Reviews

If one can stomach a super-realistic rendition of violence and corruption in Rio, where the real villains aren't the gangsters but the police and politicians, this is the right movie. Apart the interesting social and philosophical issues that can be sparkled, it is a very well directed, written and acted piece of cinema. What follows it's a warning for Italian audiences.

La versione che la Rai ha mandato in onda e che è disponibile su RaiPlay è censurata, perché evidentemente Mamma Rai ha ritenuto alcune scene troppo forti per il suo pubblico. Inoltre, gran parte del commento fuori campo del protagonista è assente. In cambio di questo bel trattamento, paghiamo il canone in bolletta. Cercate l'originale.

I'd save a couple of good scenes, but letting the camera turn in front of, well, nothing could be fashionable but personally I find it annoying. Someone said that life is a film without editing, and these overlong, void sequences look too much as life and too little as cinema. Maybe this was exactly what the director meant: for instance, 5 minutes shooting an email screen looks a lot like our real, today's life. But it's horribly boring. Not entertaining, but also it doesn't tell me anything new about life either. A futile exercise in artsy cinema. Haneke made some very good films in the past, namely "Amour", actors and themes of which can be found in this one, but really the two can't be compared.

If we consider this film only for the script, it is just (that's a lot) a brilliant comedy often trespassing into farce. What makes it different is the Von Trier branding, made of evident cuts (one every 3 or 4 seconds), bad framing, continuity mistakes too evident to be real mistakes. Lars underlines in a voice-off this camera mismanagement, but to me it was quite annoying after a while. The second thing that makes the otherwise mainstream comedy based on a clever and very funny idea is the fact that it is oh so Danish. These northerners are very strange and funny to me: I mean, we are used of the American, British or (for me) Italian or French and now also Spanish ways of making us laugh, but those sad and pale faces dimly lit by the Nordic sun are so funny and different and crazy. Also the jokes between the Danish people and a raging Icelander citing sagas and verbally abusing the Danish who "kept Iceland under their heel for 4 centuries" are very exotic but perfectly enjoyable. The impression is sometimes to be watching a madhouse, but it's a different experience I would recommend.

Paltrow et al. have declared that the great pleasure of being in this film was to have enjoyed a long vacation in Italy. For sure they've been in beautiful places. But since Italy seems to be, also in actors opinion, the main character of this film, I'd like to warn all viewers that the place it is not Italy at all, but a sort of parody inspired by a Stendhal syndrome gone asunder. I had the impression of watching actors move in a conventional postcard or in bad pictures taken by the average tourist. Do you really think that hairy bus conductors and badly shaved priests normally goes for a singing duet in the piazza near the sea, for instance? Probably, had the film set in Spain, we'd seen people dancing flamenco in the morning instead of breakfast with bulls running in the streets in the background. What is acceptable in a TV commercial makes a feature film lousy.

When I was a kid, I used to go to the movies in the theater near the

church. It was cheap, and it was safe: the priest wouldn't allow

less than ethically correct films. Now, this film reminds me of that:

it's romantic, it shows the poor, the derelict, the homeless, even

the leper (a very popular item in my old catholic films era) and the

conversion of Che (or, the birth of an Icon) all surrounded of an

unreal aura of innocence and cleanliness. I should bring my

children to see it. For me, it is really a bit too childish. And I'm

referring to the plot and the way to tell it: the lack of blood, sex,

profanities is to be commended as a note of originality.

This is the first film in which I saw a bare breasted girl. It is enough to rate it as one of the most important movies of my life. Apart from this, it is a nice example of Commedia all'Italiana of the sixties.

The director, Tognazzi, is not exactly a director, but one of the most notable Italian comedians from that golden era. The female star (not the bare breasted one, that was an extra), Buccella, was the real sex symbol in Italy at the time, although her performance now look as innocent as it can be. Note that the "villain", that is the one who exploits his stupid chauffeur, is called "Avvocato" like the late and omnipotent Gianni Agnelli. If you like Italian cars, enjoy the Lamborghini Miura, another sex symbol of that long gone era

Italian moviemakers have discovered that filming in a single location in the South gives the film a peculiar flavour and unusual setting and it's cheap. What a pity the film itself is cheap too: it looks exotic even to the average Italian viewer, but it has really no plot, characters have no depth and the acting is standard bad mannerism. There's no point in it. I think the problem is the usual one: the same person want to be director, cinematographer, scriptwriter and all. The result is he succeeds in nothing.

A distinguished film critic said once that you should forget a film is taken from a book and consider what you're watching in itself. The problem for the one who actually makes the film is quite different, of course. For this film (and also for High Fidelity) the problem seems to be how to convey Hornby's flavour on film. And the solution is always the same: voice off. In High Fidelity it wasn't off actually, for the actor spoke to camera, but that's just a trick. In this case, we hear characters thoughts in first person (in the book is on third: quite a difference) and that's where all the fun comes from. Once again, it's Hornby who deserves credit: and though I've liked and laughed a lot, it seems to me this About A Boy on screen lacks something to be a good film and not a good transposition. Hugh Grant is better than usual, good casting, good pace. A big flaw: the bit with Hugh with guitar is cheap slapstick mixed with an evident will to make tears shed.

A bona-fide popular indian film on western screen at last? Maybe not, but it looks more Bollywood than many others "d'auteur" movies from India. Thinking of it rationally, it looks like a Disney Cartoon. Silhouetted dancers against a red sun with heavy drumming in the background as in Lion King; the white heroine throwing doves singing I'm in loooove in high pitches like Cinderella or Snow White, villanious Brits with big teeth flashing through moustaches as they sneer nastily at poor "coloured" as in Tarzan; the Indian girl frowning childish as Mulan. And musical numbers every now and then. But it works, it works, it works. Sometimes you can smile at the naive approach or rough editing, but I bet you won't be bored by sitting for 4 hours thru' this story. It has the same appeal films used to have on us when we were kids. And if it is Disney, is first class Disney.

The non-Italian filmgoer probably ignores the bad name Zeffirelli has in Italy: in two words he's considered an inflated balloon, as we say in Italian. His great merit in this movie, I think, is to have made Hamlet watchable for almost everybody. It's not a small task, and consider that outside Britain and the USA Shakespeare plays don't enjoy even the familiarity that derives from school. Simply, by the masses, they suck. And Hamlet is widely known as the man holding a skull saying "To be or not to be" (Yorik's not very heard of). The fact of seeing a popular, almost proletary, and very humane and close Hamlet like Mel Gibson's instead of a pale and posh British actor can help somehow. For the rest, the direction doesn't risk anything: again, it looks like Hamlet explained to the masses, including the oedipean kiss between mother and son (I'm not spoiling I suppose? everyone knows the plot). The only thing I didn't like at all was that effacing Fortinbras also my favourite "How stand I then, That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men,

etc. etc." has disappeared. Anyway, if only Franco were a bit more simpatico!

This convincing movie is a proof that sublime and ridicule are just a step away. The sort of mixed technique used here (blown-up details, split-screens, drawings mixed with live action and all the usual director-cinematographer believing in his visual genius somersets) works beautifully not to show one's gifted, but to tell the story. And the story works, and the fictional (?) explanation of Jack's killings is convincing and somehow amusing. I gather the whole thing derives from a comic strip: it must be a first class strip, and its peculiar way of looking at the world (with a penchant for the gutter), of sketching, cutting and editing it is transferred on the big screen with gusto.

OK we know how it works. And we know that it works. Take the

worst out of everyday life: overweight widowers in underpants

doing the garden, maddened parents who lost their daughter and

don't talk anymore, a crazy hitch-hiker blabbing nonsense, fat men

brutalizing women etc. Not exactly the kind of humanity you're

aware of, but they're there anyway. Showing them with some

cinematic skill, crude, trivial and repetitive dialogue, blank setting

and the most desperate casting of all (don't forget big bellies and

varicose veins) won't assure you a hit at the box office but surely

will earn you a place in the heart of all arty film lovers. The film is

good and well done, but the spreading of this taste for no plot-bad

taste-dire normality-parking lot shots has become too much a

cliche' not to seem a bit pointless.

When a film shows a style for the first time, it's a manifesto. When it comes late but shows a style in depth and with all possible variations, it's a catalogue. It's hard to imagine a cutest, more cunning and more up-to-date film. Take any sequence and you'll have a good commercial, present, past and future. The girl is the archetypal french maiden we all have see in Cacharel ads. The sequence in which the quadruple photo talks is actually an existing commercial (for the Region sardinia, check out sardinian coat of arms and you'll understand). The sequence of the old russian movie with subtitles actually talking of something else has been overused by creatives everywhere. It's not a matter of copying, it's a matter of manipulating an enormous collage of images and situations that grows every day in communication around us. And what about the travelling dwarf (I've seen it in a children book), and the blue arrows scenes that I'm ready to swear we'll see next year in a commercial at Cannes? Not the kind of movie I'd take on a desert island, but enormously meaningful of present day cinematic art, briskly paced and entertaining.

As always, a social issue is beautifully intertwined with personal drama: sad, funny, true like life itself. And cinema itself. It's a relief to see someone can entertain and move us in this way, that's definitely not the present-day Hollywood way. On the other hand, Loach's career is brilliant from beginning to end with the only possible exception of Carla's Song that I consider a faux-pas. Like all great artists, Loach with this films add something to our understanding of ourselves, and our present history. I supposed that you understood I liked it. Still it seems I've lost the best: the liverpuldian parley. In Italy unfortunately all these films come dubbed.

I have seldom seen so much talent and sfx squandered as in this

movie. Cats and dogs play amazingly (if one can still be amazed

by post-production tricks) but what about a decent plot? decent

acting without the usual antics, wows and gas emissions? what

about a decent line? One wonders what happened to American

Cinema, that's wondering what happened to cinema at all. And

what Jeff Goldblum is doing in it? Nothing, believe me: he hardly

changes expression. One of the hardest task of being a father is to

have to go to see these deadly movies: and the kids didn't like it

either.

being fond since childhood of historical movies, or at least costume movies, it has been particularly excruciating to sit thru this one, wondering what it was all about (since it's not sexy, not amusing, not historical, not consistent, not tongue-in cheek and chiefly not well written- besides, it's awkwardly directed), wondering also how (or with how much) Michael Caine could have been lured into this and what happened to American Movies. It's a pity because the first sequence (lady and guillotine) is first class in its genre. Maybe it was second unit.

Is it likely that emperor Commodus fights in the arena with a gladiator (although wounded) who already proved himself Rambo plus Terminator? Is it likely that one can make a general disappear in the middle of his army without arising the slightest suspect or reaction in an era in which emperors were made by armies? Is it likely Marcus Aurelius standing few yards away from a risky battle like general Lee on a cliff overlooking a Civil War fight? Nobody wants a movie to be absolutely consistent and historically correct, but a shade of inner plausibility is always required not to look ridicule. Besides, all can be forgiven as long as it's entertaining. But all you can save in this mess is a bit of digital architecture which seems dejà vu after Star Wars, and battles (although edited in a dizzy way): the rest is boring, the screenplay childish. Scott is running out of inspiration (like the last De Palma and the late Kubrick), cinema has less and less to be proud of, and I like Ben Hur better.

altman has been evoked to describe the style of this film. I think we'd better evoke Wilder who said that film is screenplay and note that Magnolia screenplay is laughable and amateurish; we'd remember also that film is edition, and magnolia seems not to be edited at all. Overlong, self-indulging, lacking ideas and coup de theatre, it has to rely on frogs falling from the sky to give us a bit of (bad taste) surprise. What a pity: the opening is so good and it has such a pace and is so full of promises that one could expect a great film.

The movie is great for everyone who, like me, feels the fascination of frontier saga. I liked it so much that I bought the book and in the novel to my amazement I found the Iroquois described as cannibals. The scene depicted in the novel has been somehow censored in the movie, where the victim (an Algonquin child) is "only" slaughtered in front of his father. Since then I looked for new evidences of this custom and I found it, with difficulty. It's quite odd that the American natives, for many years and in many movies forced in the role of villains, have enjoyed this form of "respect". It seems that even the word Mohawk means "man eater". Don't know if it's true, but I think that some form of ritual cannibalism in one people's past is nothing to be ashamed of.

I've seen this on tv when I was a kid and I was so struck I never forgot it. For the first time the blank and brutal reality of a battle was depicted to my childish and romantic eyes. Pity I wasn't able to track a copy of this film. Apparently in UK they don't even remember who Peter Watkins is.