cvetkovski_ikee Every artist at some point in his life ends up being lost and wants to escape his own reality. He creates his own world by his own rules, lacking inspiration and things to say. Then lying becomes a habit and everything goes out of hand. But in the end of the day, we know that art is about beauty and therefore it has to be about truth. With "8 1/2", Fellini found a way to free himself from all the things that he carried on his back. He opened his heart to the world and broke all the rules of cinema, making one of the best author movies ever.The subject of the both films is the director's own struggle. However, "Nine", was a totally different film. In my opinion "8 1/2" is about Fellini himself, whereas "Nine" is about Fellini's life seen through Rob Marshall's eyes. It felt like i was watching "8 1/2" in color. Nevertheless, i had some problems with the beginning of the film. It was too long before i caught up with the character's empathy and confusion, until very late in the film, when Kate Hudson "stole the show" with a very brief but amazing performance of a woman from a fashion world. Eventually, every woman in the film brings different tone and shape of Guido's world. They are all part of his chaotic life."Nine" obviously does not have the depth of "8 1/2", but the musical sequences which intersect the narrative, every time some of the characters want to confess something, give the film a more playful and cheerful tone. I found them very helpful for the story and liberating at time. Daniel Day Lewis did a really good job as Guido Contini, being a confused but lovable director, who lost his touch with reality by wanting to be everywhere at the same time, when in the end ends up being in a labyrinth of lies. "Nine" is also some kind of American tribute for the Italian neorealism, one of the best and sexiest periods of cinema as well. This is a film about every person who is lost and finds it very difficult to be present in his own reality. It's always hard to make your work personal, but that's the only way. Thus, you never have to lie. It is very important for an artist not to lie, and most important is not to lie to himself. 8/10

BoyFabo First, I'd like to let you know the good things about this film:Well acted. It's not a surprise because all these well known stars are good and always have been. Penélope Cruz and Marion Cotillard give the best performances of the film, and of course Daniel Day-Lewis is a believable Guido.Nice musical numbers. The musical numbers are well acted too and have a good photography. Once again, Penélope Cruz and Marion Cotillard give the best dancing sequences, Dame Judi Dench is also very fun in hers and Fergie's voice shines in hers (she's the only one who's a singer). Good art direction and costume design.The bad things.Fergie's performance. She's clearly not an actress. It's not an awful performance, but she's below everyone else. Her best moment comes in her musical part when she shows that voice of hers, nobody sings as good as her. She's got a very little screen time, so don't let this make you not watch the film if you're interested.The screenplay. It's the only (and big) mistake of the film. It doesn't go anywhere since it's only some scene and then a musical number that don't make it advance at all. Without the musical numbers, the film would be like 40 minutes long.So... It's not a bad film, but it's mediocre, the musical numbers are the ones saving it from being a total bore. I'd recommend it if you like musicals and want to see all these good and beautiful actresses work with Daniel Day-Lewis who's also a very good actor. But don't even look at its poster if you want a good story to go along with the singing and dancing.

James Hitchcock "Nine" is the story of a man whose love-interests include both Nicole Kidman and Penélope Cruz. And no, it's not a filmed biography of Tom Cruise. It started life as a stage musical suggested by Federico Fellini's semi- autobiographical film "8½". The film version was directed and produced by Rob Marshall, who also made "Chicago", another twenty-first century film based on a stage musical, something much rarer today than it would have been fifty or sixty years ago. The main character is Guido Contini, an Italian film-maker obviously based on Fellini himself. The action takes place in the Italy of the early sixties, with occasional black- and-white flashbacks to earlier periods in Contini's life. The plot concerns Contini's efforts to overcome writer's block and to complete his latest film "Italia", and also his relations with the various women in his life. These include his beautiful wife Luisa, his equally beautiful mistress Carla, his leading lady Claudia Jenssen, his mother, his costume designer Lilli and Stephanie, an American journalist trying to interview him. Contini is also influenced by memories of Saraghina, the prostitute to whom he lost his virginity. Daniel Day-Lewis is possibly the most talented actor currently working in the cinema. He is certainly among the most versatile. What impresses me about his work is that every character he plays seems so completely different from every other character he has played. He has been equally convincing as the disabled Irish writer Christie Brown in "My Left Foot", as the frontiersman Hawkeye in "The Last of the Mohicans", as the upper-class Victorian gentleman Newland Archer in "The Age of Innocence", as the thuggish Bill the Butcher in "Gangs of New York", as the tormented Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood" and as President Lincoln. Interestingly, although Day-Lewis is English by birth, most of his characters have been American or Irish; Cecil Vyse in "A Room with a View" is a rare example of him playing an Englishman."Nine" represents a new departure for Day-Lewis in two ways; it is his first musical and the first film in which he plays an Italian. (He learned to speak Italian for the role, even though most of his lines are in English). As far as his acting is concerned he is as good as ever, making the smooth, charming playboy film director Contini yet another in his gallery of memorable characters. I have to say, however, that he does not have the world's best singing voice; great actors are not always great singers, as we found out when Meryl Streep, who in her talent and versatility can be regarded as a female version of Day-Lewis, tackled a musical with "Mamma Mia!" (To be fair I should also point out that the reverse also holds true; great singers are not always great actors). On the female side, however, the singing is generally very good. Stacy Ferguson, of course, is a professional singer, but most of her co-stars are actresses whom one would not automatically associate with musicals. (Stacy is here billed simply as "Fergie" but I use her full name lest any British readers should be misled into thinking that our former Duchess of York should have commenced an acting career playing an Italian prostitute. A frightening thought). Marion Cotillard as Luisa has a particularly melodious voice. Kidman is much better here than she was in her previous musical, the dreadful "Moulin Rouge", although I was surprised she won the role of Claudia ahead of Catherine Zeta Jones who was so good in "Chicago". Cruz is excellent as Carla, both as singer and actress, and Sophia Loren's voice is remarkably good for a woman who was in her mid seventies when she made the film, although she looks considerably younger. (She does not look old enough to be Day-Lewis's mother, although in reality she would have been 23 when he was born. Perhaps her scenes are meant to reflect Contini's memories of his mother at an earlier period of her life). The musical numbers are all very professionally done and reminiscent of Marshall's work on "Chicago". Unlike "Chicago", however, which was largely jazz-based in keeping with its 1920s setting, "Nine" uses a variety of different musical styles; some songs are reminiscent of jazz, some of sixties pop, some of the traditional Broadway musical. All the cast enter into the spirit of the film, and I think that it is this spirit which makes the film so enjoyable. The film has a stylishness and an irresistible vivacity about it, qualities which carry us along and make us forget about the flimsy plot or the fact that Day-Lewis is unlikely ever to be crowned as the new Pavarotti. It is perhaps appropriate that one of the film's liveliest numbers is titled "Be Italian!", and another one "Cinema Italiano", because it reminds us of the vogue for all things Italian- Italian films, Italian fashions, Italian design- which prevailed in Britain, America and other countries in the late fifties and early sixties. Italy- and especially Rome- was seen as the place to be. It is the spirit of this time and place which the film celebrates- the spirit of La Dolce Vita. 8/10

dromasca There are many ways one can dislike Nine . For example trying to compare it with the films of Frederico Fellini, on whose figure the main character in the movie is based on. Or trying to compare it with Broadway musicals, as the one from the 80s on which the film is based upon. Fellini's films are unique, and by the time the great Italian director was making 8 1/2 Rob Marshall, the director of Nine was just born. Broadway musicals have their own laws of casting, of staging, of telling the story. The screen adaptation of a musical about the making of a film by Fellini is not a film of Fellini and not a Broadway musical. I liked Nine the movie, and here are my arguments.Nine is a musical about a film in a film. We are from the start introduced in the atmosphere with an opening song where the theme and the stars of the show are paraded on the kind of music that builds the entertaining score of the show. The sets are the ones in the Cinecita studios where the famous director Guido Contini prepares his next film. It is just that his film is not at all ready as the producer expects. The director's style of life is as chaotic as his manner of making movies. The personal history is a series of relations with women – from his mother (Sophia Loren, back on the big screens after many years of absence, still glamorous) to his wife, his lover, his inspiring actress, admirers, etc. Can he put all these relations together and make sense of his private life in order to focus on his art? Or maybe he is just destroying himself, and the people around him, especially the women he is involved with? I will just say that the result is entertaining and in my opinion does not make a bad service at all to the image of Fellini.I started by listing the reasons one can dislike Nine, but there are many reasons to like it as well. These include the presence on screen of stars like Sophia Loren, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Judy Dench. They all look beautiful, they all act, sing, dance and create characters that are distinct and expressive and find their right places in the story. But before all we have Daniel Day-Lewis. Let me say that Day-Lewis is an actor I admire but I do not necessarily love. Well, I may be starting the process of falling for him – as I absolutely adored his performance here. He is passionate, he is troubled, he fights with his past and Catholic upraising, he loves and sins, he is credible. However, my ultimate criteria of liking or disliking a film is whether it succeeds to create emotion. And yes, Nine succeeded to make me care for its heroes, made me remember Fellini and wish to see again his films, and it entertained me. On the IMDb scale it's a NINE.