Nine

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Post by flipp525 »

Marion Cotillard seems to have survived this mess unscathed. Reviewers are consistently highlighting her as the one good thing about the film.
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Post by Damien »

Scathung reviews from the two Times's (New York and L.A.):

There Will Be Lingerie (Singing, Too)
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By A. O. SCOTT
NY Times

“My husband makes movies,” sings Marion Cotillard, with upswept Audrey Hepburn hair and an air of resignation. We’ll have to take her word for it, since the husband in question — played in a whirl of smoking, shrugging and bravura suit wearing by Daniel Day-Lewis — seems to be busily doing everything but that. His name is Guido, and while his co-workers and admirers call him Maestro, his mastery is purely notional. He made some great films in the past, apparently, but now, in Rome in the mid-1960s, he finds himself in a professional and personal tailspin just as his new project, the vague-sounding epic “Italia,” is about to commence shooting.

“I can’t make this movie,” he sings. Substitute “watch” for “make” and provide your own music. “Nine,” directed by Rob Marshall (“Chicago,” “Memoirs of a Geisha”) from the Broadway musical (first staged in 1982 and revived in 2003), is a movie about creative blockage and sexual confusion, but not quite in the way it wants to be. Straining to capture artistic frenzy, it descends into vulgar chaos, less a homage to Federico Fellini’s “8 ½” (its putative inspiration) than a travesty.

The theatrical version was built around a single set — half soundstage, half cathouse — and a handful of musically serviceable, lyrically grueling songs by Maury Yeston. The movie, written by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella, who died in 2008, adds some new numbers and opens up the scenery and the story, taking Guido and his women into the streets of Rome, to a spa on the coast nearby and into flashbacks evocative of other Fellini movies. Mr. Marshall even touches down at Cinecittà’s Studio 5, where the real maestro plied his hectic trade.

Occasionally a flicker of genuine style emerges from all this busy, gaudy fuss. Mr. Day-Lewis does not overdo the Italian-ness, and the sardonic smile playing around his mouth may be a sign of what he thinks of it all. Ms. Cotillard attains a measure of wounded dignity as Louisa, Guido’s former leading lady and much-betrayed wife. She is not spared the striptease obligations that fall to every other female character, but at least her big song is not splintered by the clumsy, mechanical cross-cutting that seems to be Mr. Marshall’s attempt to fuse choreographic energy with cinematic brio.

None of the rest of Guido’s ladies are so lucky. It must be said that “Nine” is an impressive feat of casting, with a shocking number of Oscar winners and nominees assembled in the service of its dubious and incoherent cause. Judi Dench is Guido’s costume designer and confidante. Penélope Cruz is his mistress, Carla, a married woman with serious mascara issues. Nicole Kidman is a Nordic actress meant to conjure memories of Anita Ekberg, though sadly she does not walk around with a kitten on her head. Sophia Loren is Guido’s Mamma, and Kate Hudson is a Vogue reporter who flings herself in his direction.

Stacy Ferguson, known to pop-music fans as Fergie, is Saraghina, the village prostitute who provides the boy Guido with a glimpse of forbidden pleasures. Nice for him. The rest of us watch Ms. Ferguson stomp and gyrate through a number called “Be Italian,” which, like so much else in “Nine,” resembles a spread in a Victoria’s Secret catalog, only less tasteful. Ms. Hudson, for her part, struts through an embarrassing hymn to “Cinema Italiano” — with inane lyrics about “hip coffee bars” and Guido’s “neo-realism” — that recalls not Visconti or Antonioni (or even the Italian sex farces of the 1970s) but rather those lubricious Berlusconi-esque variety shows that baffle and titillate visitors from other countries who turn on their hotel-room television sets.

Those spectacles at least come by their sleaze honestly. “Nine” dresses up its coarseness in bogus prestige, which both kills the fun and exposes an emptiness at the project’s heart — a fatal lack of inspiration. The fear of such a void is what animates the Guido character played by Marcello Mastroianni in “8 ½,” a man whose vanity, tenderness and narcissism mirrored Fellini’s own, and whose anxiety at the prospect of failing as an artist and a man made him a vivid and credible hero. That psychological dimension is missing from “Nine,” which never finds a way to communicate either the romantic ardor or the artistic passion that would make Mr. Day-Lewis’s Guido interesting.

Instead he just comes off as a jerk, a compulsive liar and seeker of attention — and, in spite of the sports cars, the cigarettes and the occasional run-in with the Roman Catholic Church, not really very Italian at all. The best that can be said about “Nine” is that its affections are sincere, though you could say the same about its hero, who has the misfortune of being in a movie that’s an even worse mess than he is.

“Nine” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Lingerie and cigarettes, but no real heat.

============================
'Nine' isn't the sum of its glittery parts
Oscar, Tony and Grammy winners fail to turn the Rob Marshall musical into something as engaging as 'Chicago.'

By BETSY SHARKEY
Los Angeles Times Film Critic

December 18, 2009

The man at the center of the universe in "Nine," the sun around which a bevy of beautiful women will circle, needs to be irresistible, radiating heat. Unfortunately, Daniel Day-Lewis is more of a cool blue moon in a distant sky type, which has its own charm, just not one that works for this adaptation of the 1982 Broadway sensation, a musical / stage riff on Fellini's classic "8½," which featured a magnetic Marcello Mastroianni as the misdirected director in the middle.

And while we're filling the suggestion box. . . . Because "Nine" is a musical, it would help if your leading man could sing, and I don't mean carry a tune, but actually flex some vocal muscle. Again, love Daniel Day-Lewis, excellent racing shirtless through the forest, but a song-and-dance man he is not.

So what does that leave "Nine" with? Well not much.

The galaxy of actresses who should bring some sizzle feel kind of chilly too. Maybe that's the fault of the fishnets and bustiers, which is what the film relies on to keep your attention rather than a story, disappointing since the script was in the hands of Michael Tolkin ("The Player") and the late Anthony Minghella ("The English Patient."). What makes all these fumbles surprising is that director Rob Marshall knows his way around musical theater, hitting his highest notes with Oscar best picture winner "Chicago."

The story here is loosely based on director Federico Fellini's experience. At middle age, the Italian auteur found himself with a bad case of writer's block; while the words wouldn't come, a lot of memories about the women he had bedded did. No surprise, thinking about the women was easier than working on a script, but ultimately the two merged to provide the foundation for "8½," which follows a middle-aged filmmaker with writer's block and many women as he tries to find his way back to the mistress he loves the best, his work.

But what in Fellini's hands became a classic -- its black comedy deconstructing the artistic temperament -- only to survive an initial translation to the stage, now returns home to film as a fiasco.

As Marshall did very well in "Chicago," he tries again in "Nine," giving the film's action a life that is both cinematic and stagy, and I mean stagy in a good way. He begins by taking the aesthetic power of a story unfolding on stage with its mostly static sets and lots of dramatic lighting.The scenes with Day-Lewis on a soundstage -- all that yawning space just waiting for a vision -- are beautiful. But the beauty is only skin deep.

Then just as that 'but wait, this is a movie" feeling kicks in, Marshall sends his actors, the action and the rest of us into a real world filled with streets and cars and crowds. But the real world is a dangerous place, and so it is here, jarring and unnerving for everyone, actors included.

Fellini's piece was set in the '60s, and Marshall keeps it there. When it comes to the movie business, which is a large part of what this story is about, 2009 is a very different place. Paparazzi, a word Fellini popularized in his 1960 film, "La Dolce Vita," has grown into a monster with TMZ tentacles everywhere. So one of "Nine's" central themes -- that the director has a mistress on the side that his wife might discover -- hasn't shocked in years. Now maybe if Guido had been a golfer. . . .

The starting gun in "Nine" is the industry's version of a firing squad -- a press conference. As flash bulbs pop, famous director Guido Contini (Day-Lewis), who's had a few recent flops, goes about deflecting the barbed questions with a blend of boredom and arrogance, though maybe that's the same thing. Regardless, there are scenes when the jaunty fedora is pulled so low, you wonder if he's dozing off.

Guido's passive nature really doesn't suit Day-Lewis any better than hot sun. Charisma, though, the self-deprecating sort that pulls you close, would have been a better choice for Guido, particularly when he's in the company of women who are supposed to be beguiled.

As to those women, Marshall has gathered up an eclectic group, including the nice touch of casting Sophia Loren, who may be the only one in the film with a real Italian accent, as Guido's mother. They spend the film spinning in and out of his orbit, helping the troubled artist work through his issues, mostly at the seaside hotel where he's escaped to try to sort himself out.

The closest "Nine" comes to a showstopper is Fergie as the prostitute whose early influence shaped Guido's passions. The intensity and energy she brings to "Be Italian," coupled with the staging and the leggy dancers, make it the one musical set piece that feels Broadway worthy, although Hudson belting out"Cinema Italiano" comes close.

Cotillard as Guido's wife, so fierce as Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose," gets to play pretty and soft, which is nice to see and she's lovely at it. On the other hand, the movie star role is not much of a stretch for Kidman.

"Nine" is one of those films that couldn't look better on paper -- so many Oscar, Tony and Grammy winners involved that the production should have literally glittered with all that gold. But in the end, nothing adds up. Perhaps "Zero" would have been a better name.
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Post by Big Magilla »

When the mainstream "we find something to like in practically everything" USA Today blasts it, you gotta believe it pretty much sucks.

Reviewed by Claudia Puig (** out of ****)

We'd all like to live in an Italian movie. So says a character in Nine, and it's probably the best line in this musical misfire.

Nine has glamour. Rome looks fabulous, as does Daniel Day-Lewis, zipping around in his Fiat in dark shades, skinny tie and slicked-back hair. But there's no substance beneath the gloss. For an homage to director Federico Fellini, who made such psychologically complex and poetic films, it's surprisingly vapid.

Director Rob Marshall (Chicago) has adapted the 1982 Broadway musical based on Fellini's seminal 1963 film, 8½. But rather than capturing the neo-realist director's singularly offbeat vision, he peppers the film with superficial images from Fellini's work.

Day-Lewis plays Guido Contini, a filmmaker who is creatively blocked. Distracted and anxious, he dallies with his mistress (Penelope Cruz), reassures his wife (Marion Cotillard), placates his producer (Ricky Tognazzi) and seeks inspiration from his muse (Nicole Kidman). He takes refuge in reverie, even turning to his dead mother (Sophia Loren) and influential memories from his youth.

You'll hear his first name repeated — mostly in song — about 50 times, as if absorbing it will give a deeper sense of him.

The dialogue is surprisingly lackluster, given that the screenplay was written by Michael Tolkin (The Player) and the late Anthony Minghella (The English Patient).

And then there's the music.

The cast members' musical talents are markedly uneven. Day-Lewis' Italian accent works in speech, but when he sings, he sounds strangely like the Count from Sesame Street. The best performers are Cotillard (who won an Oscar portraying Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose) and Stacy Ferguson (aka Fergie), whose powerful voice works well in a small but distinctive part as sensuous Saraghina.

Judi Dench, as Contini's costume designer, sings capably in a French accent in her Folies Bergere-inspired number. Cruz does a steamy song and dance, but her acting is strangely caricatured. Kate Hudson appears in over her head in her extravagant musical sequence, and Sophia Loren talk-sings her role.

Unlike Chicago, there are no showstopping musical numbers here. It takes a couple viewings/listenings to appreciate — or even distinguish — its songs. (Be Italian is the most notable.)

Nine should have been called 4½ because it doesn't come close to the work of the master who inspired it.
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Post by Sabin »

Ouch.

Nine (2009)
Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman | Dec 09, 2009
DETAILS
Release Date: Nov 25, 2009; Rated: PG-13; Length: 118 Minutes; Genres: Musical, Romance; With: Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz and Daniel Day-Lewis

If there's a lesson to be learned from Nine, it's that writer's block is not a great subject for a musical. In Rob Marshall's spangly movie version of the lavishly bombastic 1982 Broadway show — itself adapted from Federico Fellini's 1963 art-film landmark 8 1/2 — Guido (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a famous Italian film director who, in 1965, is preparing to shoot his ninth motion picture. But he's in the grand throes of an existential midlife crisis, and though he's trying to devise a way to put that bewilderment on screen, he's incapable of moving forward. He dithers and pouts, but he never does anything. There's a naggingly abstract quality to his cosmic angst.

Guido's life spins around seven bedazzling women who are all obsessed with him: his demure wife (Marion Cotillard), his saucy-neurotic mistress (Penélope Cruz), his doting mother (Sophia Loren), his loyal costume designer (Judi Dench), his sex-bomb leading lady (Nicole Kidman), a Vogue reporter (Kate Hudson), and a mysterious spirit from his boyhood (Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas). Each of them gets to do one big number (the wife gets two), and when the songs are going on, Nine at least has a pulse. Yet this musical, to my ears, hasn't aged well. The melodies tend to cluster into cliché hooks (there's a lot of honking burlesque, and too many faux-'60s-Italian carnival-of-life showstoppers), and Marshall's staging lacks the thrilling unity he brought to Chicago. The numbers, while lively, remain cluttered and stage-bound.

The women, however, are spirited and sexy. Cruz performs a mock bump-and-grind with real heat, and Fergie, as an oh-so-Fellini-esque beach drifter, turns herself into a wild electric siren. If only the lyrics weren't so awful! Cotillard, a lovely presence, is martyred by having to sing such gems as ''My husband makes movies/To make them he lives a kind of dream/In which his actions aren't always what they seem!'' No wonder Day-Lewis looks like he's having stomach trouble. He spends most of Nine as a haunted spectator, and you want to tell the guy to lighten up. The movie Guido is trying to dream doesn't look like much fun, and neither is Nine. C
"How's the despair?"
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Post by rain Bard »

Big Magilla wrote:It's not a musical for mall people. It's really a musical for big-city gay guys
Finally the fact that it's booked to open at the Castro Theatre on Christmas makes perfect sense to me.
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Post by Big Magilla »

And so did Jeffrey Wells:

Nine is what it is -- a musical based on a stage musical based on 8 1/2, a 1963 Federico Fellini classic about a brilliant Fellini-like director who can't decide what his next film will be about. It's also a kind of sleek-elite Euro mood piece about 1960s Italy and sunglasses, hot women and cool coastal villages and artistic weltshmerz and all that aromatic razmatzz. It's not about "story" as a kind of Italian glide-along atmosphere -- a lather of mood and attitude and locale and coolness.

It's not, in other words, the kind of musical that people who liked Chicago for the recognizably greedy, middle-American characters are necessarily going to relate to. It lacks...refutes, really, what is commonly regarded as the common touch. It's about the kind of movie-making people whose every word and gesture expresses the fact that they are removed from (and are most likely disdainful of) the American experience.

So given all this history and expectation -- it's a locked-down thing without any wiggle or improv room -- it really isn't too bad. I mean, it's Nine...whaddaya want?

It's certainly not painful to sit through. I guess I could amp up the enthusiasm and say that I had a moderately okay time with it, although I didn't care at all -- at all -- for director Rob Marshall's decision to shoot most of the musical numbers on the same London sound stage, over and over and over. I saw it with a lady who lives for Broadway musicals and she wasn't over the moon about it, so there's that too.

The actresses are all pretty good, and yes, Marion Cotillard has the strongest role as the wronged wife. (The fact that she sings two songs compared to everyone else having one tells us that Marshall sees her as the deepest and most compelling character).

And I loved watching Daniel Day Lewis slink around in this thing, his posture and composure in a constantly glum or downish angle. He's such an intense actor and so deeply sunk into his Guido character, and without anything to do except smoke cigarette after cigarette without coughing, and wear those great looking black suits and drive that cool little light-blue sports car around. And I love the sound of his voice -- it's like an oboe or a bassoon.

Given the likelihood that the women who've enjoyed The Blind Side and are currently very keen to see It's Complicated are going to feel a little bit cool towards Nine (everyone had to know this going in -- it doesn't have much of a heart and the music is only so-so) it's actually kind of ballsy that Harvey Weinstein pushed it through and got it made. I respect that. It's not a musical for mall people. It's really a musical for big-city gay guys, except I know a couple who've seen it and aren't huge fans so Go figure.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Uh-oh.

Nine -- Film Review
By Kirk Honeycutt, December 04, 2009 03:00 ET
Hollywood Reporter


Any number of movies have served as the basis for stage musicals -- even "Gone With the Wind" was bravely attempted, though with predictable results. But it's fairly unusual and probably not a good idea to bring such musicals back into their original medium. One of the rare instances when it did work was Federico Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria," which turned into a Broadway tuner, "Sweet Charity" (by Neil Simon, Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields), and then became a pretty terrific Bob Fosse musical film. So, understandably, the Weinstein Co. and a host of producers thought lightning might strike twice with Fellini's "8 1/2," which inspired the Tony Award-winning 1982 musical "Nine." Lightning does not strike the same place twice.

The disappointments are many here, from a starry cast the film ill uses to flat musical numbers that never fully integrate into the dramatic story. The only easy prediction is that "Nine" is not going to revive the slumbering musical film genre. Boxoffice looks problematic too, but moviegoers are going to be enticed by that cast, and the Weinstein brothers certainly know how to promote a movie. So modest returns are the most optimistic possibility.

Fellini's 1963 masterpiece takes you inside a man's head. Since he happens to be a movie director, those daydreams and recollections are visually striking but, more to the point, you sense, through the nightmares of an artist blocked from his own creativity, everything that is going on inside this man. In "Nine," written by Michael Tolkin and the late Anthony Minghella, you get a tired filmmaker with too many women in his life and not enough movie ideas.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Guido and, to his credit, it's not Marcello Mastroianni's Guido but a new character, more burnt-out than blocked and increasingly sickened by his womanizing.
Despite the English language, the film insists it's still 1965 Rome, where black-and-white, Cinecitti Studios, Vespas, Ray-Bans and all things Italian reign. A new Guido Contini movie is about to start production, but no script exists. In despair, Guido flees to a seaside spa. Within a day, his mistress (Penelope Cruz, all legs and pleading libido), demanding producer, production team and then his wife (Marion Cotillard, unable to adapt well to misery) take up residence in the small town.

Sad romantic trysts and unproductive production meetings ensue. In his imagination, all the women of his life, from his mother (a rather saintly Sophia Loren) to that whore on the beach from his childhood (Stacy Ferguson, better known as Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas), materialize. Each has her production number. Then, the numbers done, the movie returns to dreary melodrama.

Under Rob Marshall's awkward direction, it really is that segmented: melodrama, song, melodrama, song. The musical numbers clearly take place on a huge stage (at the U.K.'s Shepperton Studios), while the rest of the movie ostensibly occurs in Italy, though it often looks pretty stage-bound too.

Marshall's previous film musical "Chicago" did win the Oscar for best film, but you wonder why when the musical numbers were all pieced together in such tiny cuts you rarely caught anybody singing or dancing for more than a moment. Marshall is up to old tricks here as the numbers are all a matter of edits, zooms and multiple angles. His actors sing pretty damn well, but none is a dancer so he has to disguise this in every number.

Maury Yeston's music and lyrics are serviceable but often seem out of touch with the emotions Guido or his many women are experiencing. Marshall, who choreographs with John DeLuca, uses them to slam down high-concept, intricately staged Broadway numbers that interrupt action in this Italian seaside town. There's a staginess and a busy-ness to these numbers, but it never seems to have anything to do with Guido or his psychological problems.

Nicole Kidman as Guido's "muse" and Kate Hudson as an on-the-make American journalist get to do very little. Judi Dench is wonderful and wise as Guido's costume designer-cum-therapist and, fortunately, is asked to do little in terms of singing and dancing.

Fergie is kinda fun as a childhood fantasy of sexuality -- in the original film, the whore is fat and slovenly. Cruz and Cotillard get real characters to play, but they're the stuff of bad soap opera.

Then there's Daniel Day-Lewis. He is an incredibly sexy man and performs all the right moves. The problem is he keeps doing those moves over and over so you experience not so much artistic angst but a guy trying to sober up from a two-week binge. Sporting a scruffy beard and running a hand through long hair only goes so far.

With "Nine" you never get inside the protagonist's head. You just can't decide whether his problem is too many women or too many musical numbers breaking out for no reason.
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Post by jack »

Daily Variety's review:


Nine

By TODD MCCARTHY

A Weinstein Co. release presented with Relativity Media of a Weinstein Brothers/Marc Platt/Lucamar production, a Relativity production. Produced by Marc Platt, Harvey Weinstein, John DeLuca, Rob Marshall. Executive producers, Ryan Kavanaugh, Tucker Tooley, Bob Weinstein, Kelly Carmichael, Michael Dryer. Co-executive producers, Arthur L. Kopit, Maury Yeston. Directed by Rob Marshall. Screenplay, Michael Tolkin, Anthony Minghella, based on the musical with book by Arthur L. Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and adaptation from the Italian by Mario Fratti.

Guido Contini - Daniel Day-Lewis
Luisa Contini - Marion Cotillard
Carla - Penelope Cruz
Lilli - Judi Dench
Saraghina - Fergie
Stephanie - Kate Hudson
Claudia - Nicole Kidman
Mamma - Sophia Loren
Dante - Ricky Tognazzi
Fausto - Giuseppe Cederna
De Rossi - Valerio Mastandrea
Pierpaolo - Elio Germano
Donatella - Martina Stella
Jaconelli - Roberto Nobile
Cardinal - Remo Remotti
Dr. Rondi - Roberto Citran

"Nine" is a savvy piece of musical filmmaking. Sophisticated, sexy and stylishly decked out, Rob Marshall's disciplined, tightly focused film impresses and amuses as it extravagantly renders the creative crisis of a middle-aged Italian director, circa 1965. Given its basis in a 27-year-old Broadway show, which itself had its unlikely origins in Federico Fellini's self-reflective 1963 classic "8½," the Stateside Weinstein release will probably find a more receptive audience among culture vultures than with the masses. But a robust marketing push stressing the stellar cast, strong notices and the "another 'Chicago' " vibe should still generate solid returns, especially in urban areas.

Although the original 1982 production, with a book by Arthur L. Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and Raul Julia in the leading role, won five Tony Awards and ran for 729 performances, many theater mavens preferred the 2003 revival and its star, Antonio Banderas.

But given its heritage and the profession of the central character, the musical has found its proper place on the bigscreen, along with a cast that could scarcely be bettered. Not only can they act, but Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson and Sophia Loren can sing. Why didn't anyone know? As one, the cast would undoubtedly respond, "Because no one ever asked."

First big scene at Rome's Cinecitta Film Studios allows the film to establish its stylized method at the outset, as the many women in the life of dashing cinema genius Guido Contini (Day-Lewis) musically make their way onto an unfinished set on giant stage five as he faces the imminent start of a movie he hasn't begun to write. Called "maestro" far too often for his own good, Guido is the sun around which swirl innumerable lovers, loyal workers, acolytes and hangers-on, all whom vie for his time and attention while peppering him with questions about the new picture.

Instead of making Guido entirely self-absorbed and self-serious, Day-Lewis at once places the viewer firmly in the palm of his hand and then in his pocket by emphasizing the character's humorous awareness of his position in life. He puts on a grand show at a press conference, although one journalist, noting that Guido's last two films flopped, pierces the armor of jokiness by asking, "Have you run out of things to say?" At this, the director retreats to a seaside resort to recharge and tells his loyal wife, Luisa (Cotillard), to stay home, only to receive his lusty mistress, Carla (Cruz), who proceeds to steam up the place with her number, "A Call From the Vatican."

Except for Luisa, who has two, the women define their roles in Guido's life by through single songs, which are uniformly arresting in their own right, even if they finally reveal themselves to be mostly straightforward "statement" songs with a similar nature in the Weill-via-Kander-and-Ebb mold. After Carla's declaration of the hots for Guido come "Folies Bergere," a celebration of dreams and sensual bewitchment from Lilli (Dench), Guido's old costume designer and confidante; "Be Italian," rousingly belted out by Fergie, playing a beachside prostitute of Guido's boyhood; "My Husband Makes Movies," Luisa's moving lament that her husband's profession takes precedence over her; "Cinema Italiano," a celebration of the Italy depicted in Guido's movies sung by flirty journalist Stephanie (Hudson); the reassuring mother-to-son lullaby "Guarda la luna" sung by Loren; "Unusual Way," an acute admission by Guido's muse and frequent lead actress, Claudia (Kidman), of the strange hold he has on her; and the new "Take It All," in which Luisa brutally reminds her husband of the sexy woman he is losing.

Some other songs from the show have been adapted or dropped, and bracketing the women's numbers are two from Guido, the egocentric "Guido's Song" and his throwing in of the towel, "I Can't Make This Movie"; "Find another genius," he petulantly challenges those who would listen.

Cutting between black-and-white and color in the musical numbers and, like Fellini's film, constantly on the move as Guido is buffeted about with scarcely a moment to breathe, much less write a script, "Nine" takes the the matter of directile dysfunction seriously without being pretentious about it. With the distance of 45 years, the glory days of Italian filmmaking are depicted more for their chaotic fun than for their grave chic or philosophical import, and the double delight for the cast to be working in both a musical and a picture set in such a fabled era (one known personally among the cast members only by Loren) plainly shows in their spirited performances.

The script sets the course in these matters as well as others, notably in finding a way to honor "8½" while enabling one to put it to the side of one's mind, and in illuminating Guido's folly while still taking seriously his relationships with women. It was not for nothing that the writers engaged were Michael Tolkin, author of "The Player," and Anthony Minghella, whose "The Talented Mr. Ripley" so evocatively captured the Rome of just a few years before.

Working again with his resourceful lenser Dion Beebe, Marshall shoots in a nimble style that keeps the film alive all the way; editing by Claire Simpson and Wyatt Smith is fast but not frantic.

Camera (Technicolor/B&W, Panavision widescreen), Dion Beebe; editors, Claire Simpson, Wyatt Smith; original music, Yeston; music supervisor, Matt Sullivan; production designer, John Myhre; senior art directors, Phil Harvey, Tomas Voth; supervising art director, Simon Lamont; set decorator, Gordon Sim; costume designer, Colleen Atwood; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Jim Greenhorn; re-recording mixers, Roberto Fernandez, Mike Prestwood Smith, Richard Pryke; choreographers, Marshall, John DeLuca; hair and make-up designer, Peter King; associate producer, Cattleya; assistant director, Vicki Allen; second unit camera, Damien Beebe; casting, Kate Dowd (U.K.), Beatrice Kruger (Italy). Reviewed at Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, Dec. 3, 2009. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 118 MIN.
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Post by ITALIANO »

anonymous wrote:Why are you two talking about 2012 in a thread CLEARLY marked Nine?
Sorry, teacher. Now will I be punished?

Anyway, at the beginning of this neverending thread, when anyone here (as always when it comes to musicals) was talking about Nine as if it was, sight unseen, a proven work of art, I humbly expressed my doubts. I still do.

Reza, I think your way of seeing 2012 was the best.
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Post by Reza »

anonymous wrote:Why are you two talking about 2012 in a thread CLEARLY marked Nine?
I apologise.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

Why are you two talking about 2012 in a thread CLEARLY marked Nine?
Reza
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Post by Reza »

ITALIANO wrote:I hated every minute of it. It almost caused the breakup of my relationship.
I think it's ok to chill and enjoy a crappy film. We were about 25 friends with kids in tow so we made a ''picnic'' out of it. The kids were more interested in buying popcorn, hot dogs and assorted drinks. I suspect most of the kids were far too busy chatting with friends, via Facebook on their cell phones, to actually concentrate on the film. Once in a while I could hear them whispering to each other trying to catch up on the plot points. I confess I was also on Facebook while watching the film.
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Post by ITALIANO »

I hated every minute of it. It almost caused the breakup of my relationship.
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Post by Reza »

ITALIANO wrote:
Reza wrote:Also can't wait to watch 2012 on the big screen. Opening in Pakistan next Friday during the 4 day Eid holidays. Should be fun.
It's not.
Actually it was.....mindless fun. And yes the effects were great.
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