Two sides of Penelope Cruz

Back to back screenings of the two Penelope Cruz films on Saturday. NINE was up first. When I saw NINE on stage back in the 1980's in NYC, I really really hated it. I was bored and offended and couldn't wait until it was over. The only scene that I remembered was the final scene, when hundreds of white doves were released in the theatre and flew over our heads, and it was startling and exciting (and woke up a lot of sleeping patrons)--and I worried that we might be hit by bird shit. Mostly I was glad it was over. When I heard it was being turned into a movie, I was not very excited, so I went to the new film NINE with LOW expectations. There are no doves this time, but I was still a bit bored. Does anyone really care about a 50-something rich director (Daniel Day Lewis) having a mental block and nervous break down, yet he's surrounded by 5 beautiful women and his sexy (Sophia Loren) mother. They all get to sing (very well) a not too interesting song in a CHICAGO/CABARET manner wearing the same type of costumes as those two (better) films. This is a case where each part (actor/actress/scene) is well done but it doesn't add up to anything we really care about. Penelope Cruz and Fergie both had sexy songs to sing, and they were rather provocative--Cruz as his mistress and Fergie as a prostitute from his youth. Marion Cotillard (Oscar winner for LA VIE en ROSE) is his beautiful but betrayed wife, and brings some needed realism to her part. Kate Hudson is a vivacious almost one night affair, and Nicole Kidman is his ex-mistress/muse who stars in all his films--all are effective. It was fun to see Judy Dench sing and dance as his costume-designer confidant. And I did admire Daniel Day Lewis for his singing and intense acting, but he seemed almost painfully thin--I kept seeing his gaunt cheekbones and vivid rib bones. It just seems like an empty exercise in style and glitz. The total effect is disappointingly AVERAGE.
So, it was a relief to see BROKEN EMBRACES, Pedro Almodovar's newest film starring HIS muse, Penelope Cruz, speaking Spanish, and having more to say (too much?) than one colorful movie can contain. (You have to read a lot of subtitles really fast.) Cruz rises from being a call girl to become the mistress of a wealthy older man, only to fall in love with a (blind) writer/director (!?)--complete with nudity, sex, melodrama galore, and twisty plot devises. In other words, ravishing to watch and not at all boring, but perhaps nothing really new from reliable Mr. Almodovar.
Sunday I saw the new film CRAZY HEART being touted as the best Jeff Bridges film ever. Bridges is a very likable actor, and I would agree that this is one great job--he does his own singing as a drunken, past his prime singer who has ended up playing bowling alley gigs with local pickup bands and bedding local women. This all changes when he falls for a younger single mom/struggling writer (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who has some issues with his alcoholism, but brushes them aside, to nearly tragic results.
It's very much a character study of two lonely people who must learn to change before they can find happiness, and it boils down to --can he or can't he conquer his demons. I have a problem with the resolution of the film. (Possible SPOILER alert--stop reading if you don't want to know part of the ending.) The film spends over one hundred minutes showing Bridges in scene after scene of what most people would call "hitting bottom,"--(extreme vomiting--sometimes mid-set, waking up in strange/awkward positions, car crashes, other near tragedies, etc)--yet when he finally seeks help to dry out, he enters a clinic that includes two brief scenes--maybe 90 seconds--and then he's cured ?!?! It feels like he's in there for a weekend!!! The film ends shortly thereafter, but the emotional payoff of seeing him really change is just NOT there.