Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Daily Cardinal Est. 1892
Wednesday, October 01, 2025
Kevin says 'nein' to over-publicized 'Nine'

Nine: The Oscar buzz and overall celebration about Rob Marshall?s ?Nine? may be premature; all that?s evident now is an over-the-top trailer.

Kevin says 'nein' to over-publicized 'Nine'

The other day, I was passing my time in the Cardinal office by reading some old issues from a few years ago. Not just because I was curious as to what Mayor Dave's favorite rock 'n' roll album of all time was (a standard question for The Daily Cardinal when interviewing politicians), but also because I wanted to see what my predecessors wrote for film columns.

The first one I found was a column from Dan Marfield talking about some of the potential Best Picture candidates for the 2004 Oscars. Sure, Dan got one of them with ""The Aviator,"" but the rest of his list was puzzling. ""Spanglish""? ""The Phantom of the Opera""? ""Beyond the Sea""?

That last one, a Kevin Spacey biopic about the singer Bobby Darin, was critically lambasted, with Boston Globe critic Wesley Morris saying, ""I knew almost nothing about the singer and actor Bobby Darin before sitting through Kevin Spacey's new film about him. And having seen ‘Beyond the Sea,' all I can really tell you is that he sure did act a lot like Spacey."" Given that Spacey wrote, directed, acted in and sang in the film, and that he rounded up a group of musicians and went on tour to support the film, the film's flop was a sad parallel to Spacey's post-""American Beauty"" career.

And yet, Marfield's column predicts another Best Actor nomination for Spacey, noting his striking resemblance to the late singer. He wasn't the only one either: At first, many critics picked ""Beyond the Sea"" to do extremely well, despite knowing nothing about the film beyond the hype. The studios create Oscar hype by getting A-list talent, a strong director and an Oscar-friendly storyline, such as a biopic or a historical epic. So instead of trying to predict what film will be a success come February, I'm going to try to predict which film everyone is going crazy over right now will end up being a flop, or much less successful than predicted, at the very least.

Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Daily Cardinal delivered to your inbox

My choice for the Reverse Oscar award goes to Rob Marshall's ""Nine."" This film has literally every component to win an Oscar. Rob Marshall directed the Oscar-winning ""Chicago;"" Best Actor winner Daniel Day-Lewis stars, along with a who's who of A-listers (Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench). Beyond that, the film is based on the Tony award-winning musical of the same name, a look at struggling Italian director Guido Contini's mid-life crisis, and the play is based on Federico Fellini's classic film ""8 1?2.""

Yet the trailer I saw for the film made it seem hokey and overdone. Kate Hudson vamping it along a catwalk made the trailer feel more like a Ralph Lauren commercial, not an Oscar-winning film. This could be because it's hard to convey the epic nature of a musical in a two-minute trailer, but the film seems like it could be a bloated mess.

Of course, a movie columnist four years down the road could look back at my column and laugh because ""Nine"" ended up winning 14 Oscars and shattering the record held by ""Titanic."" The point is, attempting to handicap the Oscars based only on studio expectations and name recognition is a fool's errand. But predictions sell papers, so we'll be seeing wild guesses like this for the foreseeable future.

Are you a theater major, outraged that Kevin would even consider criticizing Guido Contini and ""Nine?"" Voice your outrage to kevslane@gmail.com.

Support your local paper
Donate Today
The Daily Cardinal has been covering the University and Madison community since 1892. Please consider giving today.

Powered by SNworks Solutions by The State News
All Content © 2025 The Daily Cardinal