bbewnylorac While I'm not a fashion fanatic, I did watch Devil Wears Prada and I was interested to find out more about the enigmatic Anna Wintour. This movie only skims the surface of life at Vogue, but given the complexity of people, places and objects involved in creating just one issue, the film makers did a pretty good job. I didn't always understand what people were saying. There were too many mumbling asides. But there were some genuine insights, such as how down to earth Anna's sidekick, stylist Grace Coddington is, yet very much an artist. You see how Vogue is not just an observer in fashion, it's a catalyst, a driver of what's coming up. There are some absorbing scenes -- the skinny model eating a cake, the cameraman roped in to a photo shoot, and the agonising debate about which cover photo to use. Wintour proved a tough nut to crack. She's naturally very stiff upper lip. Not intentionally at all, it's just her nature. She's obviously an excellent editor and well-respected. However apart from some of her comments about her family, I felt she remained a closed book.

Jim Beller My fashionable daughter insisted that my wife and I watch this movie. I liked it very much even though I am not into fashion. I think the movie gave some interesting insights into Vogue magazine and the power it wields.However, my reaction to Anna Wintour, the Editor in Chief, and Grace Coddington, Vogue's Creative Director is what reinforced in me a conclusion that I became aware of years before. Anna Wintour, who most would say is very good looking, came off as very cold and distant and not especially likable. Grace Coddington on the other hand, who is eight years older and does very little to enhance her looks, especially with her hair, came off as smart, honest, thoughtful and very likable. By the conclusion of the movie, I found Grace Coddington to be by far the better looking of the two. The reason is that she had an inner beauty that shined through while, in my opinion, Anna did not.I learned at an early age that your conception of looks and beauty of a person can change greatly when you get to know that person.

maryszd The September Issue is a superficial look into the making of the September 2007 issue of Vogue. Many of the shots consist of various photographers, art directors and members of the editorial staff behaving in a groveling and subservient way around editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. The one exception is stylist Grace Coddington, a confident and gifted woman who does superb creative work and isn't afraid to stand up for herself. Her work really is the backbone of the magazine. Once she leaves, Vogue is on a fast ride downhill. Wintour's insights, as she looks at and discusses potential fashion spreads, seem fairly prosaic. She must have gotten the job by game-playing and the usual machinations of the business world. Outside of standing back somewhat and letting Coddington do her work, I don't see what she contributes to the magazine except for making her staff feel compulsively insecure. I enjoyed the few scenes that show her with her twenty-something daughter, who wants to be a lawyer. She clearly has the ability to "get" to Wintour that no one else in the film does. Good for her. Wintour talks about her father and siblings, but neglects to mention her American mother, an interesting omission. Wintour is a lonely character, in a way. There's a revealing scene of her in the back of a town car clutching a Starbucks coffee and staring straight ahead. She's off in her own world most of the time. As is to be expected, no one on the Vogue staff actually wears the outlandish clothing featured in the magazine. Wintour wears flattering silk dresses, Coddington dresses in various frumpy black outfits and the staff and photographers wear practical work clothes. The exception is Leon Talley, the only member of the staff who truly buys into the fashion myth. Since Wintour reveals so little of herself and the filmmaker is as deferential to her as the rest of her intimidated staff, ultimately "The September Issue" is an elegantly made film with no emotional heart.

mukava991 In this documentary we follow Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her colleagues through their sleek Manhattan offices, beautifully appointed homes, European catwalks and design houses and photo shoots as they meticulously assemble the contents of the titular September issue that is supposed to be the most important of the year. After about a half an hour of chic fashionistas going through their paces (examining fabrics and photos, judging color schemes, sipping various liquids, gliding around big cities in chauffeured limos) it starts to get dull and repetitious and we can better appreciate the genius of the 2006 comedy The Devil Wears Prada which took the same basic set of people, heightened their personalities, spiced up their interrelationships, infused drama and plot into their routine professional activities and served up a sumptuously entertaining satire on the world of haute couture while also educating the general public about the nuts, bolts and economic and cultural role of that enterprise. There is far too much ennui and unoriginal glimpses behind the scenes which have been well covered in other documentaries and on countless televised celebrity magazine programs. Every once in a while there is a worthwhile insight, such as Wintour's description of the social atmosphere of London in the 1960s, a time of deep change, which formed her. She is certainly cool and reserved, but not the Ice Queen that Meryl Streep played in the fictionalized version. If anything, the point of this documentary would seem to be the humanization of Miss Wintour. By the time the fabled September issue starts rolling off the presses, all we can do is shrug.