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![]() A behind-the-scenes peek at high fashion, huge egos and what’s left of La Dolce Vita, this documentary of superstar designer Valentino works as a modest entertainment, but mostly serves as a character study of a monstrously successful artistic genius and his promotional alter ego. For those in…
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Valentino Visions in White
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![]() A new addition to the canon of great mafia movies, Gomorra entertainingly details the mundane savagery and sociopathic activities of Italy’s oldest organized crime organization. Darkly funny, Gomorra brings to life Roberto Saviano’s hugely important book…
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Camorra Country: Cancer @ the heart o...
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![]() Hail the maximum sword and sandal movie. Gladiator tells a relatively unadorned story stupendously well. Its great star – Russell Crowe – fights above his weight class, delivering a superman performance while hewing to his characteristically understated readings. Highly watchable then and … |
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![]() Deeply, floridly Italian, Malèna is a sumptuous WWII find, a Sicilian movie extraordinaire and a devastating depiction of Italian machismo reacting to the hottest signorina since Sophia Loren. Monica Belluci plays the title character, a gorgeous war bride living in a small Sicilian town, bro…
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where Malèna went, the town followed
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![]() Essential though Patton may be – as war movie, as American history, as biopic – it’s not the epochal statement the Academy thought they were canonizing with seven Oscars in 1971, including Best Picture. Back then Frances Ford Coppola’s script seemed subversive, undermining American militarism …
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If I had my way, I'd meet Rommel F2F.
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![]() Charlton Heston makes Michelangelo as operatic as Moses in The Ten Commandments. Facing off with Rex Harrison’s Warrior Pope in 1500s Rome makes The Agony and the Ecstasy a spectacle extraordinaire. The 2¼ hour runtime wisely starts with a 12 min. intro that covers Michelangelo’s highlight…
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Charlton Heston with the Contessina
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![]() Burton and O’Toole grandly declaim in Becket, a big historical drama and big hit from 1964. Two leading-men of the old school variety, with big voices, they’re more than capable of extreme declamation in a love story between two men – unrequited. The bromance ended badly after Burton’s great ma…
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King & Wingman, before it all went bad
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![]() A pre-sexual revolution Italian trifle, Matrimonio All’Italiana packs a considerevole punch 50 years on. Consider Sophia Loren – in her prime. Screen sirens come no hotter or more joyous. Marcel…
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Sophia Loren's Filumena, fully grown
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![]() Federico Fellini’s 8½ is self-referential in the extreme, as his fever-dream of a movie-about-the-making-of-a-movie parodies the self-indulgence of its maker. Nice work if you can get it. Still, it is a classic, widely acclaimed to be amongst the greatest and most influential movies of all …
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Fellini & Claudia Cardinale, his idea...
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![]() Triple helpings of Sophia Loren & Marcello Mastroianni make Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow a triplo trattare of sexy Italian comedy. 1963’s Best Foreign Language Oscar-winner is a primo classico movie. It’s like watching three 40-minute TV episodes performed by all-time great moviestars – a…
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Sophia turns Marcello into a puppy dog.
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