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“Nine” Review

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“Nine” Review

Nine Photo The all-star cast of Rob Marshall’s high-kicking musical extravaganza Nine, adapted from the 1982 Broadway show of the same name based on Fellini’s 8 ½, get their moment in the spotlight, one by one. Some are worth waiting for — Marion Cotillard’s two wronged-wife numbers are the movie’s hidden heart and soul. But without her luminous contribution, we would be stuck with the hollow dimensions and thrusting cleavage of an expensively dressed revue night. Like Cotillard, Daniel Day-Lewis sings and moves immaculately as the harassed Fellini figure, Guido Contini, who just can’t seem to get going on his hypothetical ninth movie. He feels thwarted by the public pressure on an artist of his iconic stature, and also by his self-defeating instincts as a serial philanderer, imagining torrid flings with anything in lingerie…read more [Telegraph.co.uk] Director Rob Marshall (with the help of Bill Condon’s outstanding script) made Chicago one of the best films of 2002. The songs were memorable, the tone was sharp, the performances were strong, the script made a welcome criticism of the criminal celebrity, and Marshall managed to turn almost every musical number into a showstopper. Because John Kander had created such fantastic songs, it was up to Marshall to meet the challenge of unlocking the creative potential of each one. Nine works the opposite way with Marshall trying to use his visual flair as a distraction from the terrible music. The only time he has a Chicago-moment is with the film’s only good number, “Be Italian”. It’s Nine’s only showstopper and as the film drags on you wish it actually had stopped the show. Instead, Nine is a slog where you find yourself thinking, “Okay, so which actresses haven’t had their musical number yet…”…read more [Collider] Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Guido Contini in Nine Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Guido Contini in Nine “Penélope Cruz is one of the most beautiful, attractive and hitherto classy women on the entire planet,” points out Channel 4 Film’s Catherine Bray. “To watch her grinding her crotch at the camera like a Pussycat Doll gone wild, while breathing “Cootchie, cootchie, cootchie coo, I’ve got a plan for what I’m gonna do to you” is a profoundly embarrassing experience.” “Listen: can you hear a sort of whooshing and gurgling?” asks our own Peter Bradshaw. “That is the sound of Daniel Day-Lewis flushing his mystique down the toilet. He has mystifyingly taken the non-singing lead in a musical that is hideously naff, shallow, creepingly misogynist, badly acted and as phoney as a three-lire bill.”…read more [Guardian] Before I proceed with the much-deserved blasting of “Nine”, I should point out that the star studded cast is not to blame for this misfire. The incomparable Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Guido, and although he acquits himself well enough with what little singing he does, he is given very little else to really sink his teeth into, outside of his character’s depressed meandering. Penelope Cruz, as Guido’s current mistress, has a moment in the sun with her genuinely scorching, if inconsequential number. The other famous Tom Cruise ex of the cast, Nicole Kidman, comes and goes through the story effectively enough, but poor Marion Cotillard – playing the part of Guido’s put-upon wife – the chameleon actress is saddled with some of the worst lyrics in a show full of embarrassing lyrics (her song, “My Husband Makes Movies” is unintentionally hilarious in the worst way). The only true eye-opener here is the singer Fergie as Saraghina, who benefits from having the only good and memorable song in “Nine”, “Be Italian”…read more [TwitchFilm] Nine photo For me, the highlight of the film was the beautiful Marion Cotillard as Guido’s neglected wife. Her striptease number, ‘Take It All’ is the sexiest thing in the film, and the idea that Guido would cheat on her is laughable. As for Nicole Kidman- playing Guido’s muse, I’m afraid this is not a comeback film for her, as she’s just bad here as she was in AUSTRALIA, and THE INVASION. I also think she’s had a bit too much botox, as her face looks a tad immobile throughout- which is a shame, as Kidman’s the last person who’d ever need cosmetic surgery to improve her appearance. Overall, I found NINE a pretty lousy musical, and not anything I’d recommend seeing, unless you absolutely loved director Rob Marshall’s previous Broadway adaptation, CHICAGO. If, like me, you thought it was overrated, then it’s best to skip this all together, as this is one play that should have been left on the Great White Way…read more [Joblo] Nine Photo Forget the provenance of Nine for a moment and consider it solely as a movie unto itself. Rob Marshall’s musical is a dreamy, sometimes nightmarish journey by a single man – movie director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) – whose muse has deserted him, though its female embodiment (or the plural thereof) is grabbing at him from all sides. Indeed, the women in Guido’s life, who have served as his inspiration in the past, now seem to be draining him without even realizing it. Even as he struggles to figure out what his next movie is going to be about (it’s supposed to start shooting in a week), the women are pawing at him for attention, for favors, for time…read more [The Huffington Post] Rob Marshall’s flawed but frequently dazzling Nine is a hot-blooded musical fantasia full of song, dance, raging emotion and simmering sexuality. We get to watch British acting dynamo Daniel Day-Lewis be Italian as Guido Contini, a genius director of the swinging Sixties (ciao, Federico Fellini) struggling to put the movie in his head up on the screen. That movie concerns the women in his life — mother (Sophia Loren), wife (Marion Cotillard), muse (Nicole Kidman), mistress (Penélope Cruz), reporter (Kate Hudson), colleague (Judi Dench) and whore (Fergie). With an indisputably gifted actor playing ringmaster to such feminine life force, what’s not to like? You could argue that Nine, a 1982 Broadway hit spun off from Fellini’s own 1963 psychodrama, 8 1/2, and revived in 2003, was never the equal of its source. But Maury Yeston composed a score of surpassing beauty. The challenge for Marshall, following his Oscar-winning Chicago, was to bring another hallucinatory musical to the screen without repeating himself or dimming the material’s blazing, untamed theatricality…read more [Rolling Stone] Stacy Ferguson stars as Saraghina in Nine Stacy Ferguson stars as Saraghina in Nine It’s a great film, some say his best. “Nine” the musical “adapts” it, true enough, but doesn’t feel it. Consider Fellini’s most famous scene. The many women in the life of the hero Guido (played by Marcello Mastroianni) assemble in a fantasy harem and greet him: the Swedish stewardess, his wife, his mistress, his mother, Saraghina the local whore of his childhood and, above all, his muse (Claudia Cardinale), a reassuringly perfect woman, encouraging, never critical. In the harem they caress him, bathe him, soothe him — and then reveal complaints and criticisms, so that he has to take up a whip and threaten them like a lion tamer…read more [Roger Ebert]

Stacy Ferguson stars as Saraghina in Nine Stacy Ferguson stars as Saraghina in Nine

NINE is a movie that glorifies and celebrates what’s fascinating about Italia and its cinema, each musical number, each song puts Italia on a pedestal. Marshall gives us nostalgic shots, and by that I mean, some scenes would remind us of what Francis Ford Coppola would do for his Godfather saga. What’s funny about NINE is that the director is American, and most of the lead actors are British, French, Spanish, Aussie.. and then one Sophia Loren who’s a natural born Italian, but it works not just because we’re talking about a bunch of talented Oscar worthy individuals here, a group of people or an ensemble cast with a list of awards the size of Texas, but it also sorta speaks along the line of the theme of the movie.. lying… about yourself, about what you’re doing, hide and lie, and then hide and lie some more…read more [Rama’s Screen] Nine Photo The setup will sound familiar to fans of classic European cinema, because it is in essence a reborn version of Fellini’s 8 ½, by way of the stage. Guido (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an Italian director struggling mightily with his next project. A week away from production and he has no script. Guido begins imagining the women in his life – from his mother through his first flirtation and up to his concurrent wife, mistress, and muse – as the genesis of a new film, although it appears to be a film he’ll never make. Marshall has assembled a marvelous cast. Only two of its members haven’t won Academy Awards, and only one (the Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie) has not been nominated. While it’s interesting to see Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, and even Kate Hudson sing, they all seem a bit limited. The worst impression, oddly enough, is made by the best actor in the cast and maybe the best actor in the world. Daniel Day-Lewis seems uncomfortable with his accent, his clothes, his fellow actors, and even his solo performance…read more [GetTheBigPicture] Director Rob Marshall interview for Nine [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqSYa6QyGhc[/youtube]   “Nine” movie Clip: Kate Hudson – Cinema Italiano [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HcRtBcWHs0[/youtube]
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