THE BURNING PLAIN: NOT AS HOT AS IT SEEMS

A beautifully shot film, this follows the stories of a mother finding love in another's arms, Gina (Kim Basinger) and a young woman Sylvia (Charlize Theron) who tends to find love in who ever's arms are nearest. Gina has a home in New Mexico with her often away husband and children. Sylvia lives in Oregon, a seemingly successful business woman. The story weaves back and forth between the two women as well as Gina's daughter and impending love interest. Admittedly, it is hard to watch and wait to see how the two, or if the two lives intertwine. They do. When they do, it's shocking. The dialogue was pretty nonexistent, but the complex way the story was spun was amazing. Basinger shows again how good she is at playing fragile, vulnerable women just as Theron shows how good she is at portraying intense and complex women. The DVD extras explains a bit about the elements of the movie in relation to the elements (water, fire, earth, wind) and adds valuable insight. It wasn't an extraordinary film, but one well done and worth seeing.

NINE: NOT ON THE ONE TO TEN SCALE

What happened Rob Marshall? Chicago was so awesome and Nine was so full of stars and looked pretty and it stunk big fat rotten eggs! The story centers around director Guido Contini (Daniel-Day Lewis) who has lost his self and struggles with a new project while looking back at the women in and throughout his life who have touched him, so to speak. There is his mother (a luminous Sofia Loren), his wife (an enchanting Marion Cotillard), his mistress (a bubbly Penelope Cruz) his muse ( the shell of Nicole Kidman) his friend (a not sexy Judi Dench) a writer and admirer (Kate Hudson) and a random crazy whore (??!?!) from his past (a terrible looking Stacey- Fergie- Ferguson). There are others, but these are the ones he reflects upon. Each actress has a musical number, Cotillard, Cruz and Hudson's are the best, but they still came out flat. Lewis was okay, but didn't quite hit the nail on the head. The whole movie is like a bottle of warm soda that's been shaken one too many times. Even the main set looked like the prison backdrop from Chicago. Despite everything right, this movie was a big wrong. It almost felt like they thought by just having such a stellar cast it would carry the rest of the film. It did not. This was a sad disappointment.