The Nines
“There’s something wrong with the world.”
Ryan Reynolds makes an unnerving discovery in The Nines.
So, take supersexy Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds and give him three meaty roles in a nifty, existentialist puzzle of a movie called The Nines. Add indie darlings Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy and give them three meaty roles each. Take a script by (openly-gay,) acclaimed writer John August (Go, Big Fish) and give him the opportunity to make his directorial debut and what do you get?
For most people, based on the reviews collected at RottenTomatoes, what you get is a real head-scratcher. For Canadian film distributors? Poison. Canadians weren’t allowed to see The Nines in theatres, possibly for the same reason we never saw (the original) Donnie Darko or Southland Tales: film distributors in Canada are idiots. Or they think we Canadians are idiots, which only makes the distributors more idiotic.
So we wait until it’s available on DVD, which happened yesterday. And I recommend it highly.
Now, let’s get a few things out of the way. Firstly, Ryan Reynolds is a really, really attractive guy. You simply can’t talk about Ryan Reynolds without dealing with that fact. Secondly, as a superattractive guy, any discussion of his talent, pro or con, is gonna be suspect. Thirdly, I’ve mentioned this before, but being an atheist can really fuck up your appreciation for popular culture.
After the jump, let’s deal with all of these things. It’ll be mildly spoilery — you’ve been warned, though it’s really no more spoilery than many of the reviews available online — but there’ll also be even sexier photos than the one above. I dare ya...
Okay, let’s get these out of the way first:
Ryan Reynolds in The Nines
There. You’ve now seen all the beefcake from the movie so we can talk about the other stuff that makes it worth seeing. In just a mo. I want to study those obliques and rectus abdominus for a few more hours minutes.
And here’s the trailer which, like most trailers you watch after you’ve seen the movie, simultaneously hypes only minor themes and seems to give far too much away. Click PLAY at your virginal peril. Really, if you’ve already decided to see it, I think you should resist.
Ryan Reynolds is really good in this. It’s not an “important” film — it’s too light-hearted for that — though it most certainly deals with important themes. And being non-”important” means that we can’t automatically describe Reynold’s performances as “tour de force”, though he does a fine, fine job as:
- a perplexed, TV action star, under house arrest for various minor criminal infractions
- a frustrated, fussy (equals gay!) TV writer (the owner of the above house) starring in a reality TV show about the creation of a television mystery series about a father gone missing
- the loving father (who also happens to be a videogame designer) from the aforementioned TV mystery series
As you might expect, each of these three stories, told sequentially, seep into each other until they fold together in a tightly-designed puzzle. Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy play femmes fatale and sympatico, respectively, in each of the three stories. Or do they?
The Nines is one of those movies which is likable on first viewing and quite lovable on second. The sleight-of-hand in the storytelling is a bit frayed in places but mostly impenetrable, or impenetrable enough. It deals with spiritual themes, too, though this brand of spirituality tilts closer to the so-called Seth Material than more conventional faiths. If you’ve been reading these posts, you already know I’m unrepentantly atheist. So why should this movie appeal to someone like me?
Well, the performances are top-notch, especially Reynolds’, and that can overcome a lot of religious puffery. It deals with identity, creation and the creative process — all of Reynolds’ characters are creators of some sort or another — and that holds a relentless appeal, too. And it’s non-canonical, which puts it in the class of other irreverent works dealing with faith, like Angels in America — which I watched again yesterday (sniff) — though certainly it lacks the scope, sweep and gravitas of AiA.
The Rapture, Michael Tolkin’s unsettling story of a woman who can’t believe in god (even when she absolutely wants to) used to be one of my favourite movies but is no longer, I think because it’s so dogmatic in its approach to the material. As I reject faith and unreason ever more completely, the terror of faithlessness seems not terrifying at all.
The Nines, while not striving for the enormity of Tolkin’s movie’s themes, manages to succeed through its whimsy, its cleverness and its audaciously playful theosophy. It’s all poppycock, of course, but some poppycock is simply not as rancid as the other, and August’s recipe is actually pretty tasty. It’s as smart and as sassy as you are. The Nines gets a 9 from this 7.
Addenda:
Fun Fact About The Nines: In the movie, one of Ryan Reynolds’ characters — the frustrated television writer, Gavin — is trying to get a show called “Knowing” off the ground, with filming in Toronto. This is a not-even-vague reference to John August’s experience with the failed television show “D.C.”, which was actually filmed in Toronto. And one of the filming locations for “D.C.” was the house next door to where I lived in 2000.
Another Fun Thing to Do: By all means, check out the DVD extras, which include a short film by August and McCarthy called god, which is not only a very cool backstory for one of her characters in The Nines but just, plain, fucking hilarious.
One comment
Guess what was waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home today? Yup. A junkmail brochure for Primus TalkBroadband.
Yeah, we saw plenty of these driving down Church to brunch on Saturday.
Leah: “I think that guy is gay.”
Dave: “I think that lady might be, too.”
Derek: “This game is really easy.”
The gay issue aside, i hate it when they do commercials for toilet paper. I mean, a bear wiping its behind on prime-time tv.Right when i am having my dinner Uuuuum, no thanks.
HEY! Some of us got Celtic Knot tattoos 13 years ago before anyone else had them, and some of them still look cool, and they're tattoos, which means they're permenant. Mister! MISTER!!
[...] What sets Luciferus' Celtic Knot armband tatt apart from other, lesser, Celtic Knot armband tatts is his inimitable style, the personal meaning of the ink, its formidable size and, well, his dead-sexiness. Dude can pretty-much get away with anything. In fact, he's so dead-sexy… he's zombie-sexy. [...]
BT query: priceless! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
That’s BETTER. Thanks for the “props,” ” ‘my’ man.”
Clearly assholes are in charge of coming up with commericals about asshole hygeine. Totally disgusting and tasteless.
Nice take on the Yankee Doodle, Jim Dandy, Take out of ai-Zarqawi. Never thunk it.
Whats your take on the little Arian P.M. running Canada’s flag pole up our youths glory hole and seeing who salutes.
Lest We Forget!
Bob.
what an influential guy. turned me into a lesbian. bless him, he’s done so much good in the world.
This is awesome
As crusty as ever!
Should I ask you to provide proof of menstruation? Or should I just trust you?
…I’m just going to trust you.
Sars, you know that cliché about when you lose one sense, the others become stronger? Well, since I lost the sense of joy brought by cigarettes, my sense of smel — aw, jeez, y'know what? Just trust me.
“World Cup-inspired horn-honking after midnight only.”
What is UP with that? If they must honk, why aren’t they doing it immediately following the game? That would at least be during daylight hours.
I had similar experiences with Primus, and unfortunately, I actually did get connected. However, only to have a horrible connection, gaps in service, and technical difficulties. Every time I called, it seemed they wanted to do anything but help. I also got numerous annoying messages about payment, even though it was mandatory that I sign up for preauthorized payments, which I had done in the beginning. It was not my fault they were not withdrawing them! When I called, they would not let my pay the outstanding balance any other way, and kept insisting it would be cleared up. I finally called after months of this, and they had added a number to my bank transit number, but nobody had called for this information, instead they hounded me for money while at the same time insisting I could not pay any other way.
I then moved, and asked they switch the number, which they did not do. Again, I hounded them, while at the same time they did not fix my problem, which was that my phone was not working. Then eventually I asked them to discontinue the service. They kept withdrawing money from my account for another six months. Again, I had to call several times for them to send me a 'return package' for my gateway, and ask that they refund me six months worth of payments for a service I had disconnected. I am still waiting.
Yikes! If stories like ours are any lesson, it's to always Google "companyname 'customer service'" prior to any financial or legal entanglement. Good luck with your… disentanglement from Primus!
In competitive news, I'm still very pleased with my Vonage service, with only minor annoyances (like the marked decline in audio quality whilst doing some heavy-duty P2P — totally expected, by the way — and a "message waiting" light which won't stop blinking when voicemail messages are remotely deleted).
Okay, that was hilarious. I vividly remember seeing Heston’s ass on our old black-and-white TV some Saturday afternoon back in the 70s and sensing some far off call. For years I watched the movie when it was on TV just WAITING for the ass scene, and either missing it altogether by tuning in too late, seeing an edited for TV version that eliminated it, or generally believing I had dreamed the whole thing. I have not seen Chuck Heston’s ass since that languid afternoon and I am so happy to learn that I am not mad.
However. I definitely grooved to showering with my dad and eyeing other dads at the gym before Heston mooned me. I usually say that reruns of Ba Ba Blacksheep (or Wild Wild West, for that matter) with the often shirtless Robert Conrad made me gay, but it might as well have been Heston’s ass. Thank you for this though-provoking post.
thats funny as hell… i love “Saturday transactions posted next business day (Wednesday)” nice blog btw!
Dude, Robert Conrad definitely had it going on. The shots at Brian's Drive-In Theatre are wildly erotic, especially given the mantastic, soldiery and surfery context. And, by all means, check out the second page. The man could really rock the Speedos, for serious.
lol. Well your father sounds pretty sharp to me. Was your mother was in the room? Sleeping on the couch changes a married man’s
Oh, yeah, Mom was there and, credit-where-credit-is-due, the "ugh!" was her contribution to the critical fusillade. Now, keep in mind, this is the same woman who went to see Training Day but was sorely disappointed because "that Denzel is such a dignified performer, and a family man, and I just don't understand why he would be in something with so much cussing."
It was your railing that was tiresome, frankly. If moving house really was more fun than being festive, good for you, sweetie. I had a great weekend!
…well, apart from the gut-flushing bouts of diarrhea the night before I did the pride run…
Excellent blog entry… i was also quite bugged by Singer’s interview clips and instantly thought of the studio too when i read that. What a fucking knob!
That rainbow faux-hawk you were sporting all weekend was really cute, hon, so it’s no wonder you had a great time. I liked the last weekend in June so much better when it was in memory of the inyerface, take-no-shittery of Stonewall heroes and when it was our party, not some PR event put on by mousey assimilationists for the benefit of baby-toting suburbanites, tourist shutterbugs and corporate sponsors. But thanks for the gastro-intestinal tract update! You know I love a good poo story!
You walk out of “Superman Returns” with whatever you walked in with.
I have absolutely no doubt that you’ll see some self-righteous chucklehead on Fox News soon complaining about Lois Lane having a child out of wedlock.
Me, I grew up reading comics, loving comics – and the new movie is unquestionably well done, so I walked out happy.
And I’m as political as they come – but I was willing to set that aside for two hours and be a five-year-old kid again.
Oh, for Krypton’s sake. Superman is the most heterosexual character in any movie that Singer’s ever made? What about friggin’ Wolverine — you know, destructive, in possession of a hairtrigger temper, scruffy, not into sharing his feelings, limited to only one identity, in lust with a woman at first sight, eager to penetrate every enemy he comes into contact with (albeit just with his claws), blah blah blah? Guess the studio (and Hugh Jackman) didn’t freak out as much about the alleged heterosexuality of the X-Men.
Now I REALLY hope that X3 ends up outgrossing SR. Whatever my issues with Brett Ratner, he didn’t go around blathering about what an extremely heterosexual movie he’d just directed. He just talked about how cool it was to see superpowered people blow things up. I already resented Singer for leaving the X-franchise high and dry (yes, I am a pathetic fangirl, thank you very much) and this isn’t helping. Gah.
Theo: Given the flimsy rationale I’ve invented for seeing crap like War of the Worlds — second-worst film of 2005, by the way, after Bewitched (for which I also paid cash money) — in the cinema, your expectations (and payoff) were totally reasonable.
meg: I was thinking “what about Wolverine?”, too, when Singer made that dumbass comment. But then I was thought about how Ratner managed, during the big X3 finale, to have Huge Ackman’s shirt but not his pants get torn off (by Dark Phoenix’s psychic blast) and any charitable feelings for him disappeared faster than the film’s sketchy continuity.
I think the entire “Superman is so so so not-gay” stems from whomever started the press saying Superman was gay. I think that is also why Singer didn’t mention the hetero-ness of Wolverine et al. Had no one so much as whispered that Superman could be gay, or seen as a gay icon, Singer and the studio probably would have nver mentioned it.
And… here’s where I get my ass kicked… Singer is gay? I knew my gaydar sucked, but damn. How did I miss that?
Does anyone think Bret Ratner de-gayed the X-Men with number 3? The good guys kind of give in to using “the cure” for their “mutation” at the end – and using it on Mr McKellen of all people!
Still, it was nice to see Iceman, after coming out to his parents in X2, having a good ol’ peeing contest with his flamey friend.
Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, it is possible that the “most heterosexual” comment came at the end of an interview in which the interviewer kept asking, in multiple ways, if Superman was really supposed to be gay. “So, Superman’s gay!” “Well, there are certainly aspects of his story that parallel that, but really, the character is straight. Cute, but straight. There’s that Lois Lane thing.” “I know he’s not technically gay, but isn’t he sort of gay?” “No.” “Oh, c’mon, he’s kinda gay.” “Well, he spends the movie pining over a woman, so…no.” “Look, you KNOW he’s gay.” “HE’S THE MOST HETEROSEXUAL CHARACTER I’VE EVER DIRECTED, DAMNIT. NEXT FUCKING QUESTION.” Probably not, but…never discount the importance of context where incindiary quotes are concerned.
Binky, the very last second of the movie (if you don’t count the scene after the credits) seemed to indicate that the “cure” wasn’t all that final after all. I’m thinking of it as the metaphorical equivalent of conversion therapy. Plus, I think the whole “mutants equals gay” metaphor, while powerful and true, sorta breaks down with the “mutants using powers to gleefully kill people” part. Also, any movie that has Frasier Crane playing a beast is not rejecting the gay, IMHO.
bstewart, I classify the shirt-but-not-pants thing as springing from the same motivation that led to dozens of people being blown apart bloodlessly in the movie — i.e. the desire to keep a PG, or at least a PG13, rating, in the hopes of making back the production costs. Even Dark Phoenix must bow to the overwhelming might of the MPAA. Call me cynical.
It was your dad’s happening, AND IT FREAKED HIM OUT!
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
most phone companies like telus, rogers, primus, etc are the worst for customer service, and now bell is releasing customer info to the authorities which is why I cancelled my service with them. these companies only want to believe that they are the only phone company in your area so they can do whatever they want, but the reality is if you check around you will find many phone companies are available in your area. I would never go with telus, bell, shaw, or rogers ever again.
I mean, the amazing thing is that the cleavage between her breasts almost meets the cleavage-like indentation in her neck.
That looks like the best birthday ever!
Fastow’s very good friend and fellow Enron scumbag Michael Kopper is openly gay and got his partner deeply involved in Enron (leading to a macabrely hilarious moment where certain Enron execs were arguing that a certain business partnership involving the partner hadn’t broken the law, because the law just forbids spouses from being involved in such business partnerships and Texas law bans gay marriage. No joke: http://www.houstonpress.com/Issues/2002-02-14/news/insider.html ). So, of all of the Enronites for you to crush on, Fastow would probably feel the least uncomfortable about the possibility. Sorry. The Ken Lay thing is incredibly apropos, though, is it not?
Um, beloved Brett, I respectfully disagree with some of what you’ve said here. First of all, am I right in assuming that you haven’t seen Superman Returns yet? The whole story hinges on his being heterosexual because it’s about his relationship with Lois. I don’t have a problem with this, and yes, I am sure it is Singer’s homosexuality that is really at issue here. The X-Men movies are clearly queer metaphors, but SR is up to something else, and I thought it was kinda great.
Busted! Luciferous, you are quite correct in assuming I’ve not yet seen SR (and prolly won’t until it comes out on DVD) but my bitch concerning Singer doesn’t involve what actually occurs in the movie —
I know enough LatinI’ve seen enough Law ‘n’ Order to know that Res Ipsa Loguitur (“the object speaks for itself”) is at play here. That is, I’m sure that the film will do an adequate job of quashing “Superman is gay!” with no need for excessive, box-office-protectin’, desperate objections from the director (especially with the odd colouring the story got in the media; as if being an “openly”-gay director gave his proclamation of Superman’s nongayness greater gravitas than, say, some comic-store guy).You and I clearly have different breeds of gay friends, meg. Heh.
So, yeah, I’ll see it, eventually (and hopefully with a Singer commentary which at least pays lip service to the noncontroversy and in which he’s able to comment in a fashion and context he finds appropriate), and rest assured that the comments above will be bouncing around in my brain when I do.
That’s a sexy monkey. What a thoughtful and excellent gift. Huzzah to whoever gave you that.
Indeed. But that monkey smokes more than Julia Roberts and never empties the ashtray, just like her. Doesn’t fling as much poo, though.
“He wears of himself the long hair…”
My favorite Sedaris story of all time – great reference!
(a fellow WITWNer just checking in to say hey)
If I had prizes, you’d already be a winner. And you didn’t even need a map!
…and, is it just me, or does Lance Armstrong look like he’s really, really enjoying his good friend (and biking buddy) Jake Gyllenhaal’s company?
The Jesus on the right is PRECISELY the Jesus I grew up with, hanging over the TV for my whole childhood.
omg, yeah. i mean i woulda gone with the first joke, it was stupid but kinda funny in a wordplay way, but then ‘the sick’ part really showed his colours….
omg, you’re beautiful.
have any single lesbo friends with your level of snark?
I think Mr. Armstrong prefers his special friend Matthew McConaughey
That kind of explains a thing or two, Steve, about me as well as you, since you’re the one of whom I thought when I stumbled upon that image (again).
“Again”? Yeah, the first time I ever remember seeing that picture was 25 years ago, when my realtor pulled one out of his wallet while explaining his newly born-again status. “Who wouldn’t love a god like that?” he asked me, and I instantly knew exactly what he was getting at, only without his specific follow-through.
This was the same realtor who passed out in the steamroom at the gym and who, when I expressed some alarm and concern on hearing about it, reassured me that it was actually a good thing; the EMS guy who arrived on the scene to revive him was “really hot”.
Hey, thanks! Sadly, all of my lesbian pals are already encumbered with girlfriends. I promise, however, to alert blog visitors to any change in their status.
Not as much as McConaughey prefers himself.
But Clay Aiken LOST. He wasn’t the American Idol, Ruben Studdard was. But I agree, Clay is as overhyped as all get-out.