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| ehle64 |
 Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:55 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| Marc |
| Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 3:56 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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Wade,
I know Billy well enough to know he would never do anything to hurt your feelings. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 4:36 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 6:35 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Hey, Wade--Don't take it personally. I often--often--have trouble recognizing people out of context, in places where and times when I don't expect to see them. Also, after I come off stage it sometimes takes me quite a while to come down to earth.
As for my wife, she doesn't approach people like aliens so I think that was a missed perception. In addition, she hadn't seen you for a long time, and doesn't look at pictures on line.
Sorry you've been holding this resentment since August. You could have mentioned it earlier.
Happy holidays. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 3:43 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Quote: I will be seeing The Messenger this week and will be able to assess Denby's comment. Samantha Morton is a fine, fine actress whose message I have never gotten. She leaves me breathless with respect but emotionally detached.
Billy.........I'm glad you'll be seeing this. It's seems to have been overlooked. I like Vera Farmiga alot.......but Samantha Morton was unforgettable in The Messenger.
SOME SPOILERS Let's see: Samantha is kind, reflective, withholding something. Vera has a sharp edge.....compelling but self-possessed. She's withholding something, too in Up in the Air. The role in TM required a certain vulnerability and a willingness to accept help. That doesn't sound like Farmiga to me. The romantic scene in TM was incredibly sensuous and required Morton's soft edge. We'll talk more after you've seen it. Ben Foster had me mesmerized. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 7:40 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8251
Location: Salt Lake City
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billyweeds wrote: Farmiga in Running Scared gives one of the finest performances I've ever seen in a purely genre flick. She is astonishing.
And very big thanks to you, that was a movie I would have passed on if it wasn't for your suggestion. Agreed on Farmiga's performance. |
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:24 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Nine sucks shit. A Broadway-to-Hollywood fiasco of Carousel/Briagdoon proportions. Less that a third of the score retained (the song "Nine" itself is missing, and thus both the show's central message and the explanation of its title) and only four of the original characters remain. The songs are reduced to somnambulent dirges like a 78 record played at 33 1/3 rpm. Rob Marshall canabalizes his own work in Chicago. Yet again we have a character that fantazizes their life on a stage, but it doesn't make sense in the context of this work.
Chicago was centered around a narcissistic opportunist who fantasized her way to the big time and had the heartless cunning to visualize it perfectly and plan her triumph. Nine onstage was a musical breakdown, and the constant fantasy segues illustrated how Guido was losing control. He was obsessed with women, and himself, thus there was only Guido and a cast of females. But in the movie, the fiascos of his life are being collected and clarified into the movie in his mind. And the women are in the backgroud for the most part, supplanted by a lot of men: producers, priests, pressmen. What, if anything, is Guido obsessed with now? The whole concept is turned on its head, and the real tragedy isn't the reversal, but that it works so poorly.
It isn't just the concept from Chicago that is ripped off. Most of the numbers recall numbers from the earlier film (and one number embarrassingly recalls "Mein Herr" from Fosse's film of Cabaret).
The movie isn't a mess. It isn't At Long Last Love or One From the Heart. If only it had that sort of passionately misplaced energy! Instead it's an utterly proficient bore. Completely under control and dully prosaic. Imagine a perfume commercial with Vegas dancers and you have the idea. Judi Dench is dry and likable, Penelope Cruz is warm and likable, but that's the most you can say for the cast.
Throughout the whole movie, I kept thinking of the original Broadway production. Of those women filling the stage barely moving but still making "Folies Bergers" a knockout number (and Liliane Montevechhi openining that tiny box from Young Guido and unravelling that long, long boa: "I LOVE it!"). Or the nun stripping off her habit to become Saraghina on the beach. Or Anita Morris twisting herself into a pretzel for "A Call From the Vatican." Or the great opening with Guido conducting all the women as an orchestra (for a sung Overture) unitl his wife broke away to announce "Guido, I have to tll you, this is just not my idea of a successful marriage." Or when the flashbulb exploded in her face at the end of "My Husband Makes Movies."
The real problem though, isn't that the movie isn't faithful to the play. Most of us who complain about adaptations don't consider the original productions a temple to protect from defilement. It's only when a movie fails on its own terms that the stage production is recalled in preference. This movie is such a dull, dreadful waste of space that the fact it is likely going to go down in most people's minds as the definative Nine—because more people are likely to see this movie even if it flops than ever saw the stage version—boils my blood. Don't just skip it. Do your best to erase any knowledge of it from your consciousness. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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ehle64 wrote: i agree but it was awful
Dude, honestly. Couldn't you have walked up to his wife and said "I don't know if you remember me. I'm Wade. I'm an online friend of your husband's and I've met you before"? Like, give her the chance to identify you from the past and recall where she's seen the face before and how you're connected to her?
I mean, geez. Aren't you studying to be an actor, too? Aren't you familiar with how many, many people actors meet regularly (in classes, at auditions, in shows, at cast parties, etc.) and how hard it is to keep track of everyone? I'm a pretty memorable person with a dynamic personality and I tend to make a strong impression on most people I meet in person, if I do toot my own horn, but I'd never assume an actor or actress I'd only met once would recall me among all the vibrant, attention getting personalities that person meets on a regular basis.
Your reaction to this situation makes zero sense to me. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:32 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Befade wrote: Quote: I will be seeing The Messenger this week and will be able to assess Denby's comment. Samantha Morton is a fine, fine actress whose message I have never gotten. She leaves me breathless with respect but emotionally detached.
Billy.........I'm glad you'll be seeing this. It's seems to have been overlooked. I like Vera Farmiga alot.......but Samantha Morton was unforgettable in The Messenger.
SOME SPOILERS Let's see: Samantha is kind, reflective, withholding something. Vera has a sharp edge.....compelling but self-possessed. She's withholding something, too in Up in the Air. The role in TM required a certain vulnerability and a willingness to accept help. That doesn't sound like Farmiga to me. The romantic scene in TM was incredibly sensuous and required Morton's soft edge. We'll talk more after you've seen it. Ben Foster had me mesmerized.
It's an excellent film, and Morton is as you said extraordinary, especially in that long scene where she describes the shirt, etc. Foster and Woody Harrelson are also wonderful, as are cameos by, e.g., Steve Buscemi.
The movie has a good deal in common with Up in the Air. Both are about people traveling around delivering very bad news to other people.
I still prefer Farmiga as an actress to Morton, because even when Morton is as out of this world as she is in The Messenger, she still leaves me emotionally respectful rather than fully engaged. Maybe it's a personal thing. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:33 am |
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| I'm obnoxious enough, that people always remember me also. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:41 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Joe--You make Nine sound just as bad as--or even worse than--I already figured it was. A.O. Scott talked about it on his weekly television show (with Michael Phillips) and gave it one of the worst reviews imaginable. How can Hollywood still be promoting this as a likely Oscar nominee? The reviews have been mediocre at best. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 9:52 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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billyweeds wrote: Joe--You make Nine sound just as bad as--or even worse than--I already figured it was. A.O. Scott talked about it on his weekly television show (with Michael Phillips) and gave it one of the worst reviews imaginable. How can Hollywood still be promoting this as a likely Oscar nominee? The reviews have been mediocre at best. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 11:00 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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whiskeypriest wrote: billyweeds wrote: Joe--You make Nine sound just as bad as--or even worse than--I already figured it was. A.O. Scott talked about it on his weekly television show (with Michael Phillips) and gave it one of the worst reviews imaginable. How can Hollywood still be promoting this as a likely Oscar nominee? The reviews have been mediocre at best. Scott called it a "travesty" in his written review. The Oscar buzz sites were high on Nine because of the cast - my reservations about Day-Lewis aside (he's good, but I still think Room With a View is his best work) it's a pretty great cast, in theory - director and pedigree, but I have not seen anyone raving about it in reality. As with The Lovely Bones, I expect people to stop talking about it soon. Well, there are 10 BP slots now, so God knows how that will play out, but still.
The Oscar buzz lists are still including Nine long after any other movie with similar reviews would have sunk without a trace. Hollywood seems to find it well-nigh impossible to call it quits on received wisdom.
Btw, Scott's "travesty" comment was almost positive compared with his on-camera review, which came awfully close to calling it the worst movie he's ever seen. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 11:15 am |
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Good review Joe. Of course negative reviews are easier to write and much more fun to write and read. Colossal bombs that are bombs deservedly, warm my heart. Cinema is an art and when it isn't art, but crap, I am very please when it is trashed. That's one of the best ways to improve the product. When a piece of junk makes zillions of dollars it is a big setback for quality in movies. Instead of going to worthy products, the money goes to brainless products like endless series of pretty, clueless young women screaming their l lungs out as they are menaced by one psycho killer after another.
This may be off point re: Nine, but I won't be seeing it so I don't care. I have a perverse desire to see Nine clean up at the Oscars so they will be exposed as the tasteless crowd they so often are. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:47 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Joe,
your entertaining and impassioned review of Nine belongs in films I hate as well as Current. |
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