Tagged: “Unmissable.”
Source: TV Ad
Location: Manchester AMC
Accompanied by: Andrew
Line re-action: When we arrived there were a couple of kids and the security guard at the counter. These were naughty kids (a common theme already occurring with this specific cinema) trying to get into an 18 (or maybe a 15) certificate movie, to which the employee repetitively told them, “You can get in for Where The Wild Things Are”. ‘Great advice’ I thought. The reason I mention this is that the lady who served me was pretty engrossed by this, so me wanting to be served was just a plain nuisance for her.
I delivered the line as I typed in my pin number. Her re-action? Nothing. I was shunned. She didn’t even pay me any attention. A first for Project Unmissable.
Film Review: It comes as no great surprise to tell you that I’m not a fan of musicals. Not a jot. It’s like watching a class of drama students in their element, and I can’t stand drama students! The only musical I like is what I like to consider the “anti-musical”, ‘Dancer In The Dark’. Yes, it’s the chin-strokers musical, but it’s truly a great piece of work and unlike any musical I’ve ever seen. You see my problem with musicals is that they’re overly happy and too in-your-face. They’re all very samey too. A big song and dance over the littlest of things and lots of middle-of-the-road humour. It’s all a bit too pompus, even for me. So when NINE was tagged as “unmissable”, I can’t say I was too happy at receiving this so-called Christmas gift (we saw the ad on Christmas day).
NINE was a 1982 stage musical adaptation of Felini’s ‘8 ½’. The premise is very, VERY simple. A famous Italian film director, Guido Contini (played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who’s donning an Italian accent you know) is set to make his NINTH movie, but he doesn’t know what to make it about. He hasn’t got a single word written. And to make matters worse, his previous films have been flops - the pressure’s on. And that’s all there is to the story. We’re constantly told that Guido is struggling to think of anything to write; yet the film sets have been built and the costumes have been made and part of the cast has been cast. But there’s no script!
Guido is a stereotypical Italian. He smokes a lot; he dresses very cool and drinks coffee. He’s even cheating on his wife, Luisa (played by the very gorgeous Marion Cotillard) with Carla (Penelope Cruz plays her). If there was to be a saving grace to this film (and believe me, there isn’t one) then it’s the amount of pretty ladies in it. Aside from the aforementioned two ladies, there’s also Nicole Kidman (who, as Andrew pointed out, probably filmed all of her scenes in an afternoon) and the incredibly beautiful Kate Hudson (who has a totally pointless role in the film as the editor of Vogue magazine – she looks great though).
Kate Hudson’s character isn’t the only pointless character in the film. There’s also Fergie (who looks absolutely terrible in this film; more so than usual) who appears in a flashback of a nine-year-old Guido who, along with his friends, pays her to dance rather evocatively for them (she rubs sand into her boobies), a little bit wrong if you ask me. I still can’t fathom why she’s even in this film. In fact, I still can’t fathom many things about this film. Aside from the many unnecessary characters, there’s a lot of uncalled for songs. Now yes, I know it’s a musical so it HAS to have songs in it, but the songs do nothing to add to the narrative or drive the story along. The most pointless song of them all is the one sang by Guido’s wife, who sings a song telling us that her husband makes movies, something we established in the opening frames and hadn’t forgotten by the time this song came on. If ever a film had been padded out for far too long, this one is quite possibly the guiltiest for it.
There are lots of flashback scenes (in black and white) to Guido as a child. I THINK the director (Rob Marshall) was trying to pay homage to the films of Felini, but personally, I think he failed at it. Just because they were in black and white and filmed in Italy doesn’t quite pull it off for me.
To be honest, it’s a very difficult film to review, as I’m just confused as to what the purpose of it is. Having done a little research it seems that the film is about Guido’s relationship with NINE ladies, but there’s only two, three at a push, ladies who he has some form of relationship with. The rest are just screen fillers.
Andrew and myself were confused at the first big song and dance in the film. I was worried at first that I was just being dumb, but thankfully Andrew turned to me and said, “What’s all this about?” One of the big problems with the songs in this musical is that NONE of them are catchy or even upbeat. They’re all pretty dour or bad throwbacks to cabaret songs. I thought musicals were supposed to have catchy songs. None of these were memorable, and neither was the film. Daniel Day-Lewis, who is a bloody good actor, cannot sing in a convincing Italian accent. He spoke in one very well, but as for singing, no; it’s just not happening. The main culprit for the worst Italian accent was the gentleman playing the producer. His accent kept on breaking into a British accent - really bad.
There may be many big names in this film; as well as the previously mentioned, there’s also Judi Dench and Sophia Loren (who looked as confused as me as to what the hell was supposed to be going on in this film, though that could just be the surgery), but they’re not enough to save this dire attempt at a musical. Overall this film is completely irrelevant, just so much pointless stuff in it. It’s just a feeble excuse for the director to self-indulge and cop a perv on some pretty ladies in skimpy clothing. This film did nothing to convince me that musicals are a worthwhile genre. My verdict doesn’t quite do justice to just how poor this film really was.
Oh, and there’s only SEVEN ladies by my counting Guido has “relationships” with. Seven plus one makes EIGHT, not NINE!
Verdict: Abysmal
