Tag Archives: Italy

Misadventures of a young lawyer who, left alone at home for the departure of the jealous wife, is having to help a lady living in a top floor apartment, who asks him to host her to save her from the wrath of her husband. The young man offers his bed to the lady, content to sleep on the couch. The next morning, upon awakening, the lady is already gone, but at the same time is also missing a precious necklace of great value.
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Daro un Milione was another felicitous collaboration between director Mario Camerini and his favorite star Vittorio de Sica. Read More »

When Simon (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is released from prison, he emerges with a bold kidnapping scheme. He enlists the help of an old cohort and his former lover, Martine (Christine Lelouch), to kidnap a young boy. The child’s father is an employee at a bank, and the three criminals blackmail the financial institution, demanding $1 million in ransom. Out of fear, the bank pays the sum, but the kidnappers may have bitten off more than they can chew.
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In China, in the foothills of the Himalayas, a non-violent egalitarian society has for millennia offered proof that a harmonious and peaceful life is still possible. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations the Mosuo were recognized as a “model society”. On what basis does this community of about 50,000 people function? Above all, for how much longer can it resist the pressures of a market economy engendered by strategically organized mass tourism? In a landscape of outstanding beauty, encounters and testimonies draw us closer to the traditional values cherished by this ethnic group confronted by a crucial challenge: how to safeguard the essence of its identity from destruction and not succumb, as have so many other societies, to the impact of unconstrained globalization.
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Like in many other Monicelli movies, the main theme of Amici miei is friendship, seen from a rather bitter point of view. It tells the story of four middle-aged friends in Florence who organize together idle pranks (called zingarate, “gypsy shenanigans”) in a continuous attempt to prolong childhood during their adult life…
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Once, Zeus created seven mighty thunderbolts that kept peace, but some other, rebellious Gods steal them, rendering Zeus powerless, creating chaos on Earth, and sending the Moon on a collision course with our planet. Two sisters named Urania and Glaucia speaks to the Little People and learns that only Hercules can save them, so, after hesitation, Zeus sends Hercules back from the stars to Earth to aid the humans, but the vengeful gods resurrect their own warrior, Hercules’ old foe King Minos. Hercules sets out to find the thunderbolts, which are hidden inside monsters….
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Vittorio (Enrico M. Salerno) is a 40-year-old journalist who reaches a mid-life crisis. His wife nags him constantly for ignoring her and their child. After his mistress dumps him, Vittorio returns to the town where he spent his childhood to reflect on the state of his life. Flashbacks are used to tell of Vittorio’s relationship with his parents as a child and the effects World War II had on his development.
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A demon bestows on a self-righteous working photographer’s camera the power to smite from the Earth “evil-doers”. Naturally, the indignant photographer turns his new weapon on, one by one, his entire village, beginning with the wealthy or illustrious. Soon, the poor he is so supposedly so enamored of become his victims too, so rife with impatience and contempt is he, that the slightest flaw is cause for smiting. Inevitably, he embarks on a task to destroy everyone.
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Enzo and Jacques have known each other for a long time. Their friendship started in their childhood days in the Mediterranean. They were not real friends in these days, but there was something they both loved and used to do the whole day long: diving. One day Jacques’ father, who was a diver too, died in the Mediterranean sea. After that incident Enzo and Jacques lost contact. After several years, Enzo and Jacques had grown up, Johanna, a young clerk in an insurance office, has to go to Peru. There she meets Jacques who is being studied by a group of scientists. He dives for some minutes into ice-cold water and the scientists monitor his physical state that is more like a dolphin than human. Johanna can not believe what she sees and gets very interested in Jacques but she’s unable to get acquainted with him. Some weeks later back in her office, she finds out that Jacques will be competing in a diving championship that takes place in Taormina, Sicily. In order to see Jacques again she …
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Marco Bellocchio’s My Mother’s Smile was deemed blasphemous by the Roman Catholic Church for what the Church referred to as Bellocchio’s “systematic destruction of family and religious values.” Contrary to the Church’s presumptions about Bellocchio, My Mother’s Smile is a fascinating portrait of a man (Sergio Castellitto as Ernesto) who is forced to reconcile with his own atheism after receiving a shocking appeal from the Church requesting his participation in the canonization of his “saintly” mother.
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