I've heard the revival cast recording and found the whole thing irritating. But presumably there's more to it. I don't want to waste a (hopefully) good musical movie opportunity by unfairly disliking this show. What do you think of the show, and if you like/dislike it, why?

From what I've heard, there are a bunch of songs about the main character's film directing as if we're meant to care, but the dramatic reason for us doing so - "Hmm, what should my next film be about?" - isn't particularly compelling. Every (totally hot) woman around the guy seems to be inexplicably in love with him, even though he's narcissistic, immature, untalented and is having affairs with a fair few of them. That may be because of the "traumatic" experience which supposedly defines/explains/excuses him - flirting with an attractive prostitute when he was a kid, then getting into trouble for it. Thankfully the lead is eventually told to grow up. But we still have to endure an entire show of watching him cheat and potter around with his movies, all portrayed as if it's really quite charming. Makes me wonder if the creators really 'mean it' when they finally take him to task.

So what's the show like when the libretto, staging etc is taken into account?

First thing: the revival recording is such an acquired taste it's ridiculous. A large portion of the cast is irritating (mainly Antonio Banderas himself) and the OBCR is much much much better.

Just my $.02.

You do realize that Nine is an autobiographical story, right? Guido Contini, aka legendary art-film director Frederico Fellini, was one of the major players in European cinema, and his work was revolutionary and beloved.

It's true, we're asked to love a narcissistic, self-absorbed writer/director with women issues, mommy issues and a bit of arrested development. He's got more women than his looks or personality merit, which is part of the character's design (although they tend to cast attractive Continis, against Fellini's own original film "type").

So why do we love this neurotic but brilliant mess? The same reason we love Woody Allen, who's all that and so much more/worse. We just do. It's part empathy, part masochism.

I don't know much about the show..I was waiting until the movie came out, but since 2/3 of the songs or something have been cut, I don't know if this will be the best thing since I imagine the show/movie are now quite different.

If you were me would you try to 'learn' the show first or see the movie 'blind'?

The two things to remember with Hollywood adaptations of stage musicals:

1. They cast a mixture of "singing actors" and "acting singers", instead of casting people who qualify as being a "singer/actor".

2. They cut out songs, for whatever reason.



And these things always p*ss off fans of the original stage version.

I'd say go into the movie blind - then you won't be thinking so much about these changes and might be able to just enjoy the movie as a movie.

If you've never seen "8 1/2" (the movie that "Nine" was based on) then that's even better - because you won't be making the kind of comparisons that practically every film critic and cinephile will be doing
(I'll eat my hat if film critics the world over don't damn this on principle just because it is a remake of a film that is considered a masterpiece of world cinema)