Day 83 -- The Nines

Released: August 31st, 2007

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, Hope Davis
  
Writer/Director: John August

Description: A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

Films that don't reveal what they are truly about for two/thirds of the movie can either be frustrating or brilliant. M. Night Shyamalan knows both sides of this, with "Six Sense" as the latter and "The Happening" as the former (plants, really?!). No matter how good you set-up the twist, the reveal is all that matters.

"The Nines" has a story that clear and convoluted at the same time. Throughout the films three parts, you get snippets of information about the truth about the world you are watching. The first part is all about an actor having a mental breakdown and slowly begins to realize that he might be in a "Truman Show"-esque situation; Part two is all about a screenwriter who is trying to create a new TV show, and he is also the subject of a reality show. Then, at the end of this section, we are lead to believe that he is in the most boring video game ever. Finally, the third part he plays a video game creator who gets lost in the wood, but by the end of this segment the audience and the character find out that "G" (Reynolds) is a god (get it "G").

The reveal is so clunky that I felt the need to say out loud to no one in particular, 'this is stupid.' The idea of the story is fantastic and on par with inception, but instead of leaving us with just one big question, "The Nines" leaves its audience with many small questions, which makes the ending confusing. Don't misconstrue this as a statement that everything should be spelled out for the audience, but rather, I'm campaigning for writers to know what questions to leave hanging and what ones to answer. You can answer questions and be mysterious, but if you leave too many loose strings, you undermine the entire first two acts of the film.

There are many ways to interpret the story of "The Nines". One is to take it at face value as a film about a god-like being that got too involved in the world he created, or you can take it like I did, as a metaphor for screenwriting. 

Before you roll your eyes, think about it, "G" can change the world with a single thought, and he says that the final world is his 90th, which can be equivalent to a writer's final draft. The two other examples that stick out to me is when "G" mentions to "M" (McCarthy) that the worst scenario, if he stops being involved, is the fiery destruction of the world, which is a reference to what could happen once a screenwriter hands his script over to a director. Finally, the line "S" (Davis) says during his "intervention"spoke to me as a writer, she says, 'If you stay, you'll keep changing the pine cones,' which refers to revision. The process of revision is a hard one because you start agonizing over the most minute details of your script or your world, or as she said, 'the pine cones'.

The performances were uneven. Reynolds only stood out in the middle section, McCarthy was great in the opening scenes, and Davis, and it may just be me, was painful to watch. The inconsistency is the byproduct of having actors play three completely different characters in the course of a 99-minute movie. It's obvious that none of the actors ever got comfortable in their role, and McCarthy especially had a hard time playing herself in the "Reality Television" segment. With all of the different intersecting moments and convolution in the story, the film needed about another half-hour to properly build the characters and clarify the story.

"The Nines" is an interesting idea that was just rushed to fit its run-time. John August did a really good job setting three different tones in each section so that the audience could understand that these were different world. Despite all of the good work he did, his failure to properly pace the reveal is the film's undoing.

Rating: 5/10 -- Inconsistent performances and uneven storytelling mar an otherwise solid film. Reynolds and McCarthy are good, but again, Davis pulls the quality of the film down.

Day 55 -- The Weather Man

Released: October 28th, 2005

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis

Writer/Director: Steve Conrad/Gore Verbinski

Description: A Chicago weather man, separated from his wife and children, debates whether professional and personal success are mutually exclusive.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

When an actor fits a character, it is a beautiful thing to watch. Now that does not always equal a good movie, or even a mediocre movie. There are still two components to a film, writing and directing, that determine its quality. Actors are sometimes panned for bad acting when the either the writing was bad, or the director was terrible. Of course the same could be said that a bad actor sours a great script and beautiful direction.

"The Weather Man" achieved the old, 'Two out of three ain't bad'. While not his best performance, Cage did a wonderful job showing the degradation of a man. This is the one case where his overacting tendency helped rather than hurt his performance. His reaction to the apple pie being thrown at him was the perfect blend of ridiculousness and genius; it was the best way to show that he'd finally had enough.

Cage played Chicago weather man Dave Spitz, who is on the verge of reaching the top level of his profession by become the weather anchor for a Good Morning America clone. During what should be the happiest time of his life, he's on the complete opposite end of the scale in his personal life. He has separated from his wife, his daughter's being teased, and his song is about to be molested, and he is becoming more estranged the harder he tries to reconcile.

What this film shows you is that Cage is at his best in a dark comedy. "Raising Arizona" is probably the best example of this because no one could have played that role as well as he did. Cage gets in trouble when he tries too much drama and action without much comedy. Mediocre performances, such as those in the "National Treasure" movies, occur when he tries to be too careful in script choices. Being aggressive with choice can also back fire, which explains "Knowing". Even at age 48, he still appears to be trying to show that he has range as an actor, which is a foolish choice to make because he could make a nice living in dark comedy or Cohen brothers movies.

Despite Cage's performance, the only other actor who was any good was Michael Caine, and he was barely above average for him. Caine played Spritz's dying father, who is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist in the 70s, was the perfect yang to Cage's yin. Every scene in which Dave's frustration reached a crescendo, Robert would be there to bring his son back to reality. It was a very understated performance, and I wished that he was in it more.

Spritzer kids were pretty terrible even for kid actors, which disappointed me because I enjoyed Nicholas Hoult in both "About a Boy" and the British TV show, "Skins". I wished that anyone, but Hope Davis played Spritz's wife. She not offensively bad at acting, but I've never really liked her in anything. Maybe it goes back to her role on the short lived show "Six Degrees", but I don't know, maybe its one of those things.

"The Weather Man" is a well-made movie. Cage is perfect in the role of a spiraling out of, man, and the writing is solid. But the direction was lacking, and I wish I could pinpoint why. Maybe it was because he didn't get any of the actors outside of Cage and Caine to be mediocre. Or maybe because nothing really stood out in terms of a particular shot. Or I didn't get it. Either way, it was a good direction job away from being a good movie.

Rating: 6/10 -- One of the better Cage performance, but the movie itself doesn't separate it self as either good or so bad it's good. Caine was underutilized and Davis was over used, which is to say she was hired. Induced some chuckles out of me, but most were because of Cage and not the writing.