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Product Description: A troubled actor a television show runner and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLERS Rating: R UPC: 043396227507 Manufacturer No: 22750Amazon.com: Worlds collide in most unusual ways in The Nines, marking the feature directorial debut of John August, screenwriter of such offbeat wonders as Big Fish, Corpse Bride, and Titan A.E.. Ryan Reynolds plays Gary, a Hollywood television actor whose crack cocaine escapades land him under house arrest. A no-nonsense publicist (Melissa McCarthy) who specializes in rehabilitating bad-boy stars for public consumption keeps Gary in line until a sexy neighbor (Hope Davis) makes him wonder if his reality is truly all it seems to be. Indeed, once the question is asked, another world washes away the last one: this time Reynolds plays Gavin, a TV showrunner whose best friend (McCarthy) is dropped from his new series after a network executive (Davis) manipulates him. A watchful viewer of The Nines will begin to note that certain themes and bits of dialogue overlap the first two segments of the film, and that certain key lines (e.g., "You’re not a man") are laced with double meanings. A haunting resonance, a sense that everything is imbued with some unknown quality or secret, overtakes one’s deepest experience of the movie. That feeling only grows in the final third of the story, in which Reynolds becomes Gabriel, a doting husband and father who leaves his wife (McCarthy) and child (Elle Fanning) with their stalled family car while he fetches help. Along the way he meets a wary stranger (Davis), and nothing is the same again. Everything loops into everything else in August’s clever story, which taps into that profound sense of alienation and dislocation most of us feel at one time or another, and pushes it toward the realm of myth. Fans of Donnie Darko may well find The Nines equally intriguing. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews:
- "Look for the exit...": Like most movies these days, this one starts with an interesting concept and then somewhere everything goes wrong. Rent this movie and then send me the 15 dollars you saved by not buying it. There is really nothing to this movie. There is no mystery or suspense. Everything is spelled out to you along the way in plain english. The only reason I gave it 2 stars is because the acting was good. Unfortunately that does not save this movie from disaster. You are welcome in advance.
- Disappointed: I rented this movie because I love Ryan Reynolds, but the movie was really disappointing. It was so complicated that I only watched it because of Ryan's good looks. I know it sounds superficial, but why do they have to make movies so damn complicated. I hated it.
- Ryan Reynolds at his best!!: The Nines is a remarkable film by John August. He is the genius who wrote the A.D.D./drug addled, raver cult classic Go and Tim Burton's beautiful love story, Big Fish. The movie stars Ryan Reynolds playing three separate, and sometimes overlapping, characters in the three short films that make up this one story. He blows the top off this movie with his portrayal of a writer, a troubled actor, and a video game designer. This is one of the most original films that I have seen in a long time. I would have to say that Reynolds has finally broke through as a serious actor and shed the stigma of being another National Lampoons' puppet. After watching this movie, I had to wonder why he ever did such horrendous trash as Van Wilder. The movie is hard to follow but it pays off. It's a confusing concept but the director is able to pull everything together solidly by the end of the last short. I hope this is the new direction that filmmakers are going to take. Or at least they should. John August has set a new standard, and it's going to be hard for anyone to keep up with him.
Go BUY this one... NOW!!!!!
- thought provoking: Any film that can instigate a lot of discussion among my friends, including positive and negative has got to be good. If you want mindless, escapism entertainment, this is not the film. However if you want to exercise your brain, this is it. The performances are excellent. Who knew Ryan Reynolds could be that versatile and Melissa McCarthy, is funny, touching and cool in all 3 stories. I'm still trying to figure out what it all means, I have two or three theories, as do my friends.
- Arthouse Poetism, 4 Mar 2008: Plot:
A TV actor (Ryan Reynolds) goes on a bender before crashing his car after smoking crack with a hooker. Under house arrest, he hears noises and sees hallucinations that suggest a haunting. However, the truth is much stranger, and a portal to other dimensions is opened...
My Review:
The Nines is a more poetic version that questions Humanities existence. It is another startling and perhaps more original idea that bares the likeness of M Night Shyamalan or whatever his name is. It begs to answer on its own accord the simplest questions, like "What is going on? Why are we here? We've all thought these things?" providing an answer to our own inadequate answers.
Science Fiction fans will love this, with that in mind it has a beautiful intrinsic idea behind everything (literally everything) that seems to glimmer with its own inner-self incandescence. Mixes and mingles parables and plethoras of edgy indie realism with bizarre metaphysical surrealism, providing much needed provocation and genuine food for thought.
Verdict:
A well-cooked and interesting piece of 90 minute cinema. 8/10.
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