Playing For Keeps

READ MY REVIEW OF PLAYING FOR KEEPS

Voltage Productions has chosen Muccino to direct Fathers And Daughters, about a Pulitzer-winning writer who grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown. Much later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.

After his big success with The Last Kiss, L’Ultimo Bacio, Muccino went on to make films with Will Smith, The Pursuit Of Happyness and Seven Pounds in America and then bombed with Gerard Butler and Jennifer Biel in Playing For Keeps.

L’Ultimo Bacio

Playing for Keeps was far from the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and L’Ultimo Bacio is one of my least favorite Italian movies, so I am not exactly in line with most critics on the subject of Gabriele Muccino movies, but let’s hope he has a better experience with Fathers and Daughters. After making Playing For Keeps he said, “I Understand why Woody Allen’s making movies in Europe.”

READ MY REVIEW OF L’ULTIMO BACIO

READ ABOUT HOW MUCCINO SAID HOLLYWOOD SCREWED HIM MAKING PLAYING FOR KEEPS

The Pursuit of Happyness

From Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian:

Paulo Sorrentino’s magnificent return to form sees him reteam with Toni Servillo for a lush, classical tale of middle-age hedonism and lost love. (He’s) returned to Cannes with a gorgeous movie, the film equivalent of a magnificent banquet composed of 78 sweet courses. It is in the classic high Italian style of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Antonioni’s La Notte: an aria of romantic ennui among those classes with the sophistication and leisure to appreciate it. The grande bellezza, like the grande tristezza, can mean love, or sex, or art, or death, but most of all it here means Rome, and the movie wants to drown itself in Rome’s fathomless depths of history and worldliness.

Toni Servillo is wonderful in the role, his sad-eyed gaze made more intense with blue contact lenses. He is not disappointed by life, nor even by the people who fail to realise that life is disappointing, but endlessly tolerant, with the weary elegance of a vampire.

This movie looks and feels superb, it is pure couture cinema. But there is also an excess of richness and bombast and for all its sleekness I felt that the spark of emotion was being hidden, and there is a kind of frustration in the operatic sadness. It is a brilliantly executed, glitteringly hypnotic film, though, one of the very best in the festival and it is time for Toni Servillo to get his best actor award here.

From Jay Weissberg at Variety:

A densely packed, often astonishing cinematic feast that honors Rome in all its splendor and superficiality.

Very much Sorrentino’s modern take on the themes of Fellini’s “La dolce vita,” emphasizing the emptiness of society amusements, “Great Beauty” will surprise, perplex and bewitch highbrow audiences yearning for big cinematic feasts.

There’s something about Servillo’s manic smile that always suggests world-weariness; he lacks the seductive lassitude of Marcello Mastroianni’s Fellini figures, but he’s aiming for something else, specifically the waste of a promising intellect in thrall to emptiness. Sorrentino populates his film with some of the strongest actors in Italy, thesps like Galatea Ranzi and Roberto Herlitzka who make small roles memorable with the force of their understanding.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Director Paolo Sorrentino knows better than to imitate a giant, and The Great Beauty is more a reverent bow, picking up where La Dolce Vita left off 53 years ago.

Humor plays a major role in making the film enjoyable, and there are a lot of laugh-out-loud moments that capture human absurdity and frailty. Sorrentino, like Fellini, finds the right touch of respectful amusement depicting the Church and the aristocracy. The wizened Cardinal played by Roberto Herlitzka, who is rumored to be the next Pope, brushes aside spiritual queries to ramble on about how to cook duck. The impoverished old prince and princess Jep hires for a party are dignified relics of a world gone by, still surrounded by the grand architecture and art of their ancestors.

Since so much lies in the images, D.P. Luca Bigazzi plays a major part in the creating the film’s distinctive look. His feeling for Baroque palazzi and statues, streets and piazzas captures the haunting beauty of the title, finally embodied by a flock of graceful flamingos taking wing over the city at dawn. The upside of the tale seems to be that, whatever the future holds, there will always exist the breathtaking, heart-breaking beauty of Rome, and the final shots from the Tiber river can be read as a consolation.

From Federico Boni at Swide

The Great Beauty: Sorrentino’s masterpiece.

Rome is told by the mastery of our greatest living director, Paolo Sorrentino, who with La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) has given life to a film that viewed in 30 years’ time will continue to portray Italy today, that of the years 2000. Italy, culturally crumpling upon itself, empty, vulgar, swollen by botox and useless words which echo in the decadent mouths of Rome’s bourgeoisie, bored and dragged between parties and conga lines that inevitably lead no where.
Expert and stylistically brilliant, lyrical and encompassing, La Grande Bellezza by Paolo Sorrentino is today’s La Dolce Vita.

Within La Grande Bellezza by Paolo Sorrentino lives that old time cinema, which today we watch with admiration and nostalgia, bit especially with the awareness of today’s reality, which rhymes with decay: cultural, social, religious and political. Here it is perfectly amalgamated within a cryptic oeuvre, at times incomprehensible, between giraffes which pop out of nowhere and pink flamingos flying over the Coliseum, yet of a perturbing courage and beauty. So much so that it takes your breath away and obliges you to think, over and over again. Even 24 hours after the show, like is happening to me.

Simply, Thank you.

Thank you to Paolo Sorrentino

Accompanied by the films’ actors, Jasmine Trinca and Vinicio Marchioni, along the producers, one, her boyfriend,  Riccardo Scamarcio, to whom she gave special thanks:“Without them I couldn’t have done it, I had only to think about making a good film and all the rest, the boring stuff and the trouble, they spared me of that.

They believed in me, and in all these months I would have lost energy. Since I acquired the book until the shooting a year and a half passed, then there was the post production, and without their support I wouldn’t be here.”

Of the theme of the film, euthanasia and a young women who decides that she wants to help people who want to die with dignity she said: “I think that the institutions and the politics are a step behind in respect to this subject and people should have more awareness and open-mindedness and be less judgmental in debating subjects like this one, the ending of one’s life.

Paolo Sorrentino

He’d thought of calling the film something else, “one decidedly conceited ‘L’Apparato Umano’, ( ‘The Arrogant Human?” – somebody with better Italian please help me with this one!)  Some are comparing it to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, but it’s a comparison that  Sorrentino hurries to distance himself from. “Fellini’s film is a masterpiece…mine is a film.”
In boca al lupo Paolo!

The Great Beauty (2013)
La Grande Bellezza
142 min

Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Writer: Paolo Sorrentino
Stars: Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli

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Open Roads: New Italian Cinema runs from June 6-12 at New York City’s Lincoln Center.

From the website:

IN THIS SERIES

Every Blessed Day

Paolo Virzi | 2012 | 102 mins

Opening night! Filmmaker in person for Q&A at June 6 screening!

One of the most personal voices in new Italian cinema, Virzi delivers a small and intimate romantic comedy about Antonia and Guido, a strangely-matched couple madly in love.

Read more »

Thursday, June 06

6:30pm  (I’ll be there!)

Tuesday, June 11

9:00pm

The Discovery at Dawn

Susanna Nicchiarelli | 2012 | 95 mins

Filmmaker in person for Q&A at June 8 screening!

A woman is given the chance to uncover the truth about her father’s violent death 30 years ago when she discovers a disconnected phone that mysteriously lets her place calls to the past.

Read more »

Saturday, June 08

1:30pm  (I’ll be there!)

Monday, June 10

4:00pm

Dormant Beauty

Marco Bellocchio | 2012 | 115 mins

Filmmaker in person for Q&A at June 6 screening!

Four interrelated characters struggle with the moral impasses and compromises of modern life in Bellocchio’s compelling drama. With Isabelle Huppert and Toni Servillo.

Read more »

Thursday, June 06

9:15pm (I’ll be there!)

Friday, June 07

1:15pm

The Face of Another

Pappi Corsicato | 2012 | 83 mins

Filmmaker in person for Q&A!

In this outrageous satire of celebrity culture, the exuberant host of a popular TV show about plastic surgery is fired because the public is tired of her face, kicking off a series of surprising plot twists.

Read more »

Saturday, June 08

8:45pm  (I’ll be there!)

Sunday, June 09

1:15pm

The First Man

Gianni Amelio | 2011 | 100 mins

This adaptation of Albert Camus’ unfinished last novel is part childhood memoir set in 1920s Algeria, part epic narrative of a country on the eve of revolution in the 1950s.

Read more »

Sunday, June 09

8:30pm

Wednesday, June 12

4:00pm

Handmade Cinema

Guido Torlonia | 2012 | 52 mins

Narrated by Chiara Mastroianni, this loving tribute to the craftsmen and artisans whose invisible hands help create the magic of cinema is brimming with archival footage and behind-the-camera scenes. Screening with: The Rescue / Il Riscato (Giovanna Taviana, 22m).

Read more »

Friday, June 07

3:45pm

Sunday, June 09

3:45pm

I Travel Alone

Maria Sole Tognazzi | 2013 | 85 mins

Filmmaker in person for Q&A on June 8!

Single, middle-aged, and constantly on the road, an inspector of luxury hotels is thrown into an existential crisis when she loses the emotional support of her best friend and ex-lover.

Read more »

Saturday, June 08

6:15pm  (I’ll be there!)

Wednesday, June 12

9:00pm

It Was the Son

Daniele Cipri | 2012 | 90 mins

Filmmaker in person for Q&A at June 7 screening!

Full of acid humor and populated with grotesque characters, Cipri’s absurd and unforgiving satire of Sicilian family life has tragedy, revenge, and a Mercedes Benz blessed with holy water.

Read more »

Friday, June 07

6:00pm  (I’ll be there!)

Tuesday, June 11

4:30pm

Nina

Elisa Fuksas | 2012 | 78 mins

Filmmaker in person for Q&A on June 8!

Over a hot summer in a near-empty suburb of Rome, a young woman contemplates life amidst the district’s architectural gems, gorgeously shot by architect-turned-filmmaker Fuksas.

Read more »

Saturday, June 08

4:00pm

Monday, June 10

6:30pm

Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy

Marco Tullio Giordana | 2012 | 129 mins

Filmmaker in person for Q&A on June 7!

Giordana’s Machiavellian drama dissects the Piazza Fontana bombing, highlighting the manipulations and tragic consequences of the event and subsequent investigations.

Read more »

Friday, June 07

8:30pm   (I’ll be there!)

Wednesday, June 12

6:15pm

Pretty Butterflies

Salvatore Mereu | 2012 | 104 mins

Filmmaker in person for Q&A at June 9 screening!

A 12-year-old girl sets out to stop her brother from killing the neighbor she loves and dreams of escaping her home in the dangerous and decrepit slums of the Sardinian capital, Cagliari.

Read more »

Sunday, June 09

6:00pm

Tuesday, June 11

6:30pm

Aniello Arena

Aniello Arena for Reality

Reality premiered at Cannes without its star, Arena, in attendance;  he’s serving a life sentence in prison and was only able to appear in ‘Reality’ through a work release program. How did director Matteo Garrone find this guy? I hope he gets more opportunities to act, because he is absolutely perfect in the role of Luciano, the guy who is obsessed with Reality TV. Yet Luciano is not one-dimensional and he’s so much more than a guy who would do anything to appear on Italy’s version of Big Brother. He’s no Kim Kardashian; he’s a sweet family man who gets caught up something that ruins his whole family.

Sergio Castellitto

Sergio Castellitto for Una Famiglia Perfetta (A Perfect Family)

Castellitto plays a sort of Italian ‘Bad Santa’  and from the first scene, in which “Papà”, Leone tells the youngest son that he is fat, hates his glasses, and he says he doesn’t understand why he has to spend Christmas with a son who is so fat and ugly, I was horrified/mesmerized.

Roberto Herlitzka

Roberto Herlitzka for Il Rosso e il Blu (The Red and the Blue)

I love Herlitzka and in Sette Opere di Misericordia he was terrific, but playing the older prof who ( surprise! ) is completely burned out and thinks it’s a hopeless cause in Il Rosso e il Blu is not his best work.

Luca Marinelli

Luca Marinelli for Tutti i Santi Giorni

Luca Marinelli, a Berlinale Shooting Star for 2013, is wonderful as the shy brainiac who is in love with the kooky musician.

Valerio Mastandrea

Valerio Mastandrea for Gli Equilibristi ( Balancing Act)   ❤ my pick

Valerio is probably my pick for best actor this year; his performance as the stretched to the limits divorced dad in Gli Equilibristi is my favorite of his career.

Toni Servillo

Toni Servillo for Viva la  Libertà

I haven’t had the chance to see this movie but Servillo is one of my favorite actors and I imagine that he’s great as a politician that flies the coop.

2301 M St NW, Washington, DC 0.1 ft N

May 21-23 SUDESTIVAL in DC brings to the USA films that participated in the 2013 SUDESTIVAL competition in Puglia, Italy. It offers six feature films and three shorts, which will reveal to the American audience aspects of the most contemporary Italian reality through the lens of a new generation of talented filmmakers.

GET TICKETS

This is a very unique opportunity to see some films that would otherwise not have made it to the US. The six feather films are:

Workers United (Pronti A Tutto) May 21st at 7pm

Three Boccaccio-style stories, a vivid narrative and a careful mise en scene. This is a brilliant comedy on the themes of labor and temporary employment, sustained by two ex-“Rotten Horses,” Alessandro Bianchi e Michelangelo Pulci. The actors Briguglia, Frassica, Pannofino and Grimaudo deliver a high-quality performance. The dynamic narrative rhythm is a distinctive feature of the director, who has produced the best videoclips in the past ten years (Meganoidi, Baustelle, Marta sui Tubi, Bugo, Subsonica, Mario Venuti)

The Call (Il Richiamo)  May 21st at 9pm

Filmed on location between Buenos Aires and the Patagonia region, this is the story of an unforeseen love between two women, Lucia, a piano teacher (Sandra Ceccarelli) and Lea, her pupil (Francesca Inaudi). The story is narrated from a woman’s point of view, critical of the limitations and the archaic mentality of the patriarchal world. Seeking to free themselves from an unfulfilling existence, Lucia and Lea find an escape from the conventions and the hypocrisy surrounding their lives. But what will their destiny be?

The Arrival of Wang (L’Arrivo di Wang) May 22nd at 7pm

That Summer (Quell’estate) May 22nd at 9pm

The Rienzi family spends the summer of 1981 in its old country house, in Tuscany. Fifteen-years-old Matteo, who has to sustain three remedial tests in the fall, discovers first-love emotions; his sister, Eleonora, who is a single mother, has to navigate among wrong encounters and inescapable choices; their parents try to rescue their troubled marriage. This is a bright comedy, narrated through the eyes of Matteo, the hero of an extraordinary summer in the life of a common family. What will change after that summer?

Transeuropae Hotel May 23nd at 7pm

This is a thriller, a road movie and a musical all together. Is it possible to relate Palermo, Trapani and Rio de Janeiro? Yes, it’s possible through music. Luigi Cinque, musician and first-time director is able to accomplish this, together with Rossana Campo e Valerio Magrelli. The plot: A famous Brazilian drum player disappears and resurfaces by magic in a parallel reality. Four characters go searching for him. Starring Peppe Servillo, Petra Magoni and other famous performers of the Italian and Brazilian music scene.

Sleepless May 23rd at 9pm

The film includes a fun cameo with Stefano Benni. The story unfolds over 24 hours and consists of major life changes: Anna (Violante Placido) must leave home after one year; Olga (Valentina Cervi), who lives with her hare-brained mother (Sandra Milo), must pay off a debt and go to Bergamo, where she is supposed to get married. Will Anna leave home? Will Olga get married? This comedy succeeds in blending together laughter, common sense, coups-de-scene, and identity search. All sticks together very well.

Donatello’s David

Last year, the best picture award went to the Taviani Brothers’ Cesare Deve Morire (Caesar Must Die) and this year the nominees are varied and interesting, two are English language films:

Diaz  (Non Pulire Questo Sangue – Don’t Clean Up This Blood)

“Talking to the victims was an operation that took two years. What I read and what I was told was harder than what I showed in the movie. There are some things that were not possible to show unless I wanted to do a slasher film, ” said director Daniele Vicari of his film about the G8 summit in 2001 when police raided the Diaz school in Genoa, Italy.

READ MY REVIEW OF DIAZ

Diaz

Educazione Siberiana (Siberian Education)

I haven’t had the chance to see this English language film from Gabriele Salvatores (Io Non Ho Paura) but I can’t wait to. It stars John Malkovich and is a drama based on a memoir organized crime and growing up as a member of the Urka community in the small republic of Transnistria.

Educazione Siberiana

Io e Te

Io e Te (Me and You)

Bernardo Bertolucci’s story of a anti-social boy who spends his school ski trip in his apartment building’s basement and helps his half-sister kick a heroin addiction.

READ MY REVIEW OF IO E TE

La Migliore Offerta (The Best Offer)

Giuseppe Tornatore’s ( Cinema Paradiso) English language film starring Geoffrey Rush as an art dealer with a mysterious client that changes his life forever.

READ MY REVIEW OF LA MIGLIORE OFFERTA

La Migliore Offerta

Viva La Libertà 

I haven’t seen this one either, but it’s directed by Roberto Andò and stars Toni Servillo as Enrico a recently defeated man from the political left who disappears.

No stranger to Venice, Bertolucci won the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 2007 and awarded the Golden Lion (from his wheelchair, and I was there!) to Marco Bellocchio in 2011. This is the second time he served as Jury President, the first in 1983.

Bertolucci’s been suffering from chronic pain from back problems and confined to a wheelchair, but still managed to make the very cool Io e Te, a movie about a boy who lies to his mother, tells her on a school ski trip, and instead spends the time in his apartment building’s basement helping his half-sister off heroin. Io e Te has been nominated for the David di Donatello award for best picture, and Bertolucci for best director.

READ MY REVIEW OF IO E TE

Americans know Bertolucci best for The Last Emperor, for which he won 2 Oscars and Last Tango in Paris (1972) a cult film that caused a lot of controversy for its sexual content, earning it the dreaded X rating in the US when it came out.

MIGLIOR FILM – Best Film

“DIAZ”

prodotto da Domenico Procacci (Produced by Domenico Procacci)

per la regia di Daniele Vicari (Directed by Daniele Vicari)

“EDUCAZIONE SIBERIANA

prodotto da Riccardo Tozzi, Giovanni Stabilini, Marco Chimenz per Cattleya con Rai Cinema (Produced by Riccardo Tozzi, Giovanni Stabinlini, Marci Chimenz for Cattleya with Rai)
per la regia di Gabriele Salvatores (Directed by Gabriele Salvatores)

“IO E TE”
prodotto da Fiction, Wildside (Produced by Fiction)
per la regia di Bernardo Bertolucci (Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci)

“LA MIGLIORE OFFERTA”
prodotto da Isabella Cocuzza e Arturo Paglia per Paco Cinematografica (Produced by Isabella Cocuzza and Arturo Paglio for Paco Cinematography)
per la regia di Giuseppe Tornatore (Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore)

“VIVA LA LIBERTÁ”
prodotto da Angelo Barbagallo per Bibi Film e Rai Cinema (Produced by Angelo Barbagallo for Bibi Film and Rai)
per la regia di Roberto Andò (Directed by Roberto Andò)

MIGLIORE REGISTA (Best Director)
Bernardo BERTOLUCCI
“Io e te”
Matteo GARRONE
“Reality”
Gabriele SALVATORES
“Educazione siberiana”
Giuseppe TORNATORE
“La migliore offerta”
Daniele VICARI
“Diaz”

MIGLIORE REGISTA ESORDIENTE (Best new director)
Leonardo DI COSTANZO
“L’intervallo”
Giorgia FARINA
“Amiche da morire”
Alessandro GASSMANN
“Razzabastarda”
Luigi LO CASCIO
“La città ideale”
Laura MORANTE
“Ciliegine”

MIGLIORE SCENEGGIATURA (Best Screenplay)

Niccolò AMMANITI, Umberto CONTARELLO, Francesca MARCIANO, Bernardo BERTOLUCCI
“Io e te”
Giuseppe TORNATORE
“La migliore offerta“
Maurizio BRAUCCI, Ugo CHITI, Matteo GARRONE, Massimo GAUDIOSO
“Reality”
Ivan COTRONEO, Francesca MARCIANO, Maria Sole TOGNAZZI
“Viaggio sola”
Roberto ANDÓ, Angelo PASQUINI
“Viva la libertà”

MIGLIORE ATTRICE PROTAGONISTA (Best leading actress)

Valeria BRUNI TEDESCHI
“Viva la libertà”
Margherita BUY
“Viaggio sola”
Federica Victoria CAIOZZO in arte Thony
“Tutti i santi giorni”
Tea FALCO
“Io e te”
Jasmine TRINCA
“Un giorno devi andare”

MIGLIORE ATTORE PROTAGONISTA (Best leading actor)
Aniello ARENA
“Reality”
Sergio CASTELLITTO
“Una famiglia perfetta”
Roberto HERLITZKA
“Il rosso e il blu”
Luca MARINELLI
“Tutti i santi giorni”
Valerio MASTANDREA
“Gli equilibristi”
Toni SERVILLO
“Viva la libertà”

MIGLIORE ATTRICE NON PROTAGONISTA (Best supporting actress)
Ambra ANGIOLINI
“Viva l’Italia”
Anna BONAIUTO
“Viva la libertà”
Rosabell LAURENTI SELLERS
“Gli equilibristi”
Francesca NERI
“Una famiglia perfetta”
Fabrizia SACCHI
“Viaggio sola”
Maya SANSA
“Bella addormentata”

MIGLIORE ATTORE NON PROTAGONISTA (Best supporting actor)
Stefano ACCORSI
“Viaggio sola”
Giuseppe BATTISTON
“Il comandante e la cicogna”
Marco GIALLINI
“Buongiorno papà”
Valerio MASTANDREA
“Viva la libertà”
Claudio SANTAMARIA
“Diaz”

MIGLIORE DIRETTORE DELLA FOTOGRAFIA (Best Director of Photography)
Fabio CIANCHETTI
“Io e te”
Gherardo GOSSI
“Diaz”
Marco ONORATO
“Reality”
Italo PETRICCIONE
“Educazione siberiana”
Fabio ZAMARION
“La migliore offerta”
MIGLIORE SCENOGRAFO (Best Scenographer)
Paolo BONFINI
“Reality”
Marco DENTICI
“E’ stato il figlio”
Marta MAFFUCCI
“Diaz”
Rita RABASSINI
“Educazione siberiana”
Maurizio SABATINI, Raffaella GIOVANNETTI
“La migliore offerta”

MIGLIOR FILM DELL’UNIONE EUROPEA (Best Film of the European Union)
“007 SKYFALL”
di Sam MENDES (Warner Bros)
“AMOUR”
di Michael HANEKE (Teodora Film e Spazio Cinema)
“ANNA KARENINA”
di Joe WRIGHT (NBCUniversal)
“QUARTET”
di Dustin HOFFMAN (BIM)
“UN SAPORE DI RUGGINE E OSSA”
di Jacques AUDIARD (BIM)
MIGLIOR FILM STRANIERO (Best Foreign Film)
“ARGO”
di Ben AFFLECK (Warner Bros)
“DJANGO”
di Quentin TARANTINO (Warner Bros)
“IL LATO POSITIVO”
di David O. RUSSELL (Eagle Pictures)
“LINCOLN”
di Steven SPIELBERG (20th Century Fox)
“VITA DI PI”
di Ang LEE (20th Century Fox)