Guido Guido Guido

I've been excited to see Nine since my sister showed me the trailer over our thanksgiving break. I like musicals and Chicago was one of my favorites, so with Rob Marshall directing this and the cast that he got to play in it I couldn't imagine this movie was going to disappoint. It seemed that leading up to the release of this movie at least one cast member was on some tv show promoting the film, each day. I watched as much of them as I could, especially whatever Penelope Cruz was on, continuing to increase my expectations. By the way, is it possible to make an argument against Penelope Cruz being the hottest woman in Hollywood, without a doubt top three, I mean with that accent alone... Alright back to the review, so my sister and I made plans to see the move together over the Christmas holidays and took in a matinee at 11:40 AM, I didn't even know the theatre opened that early, and surprisingly we weren't the only ones under 65 years old in the theatre.

The movie is about Guido Contini, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, a great Italian director set to direct another highly anticipated movie, but cannot figure out what it should be about. He is troubled by his relationships he has with the ladies in his life, both in the past through flashbacks of him as a child and in the present. The paparazzi are also causing him great stress by trying to get answers from him about the new film. Daniel Day-Lewis couldn't have done a better job and is very believable as the troubled Italian director, but who would expect anything else from one of the best actors of this generation. From the opening shot and song I knew this movie was not going to disappoint. All the songs were great, my feet were tapping to each one. Each of the women in the movie were also as impressive as Day-Lewis, the singing, dancing and acting all great. I was nervous about Dame Judi Dench having a song, but to my surprise her number was actually really good and one of the better ones in the movie. I could go on and on about each song and actress' performances, but they were all so good, I don't think my descriptive skills would do them justice. We actually sat through the entire credits just to hear some the songs again that were being played as the credits rolled.

The film was shot beautifully and choreographed just as well. Each song had it's own style which helped to make them all very different and each one great. The movie takes place in various cities in Italy, and definitely made me wish me and my brother spent more time traveling through Italy while we were in Europe. Another, kind of small thing, that I really liked about the movie was the amount of smoking some of the characters did, especially Daniel Day-Lewis'. It seemed he constantly had a cigarette in his mouth and often as he was smoking he was asking another character for another. It seems you really don't see smoking much in movies anymore, but I think it helps to make it seem more real. It's weird the last two movies I saw both had main characters that smoked, this and Avatar.

I had very high expectations for this movie going in to it and I would say it exceeded them all. I will definitely be hoping this movie gets recognized during this upcoming awards season, and it was probably the best movie I've seen this year. I would certainly recommend this to anyone who likes musicals, if you don't enjoy the genre but just like good music and movie I would still give it a try, and if you never got in to musicals this is definitely a good place to start. Hopefully you see it and enjoy it as much as I did.