The fabulous Tilda Swinton is now a half century oldyoung timeless -- old, young... these concepts are too limited when it comes to the greats. But fact: On November 5th, 1960 Tilda Swinton first came into the world. So a tribute is most definitely in order.
50 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Swintonian Greatness
You may have heard about this already but it took me days to process. For just when it seem liked Tilda Swinton had scaled all available Mt. Awesome peaks, she went and invented a new way to be awesome. Her latest project is named after Federico Fellini's masterpiece and it's way cooler than any other derivative thereof. <--- This isn't a new photo of Tilda but I feel certain that Federico Fellini would endorse it.
What great movies would you give to a child on their 8½ birthday? 8½ is a great age to fall in love with cinema, and so the 8½ Foundation aims to give all children an 8½th birthday, glimpses into new worlds and cultures, into magic and the heights imagination can take you to.
The Foundation is holding a flash-mob style kick off on June 26th in Edinburgh where Tilda (and anyone else who shows up) will perform a Laurel & Hardy dance. No joke. Here's the dance. You're supposed to learn it beforehand.
The instructions
On Saturday 26 June 2010 at 10:45, come rain or shine, we’re gonna meet at Festival Square, Lothian Road, Edinburgh. At exactly 11:00, music will start – The Avalon Boy’s ditty “At the Ball”. It’s a song from Laurel and Hardy’s funniest film Way Out West. In the film, Stan and Ollie do a wee dance, one of the most charming, amusing musical numbers in cinema history.
In tribute to Stan and Ollie, and to dancing in public and in unabashed celebration of doing something as a group and looking like dafties…when the music starts, we will put down our newspapers and do the Laurel and Hardy dance.
I don't have the funds to fly to Edinburgh next weekend but I think I'll learn the dance and do it in my living room at 5:45 AM EST 06/26 for my Tilda across the Atlantic. If any readers want to join me take a picture so we can all pretend we did it together. I either have to do this or convert my apartment into a Shrine to Swinton for the purposes of daily worship. For what actress is more deserving of such devotion?
P.S. I Am Love (Io sono l'amore) opens today. It's grand. And Tilda wears the loveliest things in it. See it.
tuesday top ten returns! It's for the list-maker in me and the list-lover in you
The Cannes film festival wrapped this weekend (previous posts) and the most recent Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret in Their Eyes is still in the midst of a successful US run. That Oscar winning Argentinian film came to us from director Juan Jose Campanella. It's his second film to be honored by the Academy (Son of the Bride was nominated ten years back). The Academy voters obviously like Campanella and in some ways he's a Hollywood guy. When he's not directing Argentinian Oscar hopefuls he spends time making US television with episodes of Law & Order, House and 30 Rock under his belt.
So let's talk foreign-language auteurs. Who does Oscar love most?
[The film titles discussed in this article will link to Netflix pages -- if available -- should you be curious to see the films]
Best Director winners Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and Milos Forman (Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Please Note: Filmmakers like Ang Lee (Taiwan), Milos Forman (Czech) and Louis Malle (France) have won multiple notices for their foreign language work with the Academy but I'm restricting this list to those directors who worked primarily in their native tongue throughout their careers. The three aforementioned men all had their biggest Oscar successes from English language films.
OSCAR'S TEN FAVORITE FOREIGN AUTEURS
The ranking that follows are somewhat arbitrary since we're dealing with different kinds of attention paid.
Honorable Mention:Ettore Scola (Italy), Bo Widerberg (Sweden), Carlos Saura (Spain) and Zhang Yimou (China) each helmed 3 Foreign Film Nominees over the years... the latter two for submissions from two different countries. Denys Arcand (Canada) and Nikita Mikhalkov (Russia) have each directed 3 Nominees one of which won the prize (The Barbarian Invasions and Burnt By The Sun, respectively). Mikhalkov, who also acts in his pictures, recently completed the sequel to his Oscar winner called Burnt by the Sun 2, but reviews have been brutal so we aren't banking on seeing it in the Oscar lineup next year. Finally, Jose Luis Garci (Spain) directed 4 nominated films, winning once for Volver a Empezar.
let's make this a top dozen
12István Szabó (Hungary)1938 - still working 4 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 1 win LikeSpain's Garci, the last of the honorable mentions, Szabó directed 4 Foreign Film Nominees, winning once. But in the case of Szabó, it's a more surprising achievement. Unlike Spain, Hungary has rarely won much favor with Oscar. In fact, after Szabó's last nomination, Hungarian films have been completely ignored by the Academy.
In a remarkable hot streak in the Eighties, Szabo had four (!) Best Foreign Film nominations: Bizalom (1980), Mephisto (1981 winner), Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988). The latter three all starred Klaus Maria Brandauer who became a fixture in international cinema after the success of Mephisto. It helps to speak several languages and be brilliant -- just ask Christoph Waltz (Yes, there are earlier incarnations of all success stories). Brandauer might have even won the Supporting Actor Oscar for his sterling work in Out of Africa (1985) had voters not been feeling sentimental for that Cocoon fella. Oscar was SO sentimental in the 80s.
But where were we? Ah yes. Szabo moved over to English language cinema (directing Annette Bening to a nomination for Being Julia) but he hasn't yet equalled those early Hungarian successes.
11Mario Monicelli (Italy) 1915 - still living 2 nominations (writing) | 4 Foreign Film Nominees all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 6 nominations, 0 wins
He's best known for kicking off the commedia all'italiana movement in cinema and for the classic Big Deal on Madonna Street but Oscar's love for him stretches over six movies (His two screenplay nominations weren't even from his foreign film nominees). Monicelli turns 95 (!) this summer. He hasn't directed a feature film since 2006 but you may have seen him as an actor in the Diane Lane vehicle Under the Tuscan Sun (2003).
THE TOP TEN
10René Clément(France) 1913-1996 1 Foreign Film Nominee | 2 Honorary Foreign Film Wins (before category existed) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 4 nominations and 2 honorary statues
The Academy gave out 8 special foreign language film Oscars before they decided they needed to give foreign films their own category and René Clément won the prize twice during those years. In those days Oscar only had eyes for France, Italy and Japan. The Walls of Malapaga (1949) was his first win and he won again shortly thereafter for his internationally renowned classic Forbidden Games (1952). Games even won a second Oscar nomination for story two years later once it finally hit American screens (this is before they changed the rules to prevent films from competing in more than one year). That film was in some ways the perfect embodiment of Oscar's foreign type before Oscar even knew it had one: young children as protagonists + World War II.
The Academy created the foreign language film category as we know it in 1956 and Clément's was there again as a shortlister for the Emile Zola adaptation Gervaise (1956).Though that film was his last foreign film nominee, he continued to make movies for another two decades including such well regarded films as Purple Noon (1960) and Paris Brûle-t-il? (1966) which received two Oscar nominations in other categories.
09Luis Buñuel (Spain) 1900-1983 2 nominations (writing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 1 win
Oscar arrived at the Buñuel party conspicuously late. They even ignored Belle de Jour (1967) one of the best films ever, despite awards attention elsewhere. Sometimes they are well behind the curve. Notice how long it took Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) and Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon) to win attention. In some ways it's surprising that AMPAS got there at all with Buñuel given the director's penchant for sexuality and surrealism. Oscar somewhat prefers the chaste and the literal as you know.
Tristana and the years of critical acclaim preceding it, opened their hearts to his work at the dawn of the '70s. His follow up, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), was a double nominee. Its win in the Foreign Film category has to count as one of the best but most unusual choices in the category's entire history. But then Oscar was at his most adventurous in the early 70s. Oscar and Buñuel had one last fling with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). It was also Buñuel's last affair with the cinema. The father of cinematic surrealism was in his late 70s at the time and died in 1983.
08 Andrzej Wajda (Poland) 1926 - still working 1 Honorary Oscar | 4 Foreign Film Nominees all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 4 nominations, 0 wins and 1 honorary statue
Poland's most influential filmmaker was most revered by awards bodies in the latter half of the 70s and early 80s. He won 3 Foreign Film Oscar nominations in that period: Promised Land (1975), The Maids of Wilko (1979... retitled The Young Girls of Wilko) and Man of Iron (1981). To prove that it wasn't a temporary love, Oscar handed him an honorary statue for "five decades of extraordinary film direction" in March of 2000. He won a fourth foreign film nomination recently for Katyn (2007). His lauded filmography also includes Ashes and Diamond (1958) and the French biopic Danton (1983) starring Gerard Depardieu which received awards attention elsewhere but strangely no Oscar heat.
07Jan Troell (Sweden) 1931- still working 2 nominations (directing, writing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees | 1 Best Picture Nominee all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 7 nominations, 0 wins
He's often forgotten in discussions of Scandinavian cinema (at least here in the US) since Ingmar Bergman casts such a long shadow. But Oscar was quite fond of him up until recently. His high water mark with the Academy was Utvandrarna (The Emigrants) -- strangely not on DVD --one of only five pictures to ever achieve both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture nominations. Given Oscar history it's a bit odd that the Academy didn't jump on his latest picture Everlasting Moments (2008) and even with Max von Sydow in the lead role, Hamsun (1996) didn't win attention either.
06Pedro Almodovar (Spain) 1949- still working 2 nominations (directing, writing) | 1 Oscar (writing) | 2 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 2 wins
Spain's most famous living filmmaker has a fascinating Oscar history. The Academy embraced his international breakthrough Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) but then ignored the next ten years of his career. His Oscar comeback was the mature and wondrous All About My Mother (1999) which took the top prize, despite content that would normally scare them away. Given his global fame and AMPAS's familiarity with his mad melodramedic skill, you'd think he'd have more nominated films to his credit. Part of the problem is that the Spanish Academy, which makes Spain's choice about Foreign Film representation, hasn't always been gaga for Pedro's work. Famously they passed over Talk to Her (2002) in its year so Oscar handed that recent masterpiece a screenplay Oscar and a directing nomination instead. It's no small stretch of the imagination to say that it would've beat the German winner Nowhere in Africa that year to become Pedro's second winner in the category. Volver (2006) was weirdly snubbed in the Foreign category but managed the even more high profile Best Actress nomination and became Pedro's biggest stateside hit if you don't adjust for inflation.
05Francois Truffaut (France) 1932-1984 3 nominations (writing, directing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His films have earned 8 nominations, 1 win
This icon started his career as an obsessive cinephile and provoactive critic at the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. His feature debut, The 400 Blows (1959) kicked off the French New Wave and proved to be one of the most influential and acclaimed films ever made. That film won him the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival at only 27 years of age. It also netted him his first Oscar nomination and more would follow. His classics include seminal features likeJules et Jim (1962) as well as Oscar-recognized favorites like Stolen Kisses (1968), Day for Night (1973 -winner), The Story of Adele H (1975) and The Last Metro (1980).
Film buffs will note that he also acted, even receiving a BAFTA nomination for appearing in his admirer Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Here's Spielberg talking about working with him.
04Akira Kurosawa (Japan) 1910-1998 1 Honorary Oscar | 1 nomination (directing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) | 1 Honorary Foreign Film Win (before category existed) all Oscar categories: His films have earned 12 nominations, 2 wins and 2 honorary statues
Japan's most famous filmmaker spent over sixty years working in the cinema and his legacy is enormous. The Oscars don't paint a full enough portrait of his cinematic impact. Only two of his films won the Foreign Oscar: the game changing Rashomon (1951) which people have been riffing on ever since, making it one of the true must-sees for cultural literacy, and Dersu Uzala (1975) which actually won the prize for Russia rather than Japan. His other nominated films were Dodes'ka-Den (1970) and Kagemusha (1980). I can't recall the circumstances which led his King Lear style epic Ran (1985) to ineligibility in the foreign film category but the Academy compensated with a well deserved Best Director nomination for that classic.
Still, despite what would be more than plentiful Oscar attention for most filmmakers, this portrait feels incomplete. Major classics like The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) or The Seven Samurai(1954) had to make due with technical nods or none at all. They sure did owe him that honorary Oscar they gave him in 1990 "For cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world."
**
The Top Three
Oscar's most beloved trinity of foreign language film auteurs (in terms of this list's criteria) had the good golden fortune to be doing incredible work during the decades when US movie culture was most enamored of foreign fare. That is, at least since the silent film era, before sound came crashing into cinema toppling it like the tower of Babel.
03Vittorio de Sica (Italy) 1901-1974 1 nomination (acting) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (2 wins) | 2 Honorary Foreign Film Wins (before there was a category) all Oscar categories: His (directorial) filmography has earned 10 nominations, 3 wins and 2 honorary statues
The Bicycle Thief and The Garden of the Fitzi-Continis... the titles alone sound mythic somehow, having amassed so much cultural heft over the years. Those two Oscar winning classics aren't true bookends of de Sica's acclaimed filmography but since one is from the 40s and one from the 70s they work as such. This Italian neorealist and prolific writer/actor/director was celebrated often and seemingly continuously from Shoe-Shine(1947's honorary winner) through his supporting actor nomination for A Farewell to Arms (1957) and onward until the Fitzi-Continis. His swansong The Voyage (1974) didn't win awards but it was a fitting goodbye, since it allowed him to reteam him with his frequent muse Sophia Loren.
Loren & de Sica. They made beautiful films together.
I was a bit surprised to see his name above Kurosawa's in this listing given their name recognition value these days but he's a truly giant figure from world cinema history, popularizing neorealism in the late 40s and delivering multiple classics. He was also one of the principle authors of Sophia Loren's legend having directed her in both her Oscar winning role in Two Women (1961) and in celebrated films like Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1964's foreign Oscar winner) and Marriage, Italian Style (1964). He also directed American screen giants like Montgomery Clift in Indiscretions of an American Wifeand Shirley Maclaine in Woman Times Seven (she was Golden Globe nominated for that multiple role performance). * 02Ingmar Bergman (Sweden) 1918-2007 9 nominations (directing, writing, producing) | Irving Thalberg Award | 3 Foreign Film Winners | 1 Best Picture Nominee all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 21 nominations, 7 wins and a Thalberg
This legendary Swede's body of work is so deep and impressive (not to mention deeply immersed in the human condition) that listing his numerous Oscar successes wouldn't even acknowledge what some would argue is his greatest achievement (Persona, 1966). That black and white masterwork in which a mute actress (Bergman's muse and lover Liv Ullmann) and her nurse (Bibi Andersson) become pyschologically fused has influenced much work since, including two of the greatest films from other world class auteurs (David Lynch's Mulholland Dr and Robert Altman's Three Women). Woody Allen never did his own Persona riff but he is arguably the most famous of Bergman's many auteur fans.
Bergman's filmography is essentially one treasure after another so we'll have to ignore the bulk of it for brevity's sake and point you to his Oscar films in case you haven't seen them. Program a mini festival at home. All three of his foreign film nominees won: The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Fanny And Alexander (1982). [Trivia Note: Sweden has never won the foreign prize outside of Bergman's work]
Cries and Whispers (5 nominations, 1 win for cinematography)
In addition to his foreign film winners Bergman's other gold successes include Wild Strawberries (1957) Face to Face (1976) and Autumn Sonata (1978). The Academy fell deepest into a hypnotic Bergman trance in the early 70s when they gave him the Thalberg award and then followed up that honor with multiple nominations, including Best Picture, for his great and disturbing female grief drama Cries and Whispers (1972).
01 Federico Fellini(Italy) 1920-1993 12 nominations (directing, writing, producing) | 1 Honorary Oscar | 4 Foreign Film Winners | all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 23 nominations, 7 wins and 1 honorary statue
Last year's adaptation of Nine, itself adapted from a stage musical adapted from Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) wasn't well received enough to spark a mini-Fellini revival in the media but the media was once quite enamored of all moving parts of Fellini's cinematic circus. That press conference scene in Nine was no exaggeration or joke. In fact, the word "paparazzi" sprung to life because of one of his best loved movies La Dolce Vita (1960) in which a male photographer's name is Paparazzo. Fellini's celebrity was vast and his actors were also sensations. His male muse Marcello Mastroianni never won an Oscar but he holds the record of most nominations for non-English language performances, three in total).
Though their sensibilities are vastly different, Fellini shares with Bergman, his only real rival for Oscar's foreigner crown, a prolific career and one with consistent inspiration and awards pull. Even before he won notices for his directing he was winning screenplay nominations for films he didn't helm.
How familiar are you with the films mentioned? I have a decent grasp of the Fellinis, Bunuels and Kurosawas. I'm nearly a completist with the Almodóvars (duh). But I need to get down to serious business on the Bergman's (small percentage despite my love. What's that about?) and I'm almost completely ignorant on the de Sicas and the Troells. So many I haven't seen.
In lieu of a traditional review of Rob Marshall's Nine, which opens Friday in limited release and then expands a week later for the Christmas box office rush, I've opted for random thoughts, nine of them, strung together. This is a survival tactic. I've spent so long obsessing on the movie prior to its release (prior to even its casting given my enthusiasm for the mid-Aughts Broadway revival) that a review proper couldn't contain me. It would kill me. I got no choreography, I'll just have to spit out my words however they come out. Picture them flying from the blog like sand from Fergie's fingers
Beeeeeeeeee Italian. Beee Italian....
Story.The plot of Nine, as you may know, is about a film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) suffering an artistic crisis: His production team is ready to shoot, his costume designer (Judi Dench) is ready to stitch, his muse (Nicole Kidman) is ready to act but there's no script (!), no story even (!!!). I haven't read even one of the supposedly many negative reviews of Nine but surely some of them will gripe that the same is true of this movie. This is what's known as "missing the point". Nine is based on the stage musical Nine which is itself based on Federico Fellini's masterful 8½ and none of them have anything resembling a traditionally satisfying plot. Not the point. The original movie, the stage musical, and the new movie musical share a premise rather than a plot, which is the director's crisis. That's it. The concept is the plot. The rest is all flourish and curlicues of self awareness. It's the cinema as memoir or character study (only without the character... sort of. We'll get to that). Guido spends the movie running away from this crisis but the crisis follows him. You can't escape yourself.
"Guido... Ciao!" Guido, despite the character details embedded within his womanizing, his fame and general obsessiveness is not a fully fleshed-out character. I don't even think he was in original form in8½ when he was played by Marcello Mastroianni though my memo
ry on this point might be faulty. It's been years since I've seen it. Guido is the stand-in for the offscreen author, around which everything swirls. This is why I think Daniel Day-Lewis is miscast. Here is an actor who is great at filling in details and what the role needs is someone upon whom the movie can project its issues. Day-Lewis is good at mapping out Guido's evasiveness and his oddly symbiotic self-regard and self-doubt but he's not good at being a blank slate for the man behind the curtain. Guido's most elaborately fleshed out incarnation was when he was called Joe Gideon in All That Jazzbut that's another masterpiece altogether.
Or is it?
No Man Behind the Curtain In some ways though, Day-Lewis's detailing helps. For Nine doesn't come across as a self-portrait unless Rob Marshall is having a post Memoirs of a Geisha crisis. As well he should! All That Jazz is a far better musical interpretation of 8½ than Nine has ever been really, because it's also a self-portrait by a narcissistic but brilliant director. Nine the musical doesn't have and has never had that potent force of personality. But it does have...
Music. Which is delicious. I've heard a lot of griping from fellow critics that the songs aren't catchy but, right or wrong, I always view this particular gripe as a complaint of the unwashed masses, he said fully aware of his own musical snobbery. It's the same complaint you'll sometimes hear from tourists about Stephen Sondheim musicals. And Sondheim is a genius. The songs are just a little more challenging than those insant sing-a-longs that people who don't really love musicals want when they attend a musical. But even when you don't love a song, and I've listened to the original cast recording of Broadway's Nine revival hundreds of times and never found anything to love within "My Husband Makes Movies", one singer/actress's interpretation can change everything.
The Mrs. Marion Cotillard plays Luisa Contini and I call her a singer/actress because that's what she is. Her international breakthrough came while playing a singer (Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose) but she wasn't actually singing in that film. Who knew? She sings so well that she's able to act through her vocals without the dread talk-singing that many actors opt for [*cough* Daniel Day-Lewis and Johnny Depp] when they're trying to sing. She's doing both simultaneously and organically and it's exceptionally pleasing to the eyes and ears. You can tell that Rob Marshall knows it, too. It's the one moment in the film where he seems to just slow down (Nine is very ADD in its editing, as is the habit of most movies, particularly action films and musicals) and watch and it's mesmerizing. It's so mesmerizing that one of my least favorite songs in the show suddenly reveals itself as the key song, the film's highlight.
My husband makes movies. To make them he lives a kind of dream In which his actions aren't always what they seem. He may be on to some unique romantic theme. Some men catch fish, some men tie flies, some earn their living baking bread. My husband, he goes a little crazy... Making movies instead.
The Cast. Not everyone fares as well. Kate Hudson can dance but she's saddled with an extraneous character and the worst number, a horrid if catchy song "Cinema Italiano" that was written for the film (for what purpose, I do not know. Perhaps to educate young audiences about mainstream America's fascination with foreign auteurs in the 50s and 60s?). I hate this song but suspect we'll be hearing it on the Oscar broadcast. Whatever my feelings about Kate Hudson, I hope she agrees to perform it. It sucks when movie stars are replaced by other people when the Oscar performance of their song rolls around.
The Song Score. I've tried but I can't let it go. I have no idea why Marshall thought it wise to remove "Nine" which is a far better number for Sophia Loren (playing Guido's Mamma) than the new lullaby she's given. And the film's title makes little sense without the number. Marshall has also removed "Simple" which is one of the best songs in the whole score, and which might have been a terrific way of pulling all the female supporting characters together. Nine in its new form has a distressing tendency to separate all its players on their own soundstages as if they're all figments of Guido's imagination. Even if that's a valid read of the story, it seems to me that they should start colliding once Guido's compartmentalized world starts crumbling. "Simple" was the number to do that. That said, the new number "Take It All" is a great addition, again focusing on Marion Cotillard's soulful performance and vocal prowess. She's so good in the film, she nearly justifies the restructured if rather more generic emphasis on Failed Marriage that this new Nine leans so heavily on. At the expense of...
The Muse & The Mistress. Claudia (Nicole Kidman) and Carla (Penélope Cruz) aren't quite as prominent here as they have been in past incarnations but both movie stars send jolts of electricity through the film with their diva entrances. Kidman is the first woman to enter the film, blissfully appropriately bathed in spotlight in the film's opening swirl of cast introductions. Claudia must have been the hardest role to cast, since the character isn't in much of the film but must convey something you can't act: global fame, untouchable star persona. I can't think of many actresses outside of Kidman who could have sold this role... possibly Angelina Jolie? So Kidman's vocal limitations -- she has a pleasant enough voice but it's not musically specific enough to match the depth of her normal acting -- aren't as much of a problem as they would be in another role. Cruz, has a different problem. She's terrific in the film but for her big scene, the musicals best number, which she undersells. She's sensationally sexy in "A Call From the Vatican", don't get me wrong. But her adroit skill with comedy is partially lost in the musical performance (the lyrics to "Vatican" are hilarious and it's tough to hear them in Cruz's rendition). She's far far better in her non-singing scenes where she totally nails both the drama of Carla's desperation and the comedy of her guileless desire "I'll be waiting right here. With my legs open."
Marshall. If it sounds like I'm hopelessly contradictory about the quality of Nine, I am. The source material (both on stage and previously on film) is strong and Marshall's wise decisions are frustratingly intermingled with his poor ones (and the latter will make some people justifiably cuh-razy). Chief among the triumphs is his choice of cinematographer. Dion Beebe does phenomenal work and its a marked improvement on his similarly premised work on Chicago. Marshall also stages the musical numbers well (unobscured by eager film editing, I'm guessing they'd be great on stage). "Be Italian", while arguably too similar to Chicago's "Cell Block Tango", is still thrilling to watch and ferociously performed by Fergie.
Even while I was enjoying the numbers I found myself still resenting Marshall's status as THE go to man for film musicals, especially since he doesn't seem to fully trust the form. He employs, again, the overly literal notion/gimmick that musical numbers must take place in the imagination because people don't sing in real life. Note to everyone: If people don't like to watch people burst into song, they probably aren't going to go to musicals. People who go to musicals WANT to see people burst into song. It's not a realist film genre.
The only huge disappointment in terms of a "number" is Judi Dench's "Folies Bergeres". It's so busy visually that it runs into the same problem as Chicago's "Razzle Dazzle" number: so many bright competing colors combined with too much movement and it all becomes a muddy mess. And it goes on forever.
But again for every couple of failures, a triumph: the finale is perfect. And don't you have to end well? Marshall closes the movie with an inspired, beautifully simple fusion of stage trope and literal movie-making. The finale is both a curtain call and a new beginning and I left the movie theater humming Nine's 'lalalalalas'.
You should always leave a musical humming.
Grade: B
If you must know it's like... Marion: A, Penélope: A (but for "A Call From the Vatican" which is a B), The original score: A-, the two new big songs: B+ and D, Nicole: B+, Judi: B+ (but for "Folies Bergeres" a C), Fergie: B (but please note: this is not an acting role), Daniel Day-Lewis: B-, Sophia Loren: exempt from grading. She's only there because they have to do something authentic for Italia!. Kate Hudson: C , Rob Marshall: C+
Directed byRob Marshall Starring 5 Oscar winners, 2 previous nominees and, uh, Fergie Synopsis This tuner is an adaptation of the 80s Broadway musical which was itself an adaptation of Federico Fellini's autobiographical fantasia 8½, which concerns a movie director who is creatively stuck. He seeks inspiration as his various female muses circle and/or compete for his attention Brought to you by Oscar seeking mad man Harvey Weinstein and Rob Marshall's hefty pair (seriously, he's taking on memories of a Broadway classic AND the ghost of Fellini? Good luck with that, sir) Expected Release Date Thanksgiving
Nathaniel: I'm a sucker for a big movie musical and I think this is the rare stage musical that might be improved by bringing it to the screen. It is about the cinema after all. And since it's also about the siren call of sensationally attractive women (Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman and Marion Cotillard chief among them) I'm salivating and assuming the best.
I couldn't help but notice that this wasn't on JA's list but I think he doth protest too much. I bet he laughs heartily when Cruz does "A Call from the Vatican", cheers when Judi Dench reminisces about the "Folies Bergere" and weeps when Sophia Loren sings "Nine" to her baby son in grown man's body (Daniel Day-Lewis).
JA: Did I just get called out? I think I just got called out. It's not like I have a secret Fosse closet at home where I sneak every night like Carrie with her St. Sebastien statue and pay to the gods of jazz hands for some sassy forgiveness for my musical bashing sins, Nathaniel. No... not like that at all. La la la... hey, look, there's a big gory slasher movie!
Anyway, the cast is terrific - though I'm mostly curious about seeing Daniel Day Lewis hoof it - and I will probably watch this at some point. I don't think it'll be opening weekend at the Zeigfeld though because I still have traumas from seeing Chicago that way and dodging the audience's enthusiastic in-time dance-steps. Shudder. That so was not my scene.
As a side-note I need to admit that I have a deep irrational fear of Sophia Loren - when I was a little JA my grandmother told me that Loren was a witch and it terrified me; I've never seen her in a movie because of it. This movie will probably bust my Loren cherry.
Joe: This movie is yanking me in all directions. On the one hand, sprawling casts full of accomplished "name" talent like this are catnip to me, and Rob Marshall did a fine job with his last Broadway adaptation. But this particular cast? I can't argue with the talent, but none of them are actors I get excited about. The closest I get is probably Judi Dench, and I'm kind of fascinated imagining just what she'll do in this kind of movie. Of course, the fact that the Kidman, Day-Lewis, Cruz, and Cotillard fanbases will all be converging at once almost guarantees that I'll be turned off by the time opening weekend comes. In the meantime, I'll occupy myself imaging the conversations Nicole and Penélope got up to over lunch.
Fox: This is kind of one of those bizarre screen -> to stage -> to screen transmorphations a la Hairspray, yes? I would hate to see 8½ get buried somewhere under the two new layers on top of it. Though, kudos to the playwright for at least rounding the title up to 9 (Nine) so the young ones don't get confused.
My ignorance of Broadway: After we saw Chicago I turned to my wife and said "Hmm, I really liked those songs. Who do you think wrote them?". She looked at me the way Nathaniel is probably looking at his screen right now.
Whitney: I always think I don't like musicals, and then I go and see something like Chicago and go on a "He Had it Comin'" kick that lasts three weeks. Oh, and I really like The Wiz. Daniel Day Lewis should star in a new remake of The Wiz.
Nathaniel: Readers, your turn. Will you ease on down this road for DDL and assorted goddesses... or maybe one in particular? Do tell in the comments. [see also: several previous posts]
In case you missed any entries they went like so... * We Can't Wait: #1Inglourious Basterds, #2Where the Wild Things Are,#3Fantastic Mr. Fox, #4Avatar, #5Bright Star, #6Shutter Island, #7Scott Pilgrim vs. The World #8Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, #9Nailed,#10Taking Woodstock, #11Watchmen, #12The Hurt Locker, #13The Road, #14The Tree of Life #15Away We Go, #16500 Days of Summer, #17Drag Me To Hell, #18 Whatever Works, #19Broken Embraces,#20Nine (the musical) intro (orphans -didn't make group list) *
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