This issue, we'll take a look at a musical remake of a foreign classic and a unique star-studded comedy.

Nine
(PG-13, Now Available)

Several years ago I took a class all about Italian film director Federico Fellini. He made some good films ("Nights of Cabiria"), some great ones ("La Dolce Vita"), and some nearly unwatchable messes ("Satyricon"). Fellini was erratic, but he did make at least one undisputed masterpiece, "8 1/2." The story of a movie director having a mental and emotional breakdown because he's run out of things to say is probably one of the most personal films ever made.

That was 1963.

In the decades to follow, Fellini's film was adapted into a novel which was adapted into a stage musical which has been adapted into Rob Marshall's "Nine."

Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is set to begin filming "Italia" in ten days. After making several beloved "early films," Contini's latest offerings have been, by his own admission, "flops." Seemingly the whole of Italy is hoping that "Italia" will be a return to form. But what Guido isn't telling anyone, except his trusted costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench), is that not one word of script has been written. In his desperate search to recapture the creative spark he turns to his life's obsession--women.

Among others, there's his muse, Claudia (Nicole Kidman), his mistress, Carla (Penelope Cruz), an enamored reporter (Kate Hudson), and his neglected wife, Luisa (Marion Cotillard). Guido hopes they will help him find his way, but with each passing day he just comes further and further apart at the seams.

As with Marshall's earlier film, "Chicago," "Nine's" musical sequences are framed as fantasies of the lead character. The highlights belong to Cruz ("A Call From the Vatican"), Dench ("Folies Bergere"), and the best singer of the bunch, Cotillard ("My Husband Makes Movies" and "Take It All").

"Nine" doesn't come anywhere close to the greatness of "8 1/2," but it is a good and worthwhile movie with a dynamite performance by Cotillard. Her Luisa has long put up with Guido's infidelity and lies. She's finally had enough. She's the most fully realized woman in the film in both the script and the performance.

Day-Lewis meanwhile had a lot to live up to after "There Will Be Blood," and while this won't make anyone forget Daniel Plainview, his work here is very impressive. At one point Luisa tells him, "You think this is your job, but this is our lives!" Day-Lewis has breathed life into a man who cannot separate the two. When this is the case, the inability to create goes well beyond writer's block. 7.5/10.

The Men Who Stare At Goats
(R, Now Available)

"More of this is true than you would believe," a title card tells us at the beginning of Grant Heslov's film. Which parts are true and which are not never seem quite clear, but when a film is as light on its feet and entertaining as this one, what difference does it make, really?

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor, trotting out his American accent) is a Michigan reporter whose wife has left him for another man on the eve of America's 2003 invasion of Iraq. In an ill-advised attempt to show her what he's made of, Bob decides he wants to put himself in harm's way as a war reporter. He doesn't end up embedded but he does find the story of a lifetime.

Soon after Bob's arrival in the Middle East, he meets a man he's heard about, Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). What he's heard about Lyn is that he was once a part of a very secret, very elite unit in the United States Army--a unit of men who call themselves remote viewers.

"We're Jedi," Lyn explains without a hint of irony. "We don't use guns, we fight with our minds."

When they end up kidnapped inside the Iraqi border Bob sees for himself just what Lyn is talking about. These aren't superpowers Lyn's using, they're simply the techniques taught to him by Colonel Bill Django (Jeff Bridges at his hippie-dippy finest) over the course of the 1980s, along with a touch of psychic powers and the unexplained.

Bob's rational side remains convinced Lyn's crazy, but he cannot tear himself away. Who could blame him? Lyn's belief and conviction in his own abilities are so strong that we cannot help but admire him even if he is a bit bonkers.

Bob and Lyn's Middle Eastern journey is intercut with the story of how the remote viewers came to be and just what led to their downfall. Django and Lyn's rival, Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), has a rather large hand in both.

"The Men Who Stare At Goats" is light as a feather. Peter Straughan's script and Heslov's direction keep things bouncing along and the fun the cast is having is infectious. Clooney gives one of his finest performances. He infuses Cassady with a mixture of loopiness and integrity and makes it look easy. Meanwhile, Bridges and Spacey seem to be having the time of their lives. McGregor grounds the film as the straight man for all of this wackiness to swirl around. His understated work will likely go unsung but it's essential to making this film work.

It's not a classic, but it sure is fun. 7.5/10.