Is Nine a Bad Musical or Just a Bad Movie? — Page 2

I'll say this much for the stage show: giving most of the musical numbers to the women saves the piece from being a mere indulgence of Guido's narcissism.

But, frankly, I was bored to death in Act II until "Getting Tall". And then I was laughing out loud.

Since I had very low expectations, I didn't mind the film so much.

Chicago is far superior although I was not thrilled they cut a few key songs & shortened Mr Cellophane

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Brilliant musical. As someone said, one of the greats.

The movie is a strange animal. It's not really meant to be a recreation of the musical but rather something closer to the original 8 1/2, but with a few songs.

And it kind of works in that framework.

But the issue is, why bother making a movie of the musical at all? If you're going to jettison at least half the score, including many sequences that made the theatrical version so thrilling, what's the point?

Also, the movie cast butchered what few songs they did retain (except Fergie and Cruz).

Having said that, I absolutely love the movie's Overture Delle Donne and Be Italian. I often pop in the BD just to watch those two songs.

As a Yeston fan however, even I have to say that Cinema Italiano is an awful song (but props to Hudson for rocking the sh*t of it) and Take It All is sub-par at best.

Oh, one last thought: Penelope Cruz was amazing. Very deserving of her Oscar nomination.

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Updated On: 11/20/13 at 06:25 AM

I've listened to the OCR at least 50 times. And I never get tired of it -- still discovering nuances.

The play is good, the movie is ecch, but the music is enthrawling.

I tend to go along with the general opinion of critics 9 out of 10 times because if that many people say something is really bad there must be something truly wrong with it. That being said I really enjoyed the movie Nine and don't understand the harsh treatment its been getting form all sides. It was my first exposure to the musical and I enjoyed the music and performances very much. A lot of actors that I really love are in this movie and I thought that they did a good job. The story was fairly cleat and the cinematography was really really nice. Not having seen the play on stage unfortunately I may not have the expectations others have had but I really did like this film.

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Aren't there three million threads about this? I know I've commented on at least two million of them.

The movie has some great moments. Next time you watch it, cut that first (horribly morose) scene from the beginning of the film where Guido tells you about his "art." It's so heavy-handed and sets the wrong tone right away.

Start the movie with the Overture, and the whole thing plays a lot better. Not perfect, but much better (lighter, more appropriate).

Daniel Day-Lewis is still miscast, as wonderful an actor as he is. He can't find the humor in Guido, which is essential to keeping that role likable and sympathetic. He has to laugh first at himself before the rest of us laugh, or he is dead in the water.

The tone and the leading man are the missteps.

Most of the numbers are fine, some of them great, but they gutted way too much of the score.

The problem is that the entire story takes place in Guido's mind, not just the musical moments or certain scenes. This is a "life flashing before his eyes" during his lowest point of midlife crisis. It only works if the whole thing is surreal, not segregated musical numbers inside a Roman ruins playground on a sound stage. The entire movie should be the cinematic playground of his mind.

They tried a few times to suggest it was in his mind with his mother appearing and some of the chorus girls showing up at odd moments. But those instances were few and far between.

Anyway, I still find much to like about it. Not a great film, but not a total failure either.

As for the stage show, the original was brilliant, and the revival was good. The music really is the star of the show, so it was a bit of a crime to cut so much of it from the movie.

And I don't think Rob Marshall was the problem. He didn't write the script. The screenplay was/is the problem. It should have incorporated more of the musical sequences and songs. And Robert Downey Jr. is the only movie star I can think of right now who could have pulled off Guido successfully.

So give Marshall a new screenplay and new leading man, and let Judi Dench actually play a French producer (her accent was great!), and I think it would have been a brilliant movie.

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Updated On: 11/20/13 at 11:24 AM

"Carla - a heartbreaking Sandra Milo - does try to kill herself in 8 1/2. "

Is it a suicide attempt? I seem to remember she just gets terribly sick from drinking too much of the spa's mineral water.

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See, aside from Bennett's brilliant staging of DREAMGIRLS, I don't get why people love the show itself. It's a bloated soap opera with some catchy pastiche songs and truly awful lyrics.

Tune and Bennett were in the same predicament Fosse and Bennett were in back in 1975. Fosse was "King of Broadway" and came in with a slickly staged extravaganza (with far better material than DREAMGIRLS, however) and Bennett surprised everyone by using actors, a bare stage, and some mirrors to create theatrical magic. In 1982, Bennett had his slick "I'm the God of Director-Choreographers" show come into town and Tommy Tune caught him and New York by surprise by making theatrical magic with very little but actors, a great score, and white blocks.

Tune had his "slick" moment in 1991, but by then Bennett was dead, and the next crop of masterminds were likely sick with or victims of AIDS. But gosh, I would love a new Tommy Tune musical on Broadway soon!

Now I feel so wrong to have liked the movie and Daniel Day-Lewis in it. I loved the opening number, the cast and the whole damn movie! There I said it. - but (oops) I never saw the original musical or listened to the score - so I guess I missed something superior.

With the advent of Into the Woods and Rob Marshall (seemingly) returning to the light side, I've been thinking a lot about his other work, specifically Nine. I first became obsessed with the score of Nine in 2008 (when I was 16) through the fantastic 2003 Broadway revival recording (which is still my favorite of the 5 recordings I own, despite everyone's accents). I'd never seen the show but I could tell that it must be absolutely fantastic on stage -- it wasn't till later that I learned all about the Tony's and how successful the original production was, beating Dreamgirls and all that, so when I heard later that same year that the film was being made by the director of Chicago, I was thrilled. Obviously when I went to see it on Christmas day, my expectations were thoroughly dashed and I was thoroughly depressed about the whole experience. Where were all the fantastic songs (including the title song)? Where was the musical within the musical? Why was Nicole Kidman there? Why didn't Guido Contini even start to make a movie??? There were many questions running through my mind, the least of which was the question of characters with their ethnicities all messed up from the original; was Judi Dench French or British? Penelope Cruz Spanish or Italian? It's like these characters didn't know what continent they were from and they didn't want us to know either.
So all these five years later after that fiasco, I have only seen the film one more time: late 2011, I got it from the library to see it again with my own eyes...I hadn't been so into the musical lately, so maybe it would be better out of its shadow? It definitely wasn't so thoroughly depressing as the first time. It was just a poorly thought out production. Like Robert Marshall didn't really know what Nine was, which is ironic given the parallels with his life. The cast still isn't right, and probably it was a film that never should have been made in the first place; a movie based on a musical based on a movie? What is this, Hairspray? Movies based on musicals from the 80's have become the thing the last few years, with Les Mis, Dreamgirls, Phantom of the Opera, and Into the Woods all joining Nine, all in controversial adaptations (the only spectacular one so far being Dreamgirls, in my opinion). I have high hopes that this Christmas day doesn't repeat the doom of the one 5 years ago.

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Updated On: 12/4/14 at 06:09 AM

a movie based on a musical based on a movie? What is this, Hairspray?

Not sure what that has to do with anything, but A Little Night Music did it before Hairspray. Do you believe that if a musical is adapted from any other source that it would somehow be better adapted for film? Nine was a poorly conceived film adaptation. It's not the first nor will it be the last. But it had nothing to do with the source for the Broadway musical.

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Well done for having the guts to try to radically retell the story, but not at the expense of losing some many excellent songs.

That statement seems to contradict itself. The way he wanted to retell the story was to remove most of the music and restructure the narrative, so I don't know why the courage to do so would be deserving of praise. Any film director would have to rethink the musical because it was specifically conceived for the stage. Marshall's product just leaves us wondering why he wanted to direct a film adaptation of it at all.

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