Rating: 
Summary: The Not-So-Sweet Life
Review: I found it off-putting at first, but Federico Fellini's eighth film (the "1/2" represents a short) seems less offensive in retrospect. Basically, Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is a bit of a jerk when it comes to women, and the women in the picture are painted with pretty broad strokes (Anouk Aimée is the Uptight Wife, Claudia Cardinale is--literally--the Dream Girl, etc.). But I think we're meant to see them as he does and not necessarily as the director feels we should. The elegantly world weary Mastroianni is probably the only actor in the world who could have made this kind of character sympathetic. Not much happens either, but I guess that's the point: 8-1/2 is a film about a man--a filmmaker--at an impasse in his life. Women frustrate him, he's getting old, and he just can't seem to get his latest production off the ground. It's all one long bad dream. For what it's worth, director Jonathan Nossiter (Sunday, Signs & Wonders) has said he didn't like the film when he first saw it either. Some viewers may find that it takes a combination of time and successive viewings to fully penetrate this self-enclosed world--but it's worth the effort. As a special bonus, the carnival-esque soundtrack is one of Nino Rota's very best and just gets better the more I hear it. Gianni Di Venanzo's luminous B&W cinematography is also quite stunning.
Rating:
Summary: SIMPLY THE BEST FILM OF ALL TIMES!
Review: I simply adore Federico Fellini's "8 1/2". It's the best film of all times for a lot of reasons. Beautifully photographed, well-acted by all the cast, extremely well-written, absolutely fabulous in its visual poetry, the film is a precocious summary of Fellini's entire career. Awarded with an Oscar for Best Picture in a Foreign Language, it is his first authentic autobiography. Marcello Mastroianni portrays film director Guido Anselmi, who is having a personal and artistic crisis. The film deals with the character's childhood, fantasies,and dreams, without making any distinction to the audience. A fantastic gallery of characters walk by our eyes, and the camera is constantly moving, an overwhelming example of Fellini's master talent. "8 1/2" is the great masterpiece by the screen's greatest genius.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful film
Review: Felini dances with the camera constantly moving with the action.The Dream Sequences are incredible and the way Mastroianni acts as a the center of a confusing whirl wind is prefection. I'm 16 years old and I saw this film and it is my favorite of all Felini films and probably of all films in general. I've seen La Dolce Vita, La Strada, and Intervista. But I constantly want to see 8 1/2 over and over again. I think because it's constantly unfolding, and also how Felini makes a film incorporating his personal experiences and gets our attention.....a beautiful film.
Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Fellini
Review: Fellini-The name brings about thoughts of rampant symbolism (some planned, some just sitting there going nowhere), pretensious college students that take film WAY too seriously...a name that, like Kurosawa, gets bandied around by people with a love for the ART of filmaking...well, love him or hate him, Fellini was a true filmaker as artist. On one hand an almost Cervantes-like artist that set out to decimate the old standards, yet paradoxilly created a whole new set of 'em. "8 1/2" still stands as a great film and, probably, the ultimate Fellini movie. That's not to say his best, but definately the one to introduce his unique style with.
Rating:
Summary: Best Movie About the Artist
Review: I saw 8 ½ (1963) for the first time on South Street in Philadelphia at the old TLA theatre. I was in my mid-twenties and liked the big-breasted women. Saw the movie again yesterday at the Colonial in Phoenixville, PA, a wonderfully restored small town theatre, and reentered the world of the great director Federico Fellini. The cast consisted of Marcello Mastroianni (mid life crisis of the great director), Claudia Cardinale (the perfect woman), Sandra Milo (the chesty but dim lover) and Anouk Aimée (the ordinary wife he cheats on).For Fellini, 8 ½ continued a trend away from the realism of his early movies to a surrealistic view of his own life. The film has a simple premise. The great director has no idea what his next movie is about, while his producer and film company wait for Mastroianni to tell them what the movie is about. It does not help that Mastroianni falls in love with every woman in the cast and every woman he ever knew. The famous harem scene is near the end of the movie, where all the women in his life await his every whim. The older ones get banished upstairs. When the women revolt, he gets his whip and regains order. The women love him again. Oh, irony, but in Surrealism, Freud reigns supreme and dreams are a wish. I rate 8 ½ one of ten best movies ever made.
Rating: 
Summary: A CONTROVERSIAL MOVIE.
Review: Frequently, the name or label "Art film" is given to a movie that presents innovative techniques, an experimental narrative, abstract and ambiguous characters, complex dialogues...and slow pace, with complicated scenes, so complicated that the audience doesn't quite know what's happening, sure you can say a theory or what you think might be happening, but in the "Art films" sometimes even the director can't give an accurate explanation. Anyway, since "8 ½" presents all those elements, "8 ½" is an art film. Federico Fellini's cinema is one of the most mysterious and influent styles at the same time, modern filmmakers such as David Lynch owe a lot to the italian director. With "8 ½" happens something very interesting, there are a lot of scenes that are almost incomprehensible, but they are very interesting to see, because since the movie offers few explanations, the audience must be thinking most of the time, trying to solve the puzzle, so "8 ½" requires an active audience. The cast is very good, the obvious mentions are Marcello Mastroianni and the gorgeous actress Claudia Cardinale. "8 ½" presents some of Fellini's trademarks: there are a lot of surreal scenes that look like a complicated Dream, or a Nightmare if you wish. The use of the camera is very artistic and groundbreaking. And the pace is slow. The thing with the "Art cinema" is that for some, it's the only way of cinema that really counts, and for others the art cinema is just a pretentious way to call a slow and boring movie. I choose not to be in any of those extremes, I rather be in the middle because to me "8 ½" is a very, very interesting movie, worthy of study and analysis, but sincerely I think that Fellini did better movies, like "La Strada" or "La Dolce Vita". Anyway, "8 ½" definitely is not for fans of the "American Pie" trilogy or the Adam Sandler's comedies. "8 ½" is for lovers of the cinema in its more artistic expression.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly befuddling and strangely remarkable
Review: How does one begin to talk about 8 1/2? Every frame in this film could be put in a frame and hung on a wall. But it is not just the most brilliantly vivid visual film I've seen, it is indeed brilliantly conceived from beginning to end as well.
Guido is a film director who is struggling with his latest film. He's dealing with inner conflict - how to make a film with complex ideas come across simplistically so anybody can understand it - but also conflict with just about everyone else who is involved in the film, from actors to producers to professional Catholic consultants. On top of all of this, his wife knows that he's unfaithful and their relationship is ready to implode (or explode).
The plot is simple. The execution is complex, as director Federico Fellini shifts freely between the real and surreal, mixing and matching the outer world of Guido with the inner, in order to draw the viewer into the madness that is filmmaking.
I won't pretend to have understood everything that happened in the movie, and I'm not sure I would still pick up on everything after five or ten viewings, but I think the film works as an experience that doesn't necessarily need to make complete sense. In fact, it probably works better if some things don't make any sense at all.
8 1/2 gets a recommendation to anybody with any interest in film. It is an entirely unconventional way to tell a story that would be conventional in the hands of a lesser filmmaker. Fellini is known as one of the great directors for a reason.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: and indescribable. You'll have to rewatch it quite a few times. But don't let that scare you--you'll want to anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Eternal masterpiece and great DVD
Review: I will not spend many words on the movie itself. It is one of the greatest movies ever, and you will find countless reviews by movie critics and historians much more qualified than I am to confirm it. 8 1/2 is Fellini at his best: poetic, funny, deep, entertaining, meaningful. Both music and photography are absolutedly great. Not an easy film to watch, but one that you will remember, even if you find it at times strange and/or confusing.
But now let us come to the DVD. The quality of the picture and of the sound are excellent, and the translation is very accurate (I am Italian). The commentary is one of the best I had the opportunity to listen to in a Criterion Collection. Very very informative. The extra material on the second disc is excellent. "Fellini: A Director's Notebook" is a very funny and interesting portrait of Fellini. The documentary on Nino Rota (the composer of so many of Fellini's music, and much else) is wonderful. The interview with Sandra Milo ("Carla") is splendid, and very sweet and touching. It tells very good things about her. The interviews with Lina Wertmuller, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro are also very interesting, and not the silly and empty 10-minutes interviews that you find too often included as extra material in DVD nowadays.
Overall, an excellent DVD for a movie that justly made movie history. If you like Fellini you SHOULD buy this DVD. It is a real pity that Criterion did not produce an equally great DVD for Amarcord, which instead has virtually no extra material (not even a commentary) for the same price....
Rating:
Summary: like a transcendental dream, or is it ?
Review: hello people of amazon,
this will be maybe too personal what i will write.
this movie is an absolutely transcendental meditation, like a dream, a unique masterpiece, one needs to see it a few times at least to be able to capture the deepness there. like a very nice song you want to listen many times again and again, this movie is something like this. each time you see it you realize a new point, you recognize a new detail in it. you discover that some camera movements, some details you had skipped and did not even recognize previously gain importance when you see the movie again and again.
this is in one hand a disadvantage for the spectator beacuse one needs to have a deep concentration on the movie while watching it which is not easy always. i guess in general there are some prequisites -should i say unfortunately maybe- for the spectators to sit down to watch some of the Fellini, Visconti, Antonioni, Bergman, Pasolini movies (we might name many great art cinema directors as well). 8 1/2 is without any doubt a very good exaple in this context.
the dream scene in the beginning was so nice and impressive but still personally i found the "asa nisi masa" scene absolutely fantastic. some people associate this scene with Jung's "anima" (a-sa ni-si ma-sa) theory thinking that Fellini in fact did mean something really beyond. again more personally for me, the camera movements, the zooming into the picture on the wall and zooming out into the face of the little girl, the absolutely great music chosen there, the old lady and her conversations with the children, the discrete images of the burning fire, the woman entering a door all seem irrelevant, however in fact put-together as a whole they serve to complete the plot(s) of the movie. Fellini invites you into his dreams, shares them with you and makes you dream wtih him together.
a great movie, a must see for the people who love cinema.
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