THE NINES - tricksy, smart, but not quite convincing

THE NINES is a movie that is tricksy and smart and gripping, in parts, but I was too often reminded of other movies that had covered the same ground more convincingly.

The movie was written and directed by Hollywood screen-writer John August (CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, BIG FISH). It deals with issues of fact and fiction in a manner reminiscent of Charlie Kauffman movies. It deals with haunting coincidence in the manner of THE NUMBER 23. It satirises the Hollywood/network TV game in the manner of THE TRUMAN SHOW or EDTV. All these movies and more were swimming round my head during this film. The only thing that was genuinely new was the fact that Ryan Reynolds was given room to flex his acting chops, to great effect.

The movie has three inter-twining strands starring a trio of actors playing different actors, sometimes reminiscent of John August - sometimes just playing themselves. In the first strand, Reynolds plays a network TV star. He goes on a drug-fuelled binge and ends up under house arrest, being babyset by his publicist, played by McCarthy. His "desperate housewife" neighbour, played by Hope Davis, starts a flirtation with him, but it's soon clear that both she and the publicist hate each other and are hiding things from him. The tone of this strand is uneasiness - sort of similar to INLAND EMPIRE but infinitely more straightforward. There's a fair amount of spooooky seeing and hearing number nine everywhere but the reason for this is also straightforward. Hope Davis' character is jealous of McCarthy's overweight publicist. Ranked out of ten, she thinks Reynolds' TV star belongs with the nines.

The second strand sees Reynolds playing a TV writer based on the real-life John August. He's trying to get his pilot picked up by the network represented by Hope Davis' exec. The network want the writer to drop his best friend from the cast - Melissa McCarthy - and replace her with the more svelte real-life actress Dahlia Salem. She'll appeal more to the test audiences who loved the pilot - the ones who ranked it "in the nines". Reynolds' character's moral vacuity is captured on reality TV. He muses on the fact that while he plays god with his characters, for the reality TV producers, he's merely a puppet.

The TV pilot is about a wife (McCarthy) and a kid (Elle Fanning). The husband (Reynolds) leaves them in a forest to go call for help. He is intercepted by a hotter chick (Davis) who once again fears that his domesticated life with his fat wife is holding him back from his true potential. He's a video game designer who's over-stepping the boundaries in his self-designed Second Life.

I find the issues raised by THE NINES compelling. The increasing availability to consumers of virtual worlds. The moral redundancy of network TV and especially of reality TV shows. The superficiality of modern society. But John August never convinced me that he was fully in control of them. What's more, he retreads on ground that was broken by Kauffman almost a decade ago. All this, makes this a film that one can probably overlook.

THE NINES played Sundance 2007 and went on release in the US in August. It is currently on release in the UK.

YELLA - I see wet people!

YELLA is a tightly constructed, austere German thrller co-written and directed by Christian Petzold. Fans have praised its glacial atmosphere, stark framing and convincing central performance by Nina Hoss as the eponymous heroine. They have also forced profound meaning onto a slight film. Some say it's a metaphor for the corruption of West German capitalism. Yella makes her journey into moral ambiguity when she leaves her loving father in a rural East German town. She is undone in an anonymous business park in Hannover.

While I appreciate the creation of a sinister atmosphere, I wasn't entirely convinced by this film. The parable about the journey from East to West will be lost on anyone who does not have an intimate knowledge of German geography. And the spare script has its longeurs and improbabilities and a denouement that is derivative, predictable and entirely unsatisfying.

YELLA played Berlin 2007 where Nina Hoss won the Silver Bear. It is currently on release in the UK.

WIND CHILL - workman-like supernatural thriller

On the hottest day of the year so far, Doctor007 and I ducked into a blissfully air-conditioned but absolutely empty theatre to catch whatever was playing. That turned out to be an under-the-radar spoooooky thriller from the Clooney/Soderbergh production camp. The plot is simple. A beautiful college student cadges a ride home from a geek. They get stranded in the snow and seemingly enter an eternal loop of road accidents and other wacky shit. It's pretty formulaic but gets a marginal thumbs-up for three reasons. First, DP Dan Laustsen beautifully photographs the sinister snow-swept mountains. Second, it's nice to see a pretty heroine in a horror flick who actually has brains. Rather than a ditzy, bikini-clad blonde, WIND CHILL presents us with Emily Blunt's gutsy engineering student. And yes, she is perfectly capable of saving herself, thank you very much. Third, both Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes (HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) give credible performances as two teens. Indeed, the blossoming of their relationship is far more interesting than the supernatural nonsense surrounding them.

WIND CHILL was released in the US in April 2007 and is currently on limited release in the UK.

SPOILER ALERT: I also think the movie could've been improved by ending 10 minutes earlier, with the chick caught in a nightmarish constant loop, rather than stumbling sentimentally after her guardian-angel love-interest to safety.....

ANGEL-A - utter tosh

I sent an Englishman, an Austrian and a Swede to report on the new Luc Besson flick, ANGEL-A. I called the Swede this morning and here is a summary of the conversation.

Bina007: So how was the movie?

Swedish Philip (laughing maniacally): Utter bloody tosh! The Danish girl was quite good looking. But as I said to Georg, just having a slutty-looking blonde is not enough to save a movie, Still, she was pretty-looking. It would have been better not to have subtitles because then we would only have understood 50% of the lines because our French isn't that good. Oh my fucking word! - the lines in it - seriously! It's like the guy says to her "you don't have a past, but let me guide you into the future." Maybe it's not the lines. Maybe it's the translater was just wacked out producing this bollocks translation.....Is the message coming across?

Bina007: At least you didn't have to pay to see it.

Swedish Philip: But I felt embarassed because Georg still had to pay to see it.

Bina007: True. I'm sorry about that. How did Movie Tom find it?

Swedish Philip: He decided not to go. I got this phone call at 5pm and he said he had done some research on the film and decided not to go, and as I was watching the movie I thought "Tom, you had a point!" But seriously, the movie was beautifully shot - all in black and white - and I really liked the first ten minutes. Up until the point where she said, "I'm an angel". Then it was utter tosh. But, it almost got me back into the tall blondes - into the whole Nordic look - but not quite. I think I'll stick to my R.I.A.C.s*

So there you have it folks. ANGEL-A is utter tosh. But if you still want to see it I should add that it is the latest film from Luc Besson, the guy who directed NIKITA, LEON and THE FIFTH ELEMENT and other movies starring Milla Jovovich. In fact he used to be married to her so he obviously has a thing for leggy models falling for less attractive guys. His films seem to be on a downward trend. In this movie, Jamel Debbouze (who starred in AMELIE) plays a loser who is about to throw himself off a bridge into the Seine. He is rescued by the tall blonde who sorts out his life. She is an angel, geddit?! That's it. And it's shot in black and white so it must be art. Plus it's only 88 minutes long so even if it sucks it's over quickly.

ANGEL-A was released in France last December and has since opened throughout Europe and in Japan. It opens in the UK tomorrow and in the US on September 29th 2006. *Random Inter-Changeable Asian Chick.