IT'S COMPLICATED. So, that's what you call it!

If you're dying to see a movie about the filthy rich in Southern California (Santa Barbara, to be exact) encountering self-absorbed, self-induced 'problems' of self-perception, then this is THE movie for you. Actually, it's not that complicated - in fact, it's less complicated than High School Musical. However, it does have its pleasures. And a few good laughs too. This is probably a good movie to watch on an airplane.

And here's another foxy actress in her 60's (move over, Sigourney). Meryl Streep is in close up all the time, and quite a few body shots (no naughty bits) - looking still firmly in the dating game. Sexy.

And paired with a very naughty, utterly amoral Alec Baldwin, their scenes together are by far the best in the movie.

However, do we really care?

Here's Meryl with her Bakery empire, money is in constant unending supply like the gas pipe from Alaska, and she never hurts. Until one day, her harpie coffee-morning friends stick it to her that she may have everything but she doesn't have a man. Thereby starting the decline of a successful independent intelligent woman to a quivering self-doubting mess.

The movie posits that you're not 'really there' until you're successfully paired. There's always something that is impeding your true happiness.

At the start of the movie, she's experiencing empty-nest syndrome, and instead of scaling downwards like most normal people would (especially having put your kid through NYU.....hello!), she's building a Xanadu of new kitchens onto her sprawling hacienda, entirely for herself. That's a simple example of what's wrong with this movie. All of the people in it have this bizarre sense of entitlement, and the movie keeps on giving, without question. A visit to New York must have the entire family staying at the New York Regent. Why? Because it's so nice. Mere 'simple' parties at people's houses must be catered like Oscar nights, and nobody stops to notice HOW FUCKING PRIVILEGED THEY ARE, and the mexicans who work in the background are never seen. These poeple can't enjoy a life like this without the support of immigrant slavery - but here, everybody walks on air and there's no visible support. The smugness of the noblese oblige eventually creates distance (because they are SO protected from the great unwashed out there), and that distance makes us care less and less and less and less. They never get their shoes dirty, and if they did, the movie would immediately give them new clean shoes without question. Why spoil the mirth?

The movie deals with Meryl's dangeous liaisons with Alec Baldwin, her ex-husband currently married to Agnes, who stole him away in the first place. And it's less about her moral quandry in the act of adultery, than her worry about becoming vulnerable. In fact, when she breaks the news of her adultery to her man-hating, self-piteous, open-wound-licking divorced harpie friends, the pious moral outrage that they have ravenously fed on through the years (at being abandoned for younger women), suddenly flips into Hellelujah chorus of revenge, rendering their abhorence of adultery irrelevant. I guess when you're selfish, anything works that FEELS right.

It sounds complicated. But it's not really.

Why does everyone hate NINE?

I've seen it twice, so far.

Yes, Guido Contini is a self-obsessed asshole, and he doesn't deserve happiness. He pretty much abuses everyone who enters into his toxic orbit. But he's a child, lost in an adult world, and he needs to find is way home again. That's it - nothing more, nothing less. And it's a musical. Not the Koran.

I wasn't a huge fan of the universally adored CHICAGO. I didn't hate it, I just didn't love it. I felt there was nobody I liked in it. It would be very easy to label NINE the same way, but NINE has a heart. Granted, that heart is shattered into bits and stomped on throughout the movie. But it's still there, softly beating.

Guido as a nine-year old child is the unifying force of the movie, and this kid (Giuseppi Spitaleri) is magnificent - breezy, natural, naughty and cute as a button. And knowing this child - he appears through the movie in flashbacks, we can excuse the older Guido (Daniel Day-Lewis in a winning 'mannered' performance) because he's still that child. The movie isn't so much a narrative plot-driven movie as a series of solo songs by famous actresses, well staged. There's very little else going on.

However, each and every song is GREAT! And the very best thing about this flick, is that during each of the solo songs, the movie cuts out of the song many times to a parallel narative about that girl and how she got mixed up with Guido in the first place. It's a great device, and stops the 'solo thing' from being visually tedious. Marion Cotillard's soulful song "My Husband Makes Movies" is the best thing in it - Judi Dench camps it up very well in Franglais with "Follies Berger" - Penelope Cruz sparkles throughout, better than any Almodovar movie she's been in - and the surprise is Kate Hudson, who finally shows that she has Goldie's blood in her and delivers gold! Sophia Loren looks alternately graceful and beautiful, though there are times she looks like drugged out 100 year-old leather-queen at the Eagle.

Italy (and especially Rome) in the 60's is well recreated and the scenery and the people are gorgeous. What's not to like?

Can we talk about AVATAR?

Ok - finally got to see the latest movie from the King of the World. Well, apparently, this world was never quite big enough for his ego, so he's moved on to the galaxy, and it looks like he's pretty much exhausting that too.
I have not been so bored in a movie in years.
I was literally squirming in my seat, looking at my watch every 10-15 minutes or so, wondering if it would/could ever end soon. This is a ScreenSaver turned into a two and a half hour movie. It's big, splashy, hugely over-produced, and if you're a fan of video games, you'll be right at home. However, effects alone do not a good movie make - as we all know. The story is frightfully one-dimensional. It makes Disney's Pocahontas look like Proust. It's probably terrific if you're stoned. I wasn't. The only really amazing thing about AVATAR is that the ever foxy tight-bodied Sigourney Weaver is 60, and she kills poeple like a 40 year old!! No special effects necessary there, and she's the best thing in it. There! Spoken like a real gay man!