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'9 Songs' mixes graphic sex with rock 'n' roll
by Bob Townsend

"Oh, we're so pretty, oh so pretty vacant," singer Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols snarled in "Pretty Vacant," one of the British band's most perfectly petulant punk anthems. Those lyrics might easily describe 21-year-old Lisa (Margo Stilley), the uninhibited and uninhabited female lead character of "9 Songs" — the latest film from British director Michael Winterbottom. They could also explain Lisa's lover, Matt (Kieran O'Brien). Read the full review

TO SUM UP
Matt meets Lisa, a visiting American student, at the Brixton Academy in London during a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club concert. Their relationship unfolds as they attend a variety of concerts together, interspersed with explicit sex scenes.

FILM FACTS ...

Tartan Films USA

'9 Songs'

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Kieran O'Brien, Margot Stilley
Run time: 69 minutes
Release date: July 22, 2005
Rating: Not rated, but includes explicit sex scenes.

On the web
Official movie site

READ THE REVIEW

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: B-
"Winterbottom takes a lot of risks. Sometimes, those risks pay off in visually lyrical moments. Other times, the whole thing breaks down into peep-show parody."

Read the full review

Austin American-Statesman: 1 of 5 stars
"The concert footage is unexciting, the sex tells us nothing about the characters, and the detours across glaciers look suspiciously like a tacked-on frame — an attempt to give metaphoric meaning to a movie that never quite gelled."