Nine (2009)

A dreary extravaganza that only the Academy (and like minded) could fall for. Overlong and over everything - saddled with some of the most forgettable songs in a long memory. Why waste so much talent on so little substance? Looking at the box office returns the public must have smelled a BOMB or word-of-mouth headed them off at the pass...before they sacrificed their time and money. Disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, would have liked being involved with this debauched debacle especially if they let him anywhere near the casting sessions!. Director Rob Marshal tried for another attempt at the success of "Chicago" but came unstuck BIG time. The movies this farce is based on, belong to those groups of pretentious works that were carefully groomed as 'products' - to be promoted as 'art' - along with a group of artists the informed public had little time for - till, the world 'Money Machine' got behind them and made it impossible not to notice them. From there, it became very difficult for honest critics to speak out against them for fear of being ostracized by the 'in-crowd'. Some will enjoy this movie, many more won't.

Every artist at some point in his life ends up being lost and wants to escape his own reality. He creates his own world by his own rules, lacking inspiration and things to say. Then lying becomes a habit and everything goes out of hand. But in the end of the day, we know that art is about beauty and therefore it has to be about truth. With "8 1/2", Fellini found a way to free himself from all the things that he carried on his back. He opened his heart to the world and broke all the rules of cinema, making one of the best author movies ever.The subject of the both films is the director's own struggle. However, "Nine", was a totally different film. In my opinion "8 1/2" is about Fellini himself, whereas "Nine" is about Fellini's life seen through Rob Marshall's eyes. It felt like i was watching "8 1/2" in color. Nevertheless, i had some problems with the beginning of the film. It was too long before i caught up with the character's empathy and confusion, until very late in the film, when Kate Hudson "stole the show" with a very brief but amazing performance of a woman from a fashion world. Eventually, every woman in the film brings different tone and shape of Guido's world. They are all part of his chaotic life."Nine" obviously does not have the depth of "8 1/2", but the musical sequences which intersect the narrative, every time some of the characters want to confess something, give the film a more playful and cheerful tone. I found them very helpful for the story and liberating at time. Daniel Day Lewis did a really good job as Guido Contini, being a confused but lovable director, who lost his touch with reality by wanting to be everywhere at the same time, when in the end ends up being in a labyrinth of lies. "Nine" is also some kind of American tribute for the Italian neorealism, one of the best and sexiest periods of cinema as well. This is a film about every person who is lost and finds it very difficult to be present in his own reality. It's always hard to make your work personal, but that's the only way. Thus, you never have to lie. It is very important for an artist not to lie, and most important is not to lie to himself. 8/10

This movie is terrible. I LOVE musicals, but I am not sure who the target audience is supposed to be. Although the musical numbers are pretty, the entire movie is completely void of any depth to female characters and since typically I have to drag my husband into a musical kicking and screaming I really don't get who they are trying to appeal to. I can't relate to a main character is who is an over sexed, privileged, chauvinist. Do yourself a favor and watch something else. Maybe something where they portray women as more then dolled up sex symbols. Like I said before, I love musicals, I live for musicals but I could barely get through this. It is so offense to women.

"Nine" is the story of a man whose love-interests include both Nicole Kidman and Penélope Cruz. And no, it's not a filmed biography of Tom Cruise. It started life as a stage musical suggested by Federico Fellini's semi- autobiographical film "8½". The film version was directed and produced by Rob Marshall, who also made "Chicago", another twenty-first century film based on a stage musical, something much rarer today than it would have been fifty or sixty years ago. The main character is Guido Contini, an Italian film-maker obviously based on Fellini himself. The action takes place in the Italy of the early sixties, with occasional black- and-white flashbacks to earlier periods in Contini's life. The plot concerns Contini's efforts to overcome writer's block and to complete his latest film "Italia", and also his relations with the various women in his life. These include his beautiful wife Luisa, his equally beautiful mistress Carla, his leading lady Claudia Jenssen, his mother, his costume designer Lilli and Stephanie, an American journalist trying to interview him. Contini is also influenced by memories of Saraghina, the prostitute to whom he lost his virginity. Daniel Day-Lewis is possibly the most talented actor currently working in the cinema. He is certainly among the most versatile. What impresses me about his work is that every character he plays seems so completely different from every other character he has played. He has been equally convincing as the disabled Irish writer Christie Brown in "My Left Foot", as the frontiersman Hawkeye in "The Last of the Mohicans", as the upper-class Victorian gentleman Newland Archer in "The Age of Innocence", as the thuggish Bill the Butcher in "Gangs of New York", as the tormented Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood" and as President Lincoln. Interestingly, although Day-Lewis is English by birth, most of his characters have been American or Irish; Cecil Vyse in "A Room with a View" is a rare example of him playing an Englishman."Nine" represents a new departure for Day-Lewis in two ways; it is his first musical and the first film in which he plays an Italian. (He learned to speak Italian for the role, even though most of his lines are in English). As far as his acting is concerned he is as good as ever, making the smooth, charming playboy film director Contini yet another in his gallery of memorable characters. I have to say, however, that he does not have the world's best singing voice; great actors are not always great singers, as we found out when Meryl Streep, who in her talent and versatility can be regarded as a female version of Day-Lewis, tackled a musical with "Mamma Mia!" (To be fair I should also point out that the reverse also holds true; great singers are not always great actors). On the female side, however, the singing is generally very good. Stacy Ferguson, of course, is a professional singer, but most of her co-stars are actresses whom one would not automatically associate with musicals. (Stacy is here billed simply as "Fergie" but I use her full name lest any British readers should be misled into thinking that our former Duchess of York should have commenced an acting career playing an Italian prostitute. A frightening thought). Marion Cotillard as Luisa has a particularly melodious voice. Kidman is much better here than she was in her previous musical, the dreadful "Moulin Rouge", although I was surprised she won the role of Claudia ahead of Catherine Zeta Jones who was so good in "Chicago". Cruz is excellent as Carla, both as singer and actress, and Sophia Loren's voice is remarkably good for a woman who was in her mid seventies when she made the film, although she looks considerably younger. (She does not look old enough to be Day-Lewis's mother, although in reality she would have been 23 when he was born. Perhaps her scenes are meant to reflect Contini's memories of his mother at an earlier period of her life). The musical numbers are all very professionally done and reminiscent of Marshall's work on "Chicago". Unlike "Chicago", however, which was largely jazz-based in keeping with its 1920s setting, "Nine" uses a variety of different musical styles; some songs are reminiscent of jazz, some of sixties pop, some of the traditional Broadway musical. All the cast enter into the spirit of the film, and I think that it is this spirit which makes the film so enjoyable. The film has a stylishness and an irresistible vivacity about it, qualities which carry us along and make us forget about the flimsy plot or the fact that Day-Lewis is unlikely ever to be crowned as the new Pavarotti. It is perhaps appropriate that one of the film's liveliest numbers is titled "Be Italian!", and another one "Cinema Italiano", because it reminds us of the vogue for all things Italian- Italian films, Italian fashions, Italian design- which prevailed in Britain, America and other countries in the late fifties and early sixties. Italy- and especially Rome- was seen as the place to be. It is the spirit of this time and place which the film celebrates- the spirit of La Dolce Vita. 8/10