What? (Blu-ray)
Sandwiched between the incredible success of Rosemary’s Baby, the Sharon Tate trauma soaked Macbeth, and the classic Chinatown, is Roman Polanski’s largely forgotten film, What? Filmed on location using the gorgeous Italian villa of co-producer Carlo Ponti, the film can be considered little more than a disastrous sex comedy. It’s comes as no surprise that […]
A Special Day (Criterion) (Blu-ray)
Despite the celebratory mood that surrounds Rome, beautiful housewife Antoinetta (Sophia Loren) feels just as lonely as ever. She has a husband and six children, but feels emotionally spent: husband Emanuele (John Vernon) is overbearing and disrespectful; while her children are rude and don’t really appreciate everything she does for them. Today, Emanuele has taken […]
La Dolce Vita (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray)
La Dolce Vita is the movie that piqued my interest in foreign film. I first watched the Fredrico Fellini classic in college twenty years ago. I was immediately taken in by the beautiful black-and-white cinematography of Otello Martelli. More than fifty years after its original release, this tale of one man torn between the decadent […]
La Notte (Blu-ray)
The second installment in his trilogy of discontent, Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte attempts to examine a couple who have essentially lost themselves in a society dominated by technology, and conspicuous consumption. Once passionately in love, the couple are mere reflections of their former selves as they try to rediscover what brought them together in the […]
Blu-ray Review: The Organizer (Criterion Collection)
While not as instantly recognizable as compatriots Fellini, De Sica, Visconti, or Antonioni, director Mario Monicelli was nonetheless influential, considered one of the masters of the Commedia all’Italiana (Comedy Italian style), helmed more than sixty films in a career that spanned over six decades. In 1963, Monicelli would write (with Age & Scarpelli) and direct […]
Blu-ray Review: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
The 1964 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, yet another entry into director Vittorio De Sica’s ‘lighter fair’ filmography, is likely his best from that period. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni team up again for what is essentially a collection of three stories, but nonetheless works as a unified whole.
Blu-ray Review: Marriage Italian Style
A glossy rendition of Eduardo De Filippo’s Neapolitan play Filumena Marturano, Marriage Italian Style is a comedic drama about the highs and lows of a lifelong romance. Starring the perpetually stunning Sophia Loren, and the “man’s man” Marcello Mastroianni, the duo would eventually make a total of 14 films together. A few of the pair’s […]