Musicals, like comedy, play a lot different with a large, live, breathing audience… even a Hollywood audience.  From the opening orchestration to the final crescendo, this audience was with this movie, much to my amazement.  They laughed when they were supposed to, didn’t deride the emotionality of much of the film and even broke out in applause two or three times.  But my favorite thing, as someone who knew what was coming, was to hear that initial nervous titter as the audience recognized the lyric to the many familiar songs that are used… and then to watch them taken someplace they absolutely never expected to go.  Saturday Night Live has already made fun of the film for using songs from the 70s and 80s, but the reason it ends up working so well is that Luhrmann really USES the songs.  This is not a movie with a hip soundtrack.  This is a soundtrack that manages to make songs like “Up Where We Belong” and “Silly Love Songs” and “The Sound of Music” hip in a way they never really were.