Pass and Fail
The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt has huffed and puffed and unequivocally panned Rob Marshall's Nine (Weinstein Co., 12.18). And Variety's Todd McCarthy, playing it cooler and more circumspect. has given it a friendly and approving pat on the back.
Nicole Kidman, Daniel Day Lewis in Rob Marshall's Nine.
And yet between the lines you can sense an absence of serious gushing pleasure in McCarthy's reactions. The ultimate effect is that his review doesn't really counter-balance Honeycutt's, which is much more impassioned. What Nine needs now is a champion -- an advocate to ride in on a white horse with wings (like the TriStar horse) and write something about Nine that's not just knowing and supportive but operatic. An orgasm review that gets high off its own juices...anyone?
"The Nine disappointments are many," grumbles Honeycutt, "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. Box-office 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.
"Federico 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. He's 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.
Penelope Cruz, Daniel Day Lewis.
"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."
McCarthy finds not just reason but rhyme. "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," he writes.
Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella's script "notably finds a way to honor 8 1/2 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.
"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?'"
Which instantly recalls a Randy Newman lyric from a few years ago: "I got nothin' left to say / "I'm gonna say it anyway."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on December 4, 2009 at 8:17 AM
comment #1
OtownRog
says ...
Sounds like you're calling out Dave "Dreamgirls" Poland to ride to the rescue.
Posted by OtownRog
at December 4, 2009 10:25 AM
comment #2
Brandon Boudreaux
says ...
I'm pretty positive this movie will be the top one on my Movies that Pissed Me Off in 2009 list. Other than Daniel Day-lewis nothing, and I mean nothing, about this seems appealing to me. I loathed Rob Marshall's first two films and pointlessly remaking a classic, now with more pointless musical numbers, seems unbearable. Hell I've already got my Irish up just reading this article.
Posted by Brandon Boudreaux
at December 4, 2009 10:26 AM
comment #3
lazarus
says ...
Poland just trashed it last night, and Kris Tapley said he's in "99.9%" agreement with him.
Posted by lazarus
at December 4, 2009 10:28 AM
comment #4
Colin
says ...
Day-Lewis is the sole reason I might consider watching this, but I'm too offput by Cruz, Hudson and the dance numbers.
Posted by Colin
at December 4, 2009 10:28 AM
comment #5
Rich S.
says ...
In that shot, Kidman looks like Ayesha (She Who Must Be Obeyed) before bathing in the pillar of fire. Someone must have found the picture of her in the attic.
Posted by Rich S.
at December 4, 2009 10:45 AM
comment #6
Moises Chiullan
says ...
The prevailing ignorance going around is that this film Nine is a direct Tolkin/Minghella adaptation of 8 1/2 and not a film adaptation of Maury Yeston's stage musical Nine, which heavily borrows from and is inspired by 8 1/2. Honeycutt's review reads like he wrote 95% of it before he saw the movie. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm curious what people who are actually familiar with the stage musical (as Poland seems to be) think of it, rather than those who assume it's strictly 8 1/2: The Music-Added Remake.
Posted by Moises Chiullan
at December 4, 2009 10:52 AM
comment #7
Circumvrent
says ...
Moises: I'm a fan of NINE the musical. I've seen NINE the film. I am not a fan of NINE the film.
It gets to the point where it makes so many crucial omissions from its source and so many completely unnecessarily additions that you wonder if they decided to do a lousy job on purpose.
Posted by Circumvrent
at December 4, 2009 11:21 AM
comment #8
Moises Chiullan
says ...
Circumvrent: That's precisely what I was (unfortunately) expecting. What numbers did they cut?
Posted by Moises Chiullan
at December 4, 2009 11:27 AM
comment #9
Chase Kahn
says ...
If you listen to Tapley on Oscar Talk and then read Poland's review, it's like they shared notes at a screening.
Posted by Chase Kahn
at December 4, 2009 11:37 AM
comment #10
Circumvrent
says ...
Moises:
Oh boy, where to start? The most crucial omissions were the title song (!), "Bells of St. Sebastian" and "Simple." But there are others. At least two numbers were added; you'll know which ones they are, because they are fucking terrible. And due to Day-Lewis's limited musical chops (not a criticism, just a fact), a bunch of the numbers that do remain lack the gusto found in the '03 Production and what I've heard of the show that Raul Julia starred in.
If you're a fan of the play, it's still worth seeing. But you should temper your expectations, to say the least.
Posted by Circumvrent
at December 4, 2009 11:40 AM
comment #11
LanceMc
says ...
"...musical numbers that never fully integrate into the dramatic story"
Welcome to the musical.
"The only easy prediction is that Nine is not going to revive the slumbering musical film genre."
The greatest musical the world has ever seen couldn't possibly accomplish this right now.
"You just can't decide whether his problem is too many women or too many musical numbers breaking out for no reason."
Does this guy even enjoy musicals?
Now, word on this film hasn't been particularly strong ever since the first screenings, so I'm not expecting anything on the level of Kelly, Fosse, Demy, etc. But I'm fairly certain there is still much pleasure to be had in watching Lewis do his thing and in watching beautiful people dance around in beautiful clothing as viewed by Dion Beebe's lens. Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench.... whatever, I'm so there.
Posted by LanceMc
at December 4, 2009 11:44 AM
comment #12
Stringer Bell
says ...
If DD Lewis isn't a dead ringer for Bruce Springsteen in that photo, I don't know who is.
Posted by Stringer Bell
at December 4, 2009 11:47 AM
comment #13
Moises Chiullan
says ...
The absence of The Bells of St. Sebastian is inexcusable. Even a non-singer could perform that in a film by "whisper-singing" it for the most part. If the title song weren't "the title song", it wouldn't seem so sacrilegious that it's gone. Simple, though, wow...
Based on the notices on Kidman, I can imagine Zeta-Jones would have been a major improvement had she not dropped.
Posted by Moises Chiullan
at December 4, 2009 12:00 PM
comment #14
George Prager
says ...
"It is ....a movie!"
Rex Reed New York Observer
"I....liked.....it!
A.O. Scott, New York Times
"Great... performances...by....all!"
Roger Ebert
Posted by George Prager
at December 4, 2009 12:05 PM
comment #15
Moises Chiullan
says ...
I've watched the "video" for Cinema Italiano. Is that Hudson singing, or a voice double?
Posted by Moises Chiullan
at December 4, 2009 12:10 PM
comment #16
Circumvrent
says ...
By that point, I couldn't hear with all the blood in my ears.
Posted by Circumvrent
at December 4, 2009 12:40 PM
comment #17
Moises Chiullan
says ...
Ha!
Posted by Moises Chiullan
at December 4, 2009 12:41 PM
comment #18
Noah Cross
says ...
But I was so counting on this to be a hit...Now how am I going to sell "Seven!", a musical adaptation of Bergman's "The Seventh Seal."
(Is it just me, or does Kidmon look a bit like Charo in that picture.)
Posted by Noah Cross
at December 4, 2009 11:29 PM
comment #19
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at June 7, 2010 9:02 AM