Open Hearts (Elsker dig for evigt)

"Open Hearts" tells a heartbreaking story, for both the protagonists and spectators, at least for those who can identify themselves with one or more of its characters.

The story begins by showing how happy Cæcilie (Sonja Richter) and Joachim (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) are: this is not a perfect idyll, but a couple who gives and shows each other sincerity and tenderness; a handsome young couple who without being seducers has been seduced. By all accounts, this is a couple who will be facing a very long story.

Into the Wild

"Into the Wild" is the true story of Christopher McCandless, a young man who  breaks free from his parents and chooses a life devoid of material possessions and in constant movement.

Pieta

Bad people are bad, but they are people all the same. Do they deserve pity? Compassion? Sympathy? Empathy?

This movie, winner of the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice Film Festival, makes the viewer wonder about these questions. The self-investigation, in my case, was stirred by the continuous alternance of sweet and disturbing moments. The delicacy and intimacy of some feelings is crushed by the "disgustingness" that surrounds them, which, however, makes them seem all the more strong.

Venice Film Festival 2012

Here is, altough a bit late, the list of awards from the 69th Venice Film Festival:

GOLDEN LION for Best Film to PIETA by Kim Ki-duk (Republic of Korea)

 

SILVER LION for Best Director to THE MASTER by Paul Thomas Anderson (USA)

 

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to Paradies: Glaube by Ulrich Seidl (Austria, Germany, France)

 

COPPA VOLPI for Best Actor to Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix

in the film THE MASTER by Paul Thomas Anderson (USA)

 

COPPA VOLPI for Best Actress Hadas Yaron

in the film LEMALE ET HA’CHALAL by Rama Bursthein (Israel)

 

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI AWARD for Best New Young Actor or Actress to Fabrizio Falco

in the films BELLA ADDORMENTATA by Marco Bellocchio (Italy) and È STATO IL FIGLIO by Daniele Ciprí (Italy)

 

AWARD FOR BEST SCREENPLAY to Olivier Assayas

for the film APRES MAI by Olivier Assayas (France)

 

AWARD FOR THE BEST TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION (CINEMATOGRAPHY) to Daniele Ciprì

for the film È STATO IL FIGLIO by Daniele Ciprì (Italy)
 

 

 

• LION OF THE FUTURE – “LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS” VENICE AWARD FOR A DEBUT FILM to KÜF (MOLD) by Ali Aydin (Turkey, Germany) VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM CRITICS’ WEEK

as well as a prize of 100,000 USD, donated by Filmauro di Aurelio e Luigi De Laurentiis to be divided equally between director and producer

 

 

 

• ORIZZONTI

 

ORIZZONTI AWARD FOR BEST FILM (full-length films) to

SAN ZIMEI by Wang Bing (France, Hong Kong)

 

SPECIAL ORIZZONTI JURY PRIZE (full-length films) to

TANGO LIBRE by Frédéric Fonteyne (France, Belgium, Luxembourg)

 

ORIZZONTI YOUTUBE AWARD FOR BEST SHORT FILM to

CHO-DE by Yoo Min-young (South Korea)

 

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2012-EFA to

TITLOI TELOUS by Yorgos Zois (Greece)

Brave

Queen Elinor has summoned all clans, usually spread as wild sheeps in the green pastures of Scotland. The idea is to make a game in order to decide who is going to claim the princess as their wife, just as tradition wants.

Friends with Kids

This movie is a group of friends in which some couples start having kids and this starts changing everything for all of them. Jason (Scott) and Julie (Westfeldt), the last two singles of their group, observe how their friends relationships deteriorate and they decided to have a child together without starting a sentimental relationship, just two friends raising a child.

The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises, the third film of the trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan, without a doubt can be described as the darkest and most violent, and with enough adrenaline to leave the audience breathless and wanting for more. And all this after nearly three hours of footage, which go by flying and without feeling them.

Gomorra

Two men driving in an old Italian road in a luxurious black SUV. The oldest one, who is driving, stops the SUV and tells the other passenger to throw the basket full of peaches, received by an old woman, on the grass, "Do not you realize how bad they smell?" Tells the oldest one to the young man, who throws it away a little skeptically.

Marilyn at last: August, 5 1962

5 weeks ago I started writing a series of articles about Marilyn, planning to write the last article on the 50th anniversary of her death. Which is today. Therefore, today is the last entry on this subject. More than an article, it is meant to be as a thought, an humble and unpretentious homage.

In fact, this is a day to remember and to celebrate. Even the more common television channels know that and you are bound to find a few Monroe's movie on tonight.

A woman, an actress, a diva, an icon. Marilyn was all these things and much more.

One thing everyone seems to agree on is that she wanted to be a good actress. On this day, it seems right to celebrate her by watching her doing what she strived to do best: act. I know I will.

Fight Club

Imagine the cold vacuum of the barrel of a Colt 22 caliber pressing to the back of your throat, the piercing pain of your knees smashing on the wet pavement, the rattle produced by the gun barrel against your teeth because of the earthquake shaking whom holds the gun. Try to imagine what it is likely to think of at times like this; of what comes to mind; what the asphalt can do to your pants; if the gun itself is clean; how many times a tooth can be beaten before it breaks.

Lilyhammer

Lilyhammer is the story of Frank Tagliano, a New York mobster who is sent to Norway after testifying against his former colleagues and who needs to adapt to the lifestyle of this country. Tagliano is played by actor Steve Van Zandt, known for his role in “The Sopranos” and for belonging to Bruce Springsteen's band.

Marilyn the immortal

What is it that makes a human being a legend? For instance, what made Norma/Marilyn one?

I am sure that a lot of people already have their idea on this and I am pretty certain that many people have a quite common opinion of this subject. I would say that my personal opinion is in line with the common opinion; but, maybe, the fact that it is so obvious, makes it all the more true.

The Amazing Spider-Man

“The Amazing Spider-Man”, although being a reboot, is primarily for those over 25 years, a cover of that Spider-Man directed by Sam Raimi in 2002, just a decade ago. It is just like to compare, the first "Batman" by Tim Burton, released in 1989, and "The Dark Knight" by Christopher Nolan, in 2008: almost 20 years between the two of them.

Chernobyl Diaries

To speak of "horror" in a movie, you should consider several factors: the stage where everything happens, the social environment (which also influences), the characters that make us feel terror and, finally, our eyes on the story.

Marilyn at Niagara Falls

For Marilyn 3.0, I think that discussing a movie in which she played a slighlty different role than usual is appropriate.

I would say this picture is less outrageously famous than the others, hence I will very slightly go into the plot. Niagara falls: two couple's lives meet up by chance, while on vacations by the Falls. One couple is just ordinary; the other one is going through some major crisis: Rose (Monroe) is too beautiful for her jelous husband (Cotten). Pink dresses, hints of mental desease, a young lover ready to do everything add up to a criminal climax.

Prometheus

When the archaeologist "Elizabeth Shaw" (Noomi Rapace) and his fellow "Charlie Holloway" (Logan Marshall-Green) discover a pattern in several hieroglyphs around the Earth, the two embark on an expedition with another group of scientists to a distant planet in order to find the origins of humanity. What they find, ironically, could trigger the end of it.

Real Steel

In the best films about boxing, the fighter who suffers and struggles is the one we see loosing after some time. In the best films of this subgenre there is a tasty conversation between the boxer and his manager down the hall, usually a conversation that happens in the background. Those films give their character an extra motivation to continue to become the champion they want or need to be. There are hits, money, sweat, violence and lots of excitement in this one.

A Dangerous Method

Psychoanalysis. It is about finding ghosts and leaving them hanging in the sight of all. Soon, however, psychoanalysis turns into a proposal that is irreverent rather than contradictory and the ghosts that were put in the light, all of a sudden, want to fly away. 

Some Like It Hot: Marilyn at her best

This is a very easy choise, but you cannot talk about Marilyn without talking about this movie. You just cant.

Two weeks ago, there was a showing of this picture in a theater here in Milan. The room was full and I rarely saw people enjoying so much and laughing so genuinely at a movie, especially when the movie is from 1959 and half the people had already seen. It is always heartening seeing people celebrate the classics.

Marilyn Monroe 1.0: how others see her

In 5 weeks from now, it will be the 50th anniversary of her death (August 5 1962 is the day she died). In the next 5 weeks, I will be celebrating her legend with 5 entries about her, starting today.

Introducing Classics

I have not been writing for a while now. One thing I had in mind to do when I started this blog is something I have not done yet: sections, you know, like specific colums in a newspaper. Something that comes back every week or so with a new content but maybe the same theme, or the same tone, or the same author.

Donnie Darko

Donnie is gifted with great intelligence and imagination. After escaping from the hands of almost certain death due to fall on his house of the engine of an airplane, he begins to experience hallucinations that take him to act as he had never done and to discover an unusual world around him.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

This picture is about a McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a man who enters a psychiatric hospital pretending he's crazy in order to avoid being convicted for various crimes. That's when he thinks he will eat the world. Then he faces  nurse Ratched (Fletcher), who has all the patients very well controlled and all personnel in her hands.

The Fly

"The Fly" is a gem of the eighties, one of Cronenberg's most famous works and somehow better than the original one from 1958.

A History of Violence

David Cronenberg is not really a sociologist. With films like "Scanners" and "The Fly", this Canadian filmmaker often moves between science fiction and horror. Its greatest virtue is his ability to create disturbing situations that test the balance of his characters.

Shopgirl

  

"Shopgirl" is, above all, a film that surprises. It surprises because of its subtlety, of the simplicity with which it penetrates into the story without resorting to heavy intellectual dialogue and deep characters.

8 1/2

The action takes place in Rome in 1962, over a two weeks period. The director and actor Guido Anselmi (Mastroianni), 43 years old, has delayed the start of shooting of his newest movie for 15 days, because of the state of confusion  he is living after the success of his latest work. To recover the lost inspiration ,he checks in a hotel in a Roman bath.

Goodfellas

This film has already gone down in film history as one of the best on the mafia. However, it is worth it to make it clear that it is not a saga-like “The Godfather”, nor an epic representation-like “Once Upon a Time in America”. It is a story of rise and fall: a chronicle of a soldier destined to be destroyed.

Chloe

"Chloe" is hired by Dr. Catherine Stewart to seduce her husband David, who has no interest in her anymore and even seems to be having an affair with a student. Her strategy is to confirm that her spouse cheating on her.

Four Minutes (Vier Minuten)

Ms. Bleibtreu has dedicated her life to give piano lessons in a prison. Her increasingly scarce student, have learning disabilities.

The Painted Veil

"The Painted Veil" is the story the understandings and misunderstandings of a man and a woman condemned to live together. It's that simple. Most of the film takes place in a village in China where a cholera epidemic has unleashed.

The Wave (Die Welle)

In “Die Welle” Professor Wenger and his students develop a socio-political experiment based on the idea that the rise of authoritarianism is incomprehensible if you have not lived its fascination. For five days, by agreement, the group lives ​​a project called “Die Welle”, which from the beginning is more successful than anticipated.

Match Point

The sunset of life has different effects on the ethics of people: while many become moralists as death approaches, others transform what was experienced in pure skepticism.

Bowfinger

Bowfinger is the name of a director of cheap and mediocre films on the brink of failure. When there seems to be no way out, this director (Steve Martin) has a prodigious idea: make a movie with Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), one of the most renowned stars of the moment.

Games Of Thrones

Done. Just finished watching the second season finale. It took me a week to watch the whole 20 episodes of the first two seasons: normally, given how much I enjoyed this series, it would have taken me a couple of days...but a girl has got to work!

First things first, a short summary for those who live in a cave (just like I did until a week ago).

The Godfather

This is a story about tradition, heritage, and the strength of the family. This is a story about ties of honor, loyalty to one's word and respect for the elders. In turn, this is also a story about a criminal clan, of reasons that depend on the caliber of a weapon, of blood washed at the point of revenge.

Between honor and death this story is debated. At the same time, it is the chronicle of a family throughout the twentieth century, an epic saga covered with glory as much as of ambition and evil. It is the story of the Corleone family, in the Italian-American mafia film ever made.

Cannes 2012 - Winners

Just as for the Academy Awards, and altough quite late, here is an informative post on the outcome of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. And the winners are:

Caché

The family of Georges (Daniel Auteuil), Anne (Binoche Juliette) and Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky), apparently, has it all figured out. The father is a successful television presenter on a program of literary reviews; the mother a book editor and a housewife and the only son is twelve years old and attends school like any other kid. Everything fits the ideal parameters of a French upper middle class family.

Eagle vs Shark

Love is awkward, no doubt. "Eagle vs. Shark" seems to be made ​​just for reminding us that. This is the story of Lily, a naive cashier of a fast food franchise in Wellington, New Zealand, who falls for Jarrod, an insufferable jerk  who has never been able to overcome the traumas of adolescence and works in a video game store.

Midnight in Paris

After exploring the inability to be happy with what you have and the costant need, never satisfied, of desiring something else in "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger", Woody Allen gives us now a beautiful fable about the importance of knowing each other and finding happiness in the present.

Gil (Owen Wilson), a screenplay writer who works for Hollywood, has arrived to Paris wih and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), for a holiday before their wedding. Having been always captivated by the literary legend of the city of light, Gil believes that in its streets he will find the inspiration he needs to finish a novel he is writing.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Employing, again, the ironic tone of his previous works, director Anderson tells the story of oceanographer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray), shaped, no doubt about it, by the figure of Jacques Cousteau.

Zissou and his team's documentaries have lost the interest oftheir public, hence the attempt to regain their glory days with a new project: a sort of personal vendetta against a murderer shark that ate one of Steve's most intimate work collaborators.

Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Biciclette)

There is an overwhelming sadness in this movie, all so much sadder because the sense of loss is linked to something so aperently meaningless as a bike.

In this masterpiece from the 40's by director De Sica, we follow three days in the life of Antonio and his family, in post-war Rome. Antonio was just lucky enough to find a job, after months of disoccupation, one among hundreds of jobless people waiting in the streets to hear their name. His family could not be happier, but he needs a bike for his job and his bike gets stolen minutes after he starts working. It is a downward spiral of search and loss from that moment on.

Rudy

When you love football since childhood more than anything else, when you don't have the desired body for this sport and you play with team mates who are a body and half taller.

When your family, friends and everyone laugh when they hear you talk about dreams and goals, when they say and repeat that you are not worth what you want and you're a fool... When this happens, you will find yourself faced with the same story and life of Daniel E. Ruettiger,aka "Rudy".

Men in Black...and 3!

Men in Black is the absolute trash that turns into cult. This is not a critic, first of all because I personally like it a lot and, second, because such an ability deserves a Bravo!

This third and probably last part hits the theaters 15 years after the first one and 10 after the second part. This trilogy has all the ingredients of a successful trash/cult.

The Edukators (Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei)

This movie has elements that art should have: it shows you, it does not seek to prove an absolute point, it conveys. For me, being able to identify myself with 3 German guys and share their feeling of alienation of the modern world is a breath of fresh air.

I think the message is this: al long as young people feel the need to rebel against the mediocrity imposed by the systems created by previous generations, the continuity of the world is assured.

The Candidate (Kandidaten)

Jonas seems distant since the death of his father, who was once a successful lawyer and died under mysterious circumstances. The protagonist, convinced that his father was the victim of a plot, takes advantage of his status as a promising young lawyer to uncover the truth. Until, one day, he wakes up in a hotel room next to the corpse of a woman.

The Lovely Bones

Susie Salmon is 14 and with a lifetime ahead, but one day she is brutally murdered. From her heaven, Susie will observe how the pain gradually destroys little by little her family, while the murderer goes unpunished and ready to act again. Susie must choose between her thirst for revenge and the recovering of her family.

I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime)

Scott Thomas plays Juliette, a woman who is reunited after fifteen years with her ​​younger sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein) and her family, her husband, two adopted daughters and a silent father who is addicted to books.

Those years of absence were due to the older sister been imprisoned for murder, so that the distance between the two was marked by isolation, denial and secrecy.

Shrek: to franchise or not to franchise?

When it came out in 2001, Shrek was one of the very first movies that played with dissacrating the ordinary fairy-tail. The result was funny, fresh and original. Many productions have been following this style ever since, including the sequels to Shrek themselves.