Friday, December 4, 2009

Nein

By Chase Kahn

David Poland's 12.03 review of Rob Marshall's Nine (Weinstein Company, 12.25.09) echoes the sediments of InContention's Kris Tapley almost like the two compared notes at a screening.

"Nine is a movie with two memorable songs, performances that are routinely better than what the performers are given to perform, a problematically intense but not charming performance at the center, and most painfully, a lack of basic storytelling."


"What we get...is a rather symmetrical series of music videos with two women he's fucked, two women who he hasn't and knows he shouldn't, a whore (literally), and two Madonnas in mama and wife. Rob Marshall [director] knows how to come up with specific ideas in these music videos and he knows how to deliver what he wants."

"But what he wants is often painfully confused and superficial."

This all goes back to what Anne Thompson said (who is a fan of the film), when she described it as a "guilty pleasure". Surely with the NBR ignoring the film yesterday and early word ranging from "not bad, fun" to "problematic and slim - a music video thing", it's no longer a contender. We'll see, though.

3 comments:

  1. I'm ok with this being fun. That's all I want out of it. I didn't care that much for Chicago but I thought it was fun and entertaining.

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  2. True, I can live with that, but the fact that it's releasing on Christmas Day with all of the prestige behind it, being fun will get it a platter of mixed reviews/handful of nominations and this thing needs to make a ton of money to break even.

    I'd rather see this than Clint Eastwood's "Invictus" without a doubt.

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  3. People are so hypocritical. So because its fun it's bad? He's ignoring two things? This could be Marshall's intention, and it's symmetrically in keeping with the musical. If the source is one way, you'll probably expect to adaptation to be in tandem. Oh well. We'll see what happens. I second you on preferring to see this over Invictus.

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