Posts Tagged ‘Nine’

The Bottom 5 - Peter Debruge’s Biggest Disappointments of 2009

Posted: January 1st, 2010 at 6:26 pm

You may have seen the five worst films of 2009, but I did my best to avoid them. Instead, at year’s end, I’d rather recap my five biggest disappointments - movies that promised the world and delivered a fraction of their potential.  To me, that’s far more upsetting than a bad movie, because they’ve squandered the opportunity, and now no one can go back and do it right. You probably won’t agree with my choices (maybe you went into Where the Wild Things Are expecting to be annoyed and came out enraptured - that actually happened to me with co-writer Dave Eggers’ other 2009 release, Away We Go). These picks were meant to be personal, but I’d love to hear what you think. Feel free to share your biggest let-downs after the list, which you’ll find just after the jump…

A Good Year for Directors Who Aren’t Straight White Men

Posted: December 30th, 2009 at 11:07 pm

The position of director has long been dominated by heterosexual, Caucasian males in Hollywood. For evidence of this, one need only look at the Academy Award for Best Director nominations over first 81 years of the award’s existence. Only three times have female directors received nominations (Lina Wertmüller in 1976, Jane Campion in 1993, and Sofia Coppola in 2003) and only once has an African-American director been nominated (John Singleton in 1991). Homosexual directors have had more luck, with such notable openly gay directors as Rob Marshall, Gus Van Sant, and Pedro Almodovar gaining nominations, while John Schlesinger and George Cukor even won the award. Still, directing in Hollywood is not a particularly diverse game. So it is noteworthy when, as Variety points out, “it’s possible the best-director noms might not include a single English-speaking, Caucasian, straight male”.

For a look at the directors who might instead seize this year’s Oscar nominations, including Kathryn Bigelow, Lee Daniels, Tom Ford, Lone Scherfig, and Rob Marshall, hit the jump.

Weekend Box Office - AVATAR Edges Out SHERLOCK HOLMES On the Biggest Christmas Weekend Ever!

Posted: December 27th, 2009 at 11:07 am

The biggest movie of all time (in scope if not yet in grosses) has now led to the biggest weekend of all time at the box office. James Cameron’s 3D Avatar pulled ahead of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes on Saturday, claiming a second weekend at number one with an estimated $75 million from its 3,456 theatres. But there were plenty of good tidings to go around. With estimated ticket sales topping $278 million all-told, the last weekend in December turned out to be both the biggest Christmas on record and the biggest weekend of all time, surpassing that fabled frame of July 18, 2008 when The Dark Knight ruled.

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	Avatar	$75,000,000	$212.2
2	Sherlock Holmes	$65,380,000	$65.4
3	Alvin & the Chipmunks 2	$50,200,000	$77.1
4	It’s Complicated	$22,100,000	$22.1
5	Up in the Air	$11,755,000	$24.5
6	The Blind Side	$11,300,000	$184.3
7	The Princess & the Frog	$8,683,000	$63.3
8	Nine	$5,500,000	$5.9
9	Did You Hear About the Morgans?	$5,000,000	$15.5
10	Invictus	$4,390,000	$23.3

NINE Review

Posted: December 24th, 2009 at 7:18 pm

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned but I believe that a musical needs, above all else, good music.  Direction, performances, production design, and choreography (if applicable) are all important, but a musical lives and dies with its songs.  Nine dies and it’s a long, excruciating death as we follow mopish director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) suffering from writer’s block and depending on all the women in his life while providing nothing in return.  Eventually, “Nine” no longer represents Frederico Fellini’s “8 ½ plus music”, but a countdown to how many forgettable numbers you’ll have to endure before the movie ends.

Golden Globe Nominations Announced, UP IN THE AIR Leads with Six Noms

Posted: December 15th, 2009 at 10:15 am

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced their nominees for the 67th Annual Golden Globes and before I comment on the nominees, I first have to explain something about the Globes.  The Globes are not really an indiciator of the Oscars.  Critics lists and awards from various guilds are far better predictors because the Globes are ultimately bought and paid for by the studios.  The Oscars are as well to some extent, but the Globes are just ridiculous.  However, it doesn’t mean they’re not a lot of fun and that they’ll take chances Oscar won’t.

But the big movie nominee was a safe choice with Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air grabbing six nods followed by Rob Marshall’s Nine, which racked up five.  But looking through the nominees, there are some absolutely bizarre inclusions: Julia Roberts for Duplicity (this one makes sense when you remember that the HFPA are starfuckers), Matt Damon for Invictus, and “I See You” from Avatar as the Best Original Song, a tune hated by even those who love the movie .  Some of the snubs are also weird: No love for Up or Fantastic Mr. Fox for Best Musical/Comedy and no Best Song nomination for anything from The Princess and the Frog.

By the same token, I have to give it up for the Globes for nominating The Hangover as Best Musical/Comedy (I guess that FYC ad paid off) and Quentin Tarantino for Best Director for Inglourious Basterds.  It’s all pretty random but the Globes are an entertaining show with a looser atmosphere than the Oscars.  Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees, including the ones for television (Glee led the pack with four nominations).

3rd Trailer for NINE Attempts to Explain the Plot and Characters

Posted: November 30th, 2009 at 4:16 pm

With only 19 days left until it hits theaters, Nine has a new trailer which finally goes beyond sex, cinematography, and accolades (which won me over), and attempts to present as many characters as possible as well as the conflicts of the main character, Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis).  It gets to just about everyone in the cast except Fergie and Sophia Loren, so let me help out with that right now: Loren plays Guido’s mother and Fergie plays the whore from his youth.  I’m not sure why they didn’t try to explain those roles, but it does accomplish a lot within the span of two and a half minutes so head over to Apple and check it out.

Nine hits theaters on December 18^th.  Hit the jump for a brief synopsis.

Movie Posters for Rob Marshall’s NINE Starring Daniel Day Lewis, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, and Penelope Cruz

Posted: November 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 pm

The new poster for Rob Marshall’s Nine has just come online and the tagline informs us that this holiday season we should be Italian.  I’ll be anything this movie wants me to be as long as I can get a full 27×40 poster of Penelope Cruz doing the same pose she’s doing in this poster.  While co-stars Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, and Marion Cotillard are also on this poster, it’s not hard to see why star Daniel Day-Lewis is looking straight in Cruz’ direction.

Hit the jump to see the poster and a brief synopsis.  Nine opens in limited release on December 18^th and goes wide Christmas Day. [UPDATE: Yahoo! has also debuted a poster which is quite good; you can see it after the jump as well]

New Trailer for the Musical NINE Starring Daniel Day Lewis

Posted: November 16th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

I will say this for Nine’s new trailer: it’s gutsy as hell.  This flick is one of the hardest sells of the year because unlike director Rob Marshall’s previous film musical, Chicago, Nine is not an easy to digest fame-at-any-cost story.  The source material is Frederico Fellini’s 8 ½, the story of a famous film director (Daniel Day Lewis) who comes to a crisis both in his creative life and in his personal life as he tries to cope with his numerous female relationships.  But like the previous trailer, this new one tells you none of that and just gives you a spectacular musical number featuring Kate Hudson and montage of all the main characters in the movie.

Whether you loved or hated Chicago (I fall into the former category), there’s no denying Marshall’s talent for capturing complex musical numbers as he manages to make them both stagy and cinematic.  The film has a hell of an Oscar-pedigree because in addition to Marshall and Day Lewis the cast includes six more Oscar-winners: Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, and Sofia Loren.  Nine may have a good shot at this year’s Academy Award but you can see the new trailer after the jump and decide if that’s enough to draw in audiences when it opens on December 18^th (the same release date as Avatar).

Penelope Cruz talks NINE and Explains Why She Filmed a Cameo in SEX AND THE CITY 2

Posted: November 16th, 2009 at 1:51 pm

Having made her acting debut as a teenager, Penelope Cruz has shown an extraordinary ability for playing strong, memorable women. Whether it’s in her four films with Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, or her work with American director Woody Allen, which earned her a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, the striking and opinionated actress puts her all into every performance, as is evidenced on the screen.

At the press day for Broken Embraces, her latest work with Almodovar, Penelope Cruz talked about the grueling process of singing, dancing and acting in the highly anticipated, Rob Marshall-directed musical Nine, opening Christmas Day, and explained why she filmed a cameo for Sex and the City 2.

New Featurette/Montage of Rob Marshall’s NINE

Posted: October 19th, 2009 at 6:24 pm

A new featurette, which is really more of a behind-the-scenes montage, has been released for Rob Marshall’s movie musical “Nine,” based on Frederico Fellini’s “8 1/2.”  The musical follows famed fictional director Guido Contini (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) and the various people–wife, mistress, agent, etc–in his life.  Between this featurette and the film’s trailer, I’d say “Nine” is looking sharp. My favorite movie musical of all time is Marshall’s “Chicago,” which really got it right, so I’m jazzed, if you will, to see him returning to the genre…and we can just overlook “Memoirs of a Geisha.” In addition to Day-Lewis, the cast includes Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, and the incomparable Judi Dench, so there’s something in there for everyone. Watch the featurette after the jump.

NINE Trailer

Posted: May 14th, 2009 at 6:39 pm

While I think Rob Marshall’s “Chicago” is a criminally over-hated film (I genuinely like it and have no problem with it being 2002’s Best Picture winner), it’s a ridiculously easy film to sell compared to what The Weinstein Company has to pull off with the adaptation of “Nine” which in turn is based of Frederico Fellini’s “8 1/2″ which is an autobiographical tale of a film director struggling with his new project and looking back on his life through the lens of the women who have impacted his story.  Also, please do not confuse this film with “District 9″ which is about aliens imprisoned in South Africa or “9″ which is about a group of rag dolls adventuring through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The trailer looks good and the Weinstein’s are definitely priming it for some Oscar contention but they will definitely have a fight on their hands because even if turns out as critically acclaimed, you still have to get audiences to turn out for it.  I wonder if a cast comprised of Daniel Day Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson, and Martina Stella is enough.

Check out the trailer after the jump.  “Nine” hits theatres on November 25th.

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