest dreamer..." 12/27/2002 p.C8New York Times
"...It's the raw expenditure of energy and the canniness of the staging that should pull audiences in and keep them rooted..." 12/27/2002 p.E1 USA Today
"...CHICAGO shows how much the element of surprise is missing from today's movies....It's part of the basic Zeta-Jones bio that she can really sing, and, wow, can she..." 12/27/2002 p.7D Rolling Stone
"...Zellweger wins our hearts. That's what makes her dangerous. Just like the movie....Dynamite..." 01/23/2003 p.76 Film Comment
"...Zeta-Jones, all legs and growls, has found her calling card..." 01/01/2003 p.73 Box Office
"...Fresh and daring....Queen Latifah and John C. Reilly are the surprise standouts..." 03/01/2003 p.59 Movieline's Hollywood Life
"...[The actors] deliver sizzling performances....This tawdry, hard-as-nails carnival of ghouls generates plenty of fireworks..." 02/01/2003 p.62 Sight and Sound
"...[Jones] makes nightclub singer Velma a droll fishnet virtuoso..." 02/01/2003 p.41-2 Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
This story, lightweight but cheerfully lurid, fueled Bob Fosse, John Kander and Fred Ebb's original stage production of Chicago, which opened in 1975 and has been playing somewhere or other ever after--since 1997 again on Broadway. Fosse, who grew up in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, lived in a city where the daily papers roared with the kinds of headlines the movie loves. Killers were romanticized or vilified, cops and lawyers and reporters lived in each other's pockets, and newspapers read like pulp fiction. There's an inspired scene of ventriloquism and puppetry at a press conference, with all of the characters dangling from strings. For Fosse, the Chicago of Roxie Hart supplied the perfect peg to hang his famous hat. - Roger Ebert
Rolling Stone 9 of 10
Who knew the Z in Zellweger and Zeta-Jones stood for zowie? They pour their hearts into the John Kander and Fred Ebb score (the team's best after Cabaret) and dance with flair. Did they have help in the editing? Probably. Who cares? The usually laid-back Gere really turns it on. Wait till you see him tap-dance. Leggy Zeta-Jones is so hot in the "All That Jazz" number, she's flammable. And Zellweger defines delicious. Even when Roxie abuses her doormat husband, Amos (John C. Reilly stops the show with "Mr. Cellophane"), Zellweger wins our hearts. That's what makes her dangerous. Just like the movie. Depraved? I'd call it dynamite. - Peter Travers
James Berardinelli's ReelViews 8 of 10
The movie represents good, solid entertainment. It's not nearly as rousing as the Broadway revival (then again, it's rare that the cinematic version of a musical comes close to the stage incarnation), but, for those unable or unwilling to see a live production, it represents a sparkling replacement. The film strikes a nice balance between the lavishly overproduced likes of Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge and the less openly flamboyant movies from the '50s. The style, by intention, echoes that of the late, great choreographer Fosse. - James Berardinelli
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