Number nine, number nine…

Many of you have already spotted an interesting trend in a number of 2009 films this year: the proliferation of the number nine.

There is, of course, “District 9,” which is already in theaters.  Any good Oscarwatcher knows about the forthcoming musical adaptation “Nine” from The Weinstein Company and Rob Marshall, a film that could stir confusion when its released three months after Shane Acker’s animated feature “9.”

Elsewhere, there’s “Cloud 9,” from Andres Dresen and about a golden years affair between a sexagenarian and a septuagenarian.  And one that tends to slip through the cracks in conversations about the trend: “$9.99,” which I saw at the Santa Barbara fest back in January and quite liked.

With all these nines running around (hey, there’s another one — John August’s “The Nines,” though that released two years ago), some intrepid reporter was bound to cook up a piece.  And so Ari Karpel has in the pages of the Los Angeles Times.

Karpel talks to a numerologist, who had this to say:

Nine is considered the number of endings and the number of transformation and completion…we’re in a time of great transformation called the Great Turning…We’re at the end of this first cycle of nine years under the new millennium…So it’s a time of things ending, transforming. Everybody’s going through change. That’s why I think these numbers are coming out.

Interestingly enough, “9” is a film that deals with a sort of post-apocalyptic world, while “Cloud 9,” as mentioned, concerns a love affair that comes late in life.  “$9.99,” meanwhile, is a collection of tales about Sydney apartment dwellers looking for meaning in their lives.  So maybe Karpel and his piece are on to something.

Oh, let’s not forget the words of Adolf Hitler in “Inglourious Basterds”: “Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!”