Roberto Benigni fans will want to send away for a new set of DVDs that will be released tomorrow in Italy - the first three of five volumes of his television debut from the ’70s, ”Life from the Cyclone”, “Free Wave, first episode”, and “Free Wave, second episode”. The third episode will be available in May and all 5 volumes will come with previously unseen footage of Benigni.

If I understand this correctly, Benigni’s character, a farmer named Mario Cioni, successfully hijacks Rai television frequency from his own television studio, Televac (far-off cow), located in a pig-sty on his farm. From a set surrounded by cows and hay, Benigni’s comedy materialized and changed Italian TV.

The “Vita da Cioni” episodes were for 2 years blocked by censors but when finally aired Benignin made Italy laugh as Mario Cicione, who gave voice to the underprivileged as he hurled insults and protests at the world that was keeping him down.

I wouldn’t hold my breath for English subtitles, but if your Italian is decent and you love Benigni, you’ll want to check them out.

I’d almost fogotten about Laura Morante.

Brilliant as the grieving mother in Nanni Moretti’s La Stanza Del Figlio (the son’s room) and unable to save Sergio Castellio’s La Bellezza Del Somaro (love and slaps), Laura, at 56, is an Italian national treasure. Americans may remember her as Yolanda , speaking English in John Malkovich’s The Dancer Upstairs, with Javier Bardem.

I found this great article written by Tom Kingston about her new French movie, her directorial debut,  called La Cerise Sur Le Gâteau (the cherries on the cake).

Laura Morante Leads the Fightback by Italian Women to Reclaim Cinema After Berlusconi

Tuscany’s best-loved film star Laura Morante draws on Freud, romcom and the Peanuts cartoon in her movie debut as a director and writer.

Tom Kington
The Observer, Saturday 14 April 2012

Italian director and actress Laura Morante poses for photographs during the photocall for the movie Ciliegine (Cherries) in Rome, Italy, on 11 April 2012. Photograph: Claudio Onorati/EPA
Amid the seedy showbiz excesses of the Silvio Berlusconi era in Italy over the past two decades, Laura Morante was often seen as a symbol of another, more dignified version of Italian culture.

One of the country’s most famous actresses, Morante, who could be described as a kind of Italian Catherine Deneuve, is as well-known for her intense roles, and the calibre of films she has starred in, as for her remarkable beauty.

Now she is hoping to exploit the changing times in her country by playing her own part in promoting a different, more powerful role for women in cinema.

For the first time, the actress is stepping into the director’s role for a film in which she also stars and takes a co-writing credit. “I hope more films get made in Italy by women, as well about women, which is rare,” said Morante, who played a grieving mother in the Palme d’Or winning film The Son’s Room in 2001.

The Tuscan-born actress was in Rome last week to promote Ciliegine [Cherries], a romantic comedy, just as Berlusconi’s trial over paying an underage prostitute for sex returned to the headlines. New allegations have surfaced suggesting that the former prime minister has been handing out thousands of euros in cash gifts to young women who attended his “bunga bunga” parties, shortly before they are due to testify.

“The last 20 years in Italy have had a dramatic effect on the female image,” Morante told the Observer. “It has been a frightening return to the past and I hope to see the rise of a new feminism in this country.” Morante publicly backed the thousands of Italian women who took to the streets of Italy last year to demonstrate against Berlusconi’s wanton sexism.

To purge itself, she said, the country now needs a bout of soul-searching after years in which Italians were happy to leer at busty women on TV who won presenting roles on game shows, reality series and dramas after partying with the prime minister. Berlusconi stepped down in November.

“Berlusconi was both the cause and effect of all this; there was no coup d’état in Italy, even if that’s painful to say,” said Morante. “Sexism is like racism; you do it without realising.”

Morante said she was one of a number of Italian women film directors breaking into a traditionally male-dominated profession, citing actress Valeria Golino and Francesca Comencini.

In Ciliegine, Morante plays a woman with high expectations of men who dumps her partner after he selfishly eats the lone cherry on the top of their anniversary cake. “I love ball breakers,” she has said. “They are always protecting something precious and vulnerable.”

Her role is the latest in a series of complex characters she has played in a career that took off when she was cast by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1981 in his Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man, before she made two films in the 1980s with maverick director Nanni Moretti, later starring as his wife in The Son’s Room.

Strong wills run in the Morante family. Laura recalls her father, a magistrate, spending hours arguing fiercely about Kafka with his sister, the writer Elsa Morante, who was married to author Alberto Moravia.

For Ciliegine, Morante has taken on the lead role – a character she describes as being between 40 and 50 – at the age of 55. Blessed with dark, magnetic eyes, she looks a decade younger, and has said she will never to resort to surgery, claiming: “If a woman spends her life accepting herself, learning to love herself, only to go under the knife to change her looks, she is making a grave mistake.”

After a career shuttling between Italy and France, where she has appeared in French-language films, Morante noted one difference between the treatment of women in the two countries: “In Paris there are lots of women who go to the cinema on their own, but not in Italy.”

Although Ciliegine was shot in Paris and in French after it was picked up by a French producer, the end product is not a French film, she said. “The French think it is an Italian film, while the Italians see it as a French film. There is a cultural contamination which has given birth to a kind of UFO.”

When her character in the film decides she will never find the right man, convinced of the “unreliability, inadequacy and egoism” of men, she promptly meets her perfect match, only to convince herself he is gay and unobtainable.

True to her writerly background, Morante claims she was inspired to write the script by a 1907 essay by Sigmund Freud that her father had told her about, in which Freud states that people throw up obstacles to stop themselves from declaring their true love.

But beyond the intellectual undertow, Morante said the film was essentially an “affectionate parody” of the American romantic comedy. One inspiration for the film, she added, was far removed from highbrow European cinema: “I love the Peanuts cartoon strip, and the scenes where characters sit together and look at the stars is based on Charlie Brown and Linus talking about life.”

The role model for Morante’s strong female character, she added, was none other than the Peanuts character Lucy. “She has got that same slightly dislikeable, antipatico streak,” she said.

MORENTE MOVIE CLASSICS

SOGNI D’ORO (1981)

Cult director and star Nanni Moretti falls for a young Morante in a surreal comedy about a frustrated film director.

BIANCA (1983)

Teaming again with Moretti, and by now considered his muse, Morante plays Bianca, a teacher who gets involved with Moretti, playing a homicidal control freak.

LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO (The Son’s Room, 2001)

Morante reunites with Moretti, this time to play his wife in a moving, Cannes-winning drama about the accidental death of their son.

RICORDATI DI ME (2002)

Directed by Italian Gabriele Muccino before he left for Hollywood, Morante stars as a frustrated academic who falls apart when her husband betrays her for his old flame, Monica Bellucci.

Pierfrancesco Favino sports a ’70s mustache for director Ron Howard’s new movie, Rush, also starring Chris Helmsworth and Olivia Wilde. Favino will play Formula 1 racecar driver Clay Regazzoni in a story about Niki Lauda and the 1976 crash that almost killed him.

Favino in Angels and Demons

Favino just last week won the David di Donatello award for best supporting actor for his role as the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli in Romanzo di una Strage (story of a massacre). Rush isn’t his first English language film; he was Inspector Olivetti in Angels and Demons, Peppi ‘The Great Butterfly’ Grotta in Miracle at St. Anna, and General Glozelle in Prince Caspian (the Chronicles of Narnia).

Italian movie lovers know him from Cosavogliodipiù, Posti in Piedi in Paradiso, A.C.A.B (All Cops Are Bastards), and Saturno Opposto (Saturn in Opposition).

Rush will be in US theaters in 2013.

Favino in Miracle at St. Anna

Nanni Moretti signing autographs at Cannes

Moretti and the rest of the jury

Nanni Moretti, the first non-American Cannes jury president since 2009 has been getting a lot of praise from film festival watchers. Read this from Variety Magazine:

Luigi Lo Cascio

Yesterday I texted my daughter this simple message

“Luigi Lo Cascio”

and she texted back something that looked like “@#%mp$@!!!! (translation: holy shit!). She knew what I was getting at; she knew I was waiting for the Venice Film Festival’s lineup to be announced and I’d just learned that my favorite actor, Luigi Lo Cascio might be there. He’s premiering a new film at the Biennale that he wrote, directed, and will star in called La Città Ideale (the ideal city) and it will compete for the International Critics’ Week Prize. La Città Ideale , also starring  Roberto Herlitzka, is about Michele Grasadonia, an Italian ecologist that years ago left Palermo for Siena, which he considers the “ideal city”.

Also in competition for this award:

“Eat Sleep Die,” Gabriela Pichler (Sweden)
“Mold,” Ali Aydin (Turkey/Germany)
“A Month in Thailand,” Paul Neogescu (Romania)
“She Doesn’t Want to Sleep Alone,” Natalia Beristain (Mexico)
“Welcome Home,” Tom Heene (Belgium)
“Lotus,” Liu Shu (People’s Republic of China)

Why do I call this “double trouble” for Luigi? Because my daughter, Lauren, an editor for How About We’s – The Date Report has also received her press accreditation for Venice and has agreed to help me find him on Lido.

No need for a restraining order, Luigi – I just want my picture with you. And I’d love to ask you a few questions for I Love Italian Movies. I’ve been obsessed with you ever since “La Vita Che Vorrei”.

Luigi – tu dici più con gli occhi degli altri dicono con le parole – don’t worry, I’m sure your English is much better than my Italian.

Monica Bellucci

Why do I dislike Monica Bellucci so much? Obviously I’m just jealous but that’s not going to stop me from wondering about the point of  Indiana Jones 5 and surely I’m not the only one asking this question.

George Lucas wants her for the 5th edition of the Indiana Jones saga, playing Harrison Ford’s love interest and Penelope Cruz will play his adversary. They’ll meet in September to discuss the details, so I guess it’s not a done deal, but he’s working on the screenplay right now.

Lucas has reconstructed an old convent near Perugia for a set and apparently likes the idea of an Umbrian actress in the Umbrian location.

Next thing you know we’ll be watching Indiana Jones and his ladies maneuvering archeological sites and dodging bullets on Jazzies – maybe all the plastic surgery and Botox will serve as some sort of bullet proof protection.

Playing 6 degrees of Giuseppe Battiston is not much of a challenge.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a trivia game based on the concept of the “it’s a small world” phenomenon and rests on the assumption that any individual involved in the Hollywood, California film industry can be linked through his or her film roles to actor Kevin Bacon within six steps. The name of the game is a play on the “six degrees of separation” concept. The game requires a group of players to try to connect any individual to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible and in as few links as possible.

Here is an example using Elvis Presley: Elvis Presley was in Change of Habit (1969) with Edward Asner. Edward Asner was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon. Therefore Asner has a Bacon number of 1, and Presley (who never appeared in a film with Bacon) has a Bacon number of 2.

Kevin Bacon

The Italian film industry is so incestuous; it sometimes seems like everybody has worked with everybody in Italy and there are probably many actors you could use for this game. Just for fun, let’s say it’s Giuseppe Battiston.

My New Game: The 6 Degrees of Giuseppe Battiston ( Sei Gradi di Giuseppe Battiston).

First, pick a random actor – Let’s try it with my favorite, Luigi LoCascio. Battiston was in Don’t Tell with Luigi in 2005 so – game over. Luigi LoCascio has a Battiston number of 1 and that was too easy. Let’s try again.

How about someone everyone knows,like Roberto Benigni.  Nice try, but again too easy. Battiston was in Benigni’s 2005 The Tiger And The Snow, so Benigni has a Battiston degree of 1. This isn’t much of a game with Giuseppe Battiston. Has everyone in the world acted with him? Maybe it would be more challenging if we tried to see the most degrees that we could get away from him. Or just someone he hasn’t worked with.

But I’ll try one more time with actor/director/funny man Carlo Verdone. Maybe FINALLY someone who has not worked with Battiston. (Or am I forgetting something? Let me know.)

Assuming that it’s correct that they have never worked on the same project, it’s still easy to connect them.

Carlo Verdone was in Maledetto il giorno che t’ho incontrato with Margherita Buy in 1992. Margherita Buy was in Giorni e Nuvole (Days and Clouds) with Battiston in 2007. Carlo Verdone has a Battiston number of 2.

“What’s the point?”, you’re probably asking right now. Maybe the point is that I have too much time on my hands. (I really don’t.) And maybe the point is that Giuseppe Battiston is in everything. Whatever the reason, let me show you that we can even play with Kevin Bacon.

Giuseppe Battiston played in Notizie degli scavi with Ambra Angiolini in 2010 (grade 1), who played with Raoul Bova in Immaturi in 2011 (grade 2), who played with Angelina Jolie in The Tourist (grade 3), who played with Brad Pitt in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (grade 4), who played with Kevin Bacon in Sleepers in 1996 (grade 5).

Ecco fatto – done! Giuseppe Battiston is 5 degrees from Kevin Bacon!

Emile Hirsch, Margaret Mazzantini, Penelope Cruz, and Sergio Castellitto

An interview that I’ve translated from Leiweb.it by Alessandra Mattanza 

Sergio Castellitto: “Talent isn’t enough; acting takes courage.” 

The actor returns to the director’s chair with Venuto Al Mondo (Twice Born), a story based on his wife Margaret Mazzantini’s best-selling novel by the same name, and 8 years after Non ti Muovere, he casts Penelope Cruz in the starring role. Of his future, Castellito has no doubts; “I’m an actor and once in a while I amuse myself directing”.
Sergio Castellito arrived at the Toronto Film Festival with the whole family to present Venuto Al Mondo and said that he chose Toronto because ” it’s said that there you’ll find the true cinefiles”.

In the film Penelope Cruz plays Gemma, in love with a war photographer played by Emile Hirsch.

Can you tell us about the idea to make the book into a movie?

From the first time I read the book I tried immediately to imagine the film. Margaret has a visual way of writing that lends itself well to the screen. I worked on it for 3 years and I can say that this film is truly like a part of my body.

What’s it like to work with your wife?

We work and live together and we advise each other about everything; film, cooking, and clothes.

You’ve chosen Penelope Cruz again, who has gone on to be a big international star since Non ti Muovere.

Penelope read the book and fell in love with the character, Gemma. I absolutely wanted her for this role. It’s the first middle class character that she’s ever played so for her it’s a very different choice. 

How do you like working with her?

Penelope is humble and ambitious at the same time. And more than that courageous, she isn’t afraid to make fun of herself even to the point of seeming ridiculous. A talented actor must always risk everything, asking himself every time if he has really given his all in a scene. Penelope read the book every day on the set, even more than the script, and took notes. It became a sort of Bible for her, and Margaret was always there to offer advice.

Would you like to collaborate in the same way with other American actresses?

There are a lot that I love…I would love to work with Kate Winslet, but I need to find the right project to propose to her. We’ll see – I hope to be able to do that one day.

For the role of DIego you chose Emile Hirsch. Why?

Ever since I saw him in Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild” I thought that this part should go to Emile, for the intensity of his acting and the will to immerse himself with great passion in a character. He was the only betrayal to the book, because there the character is Italian and in the film he became instead an American photographer.

What was the most difficult thing about making this film?

To make a film means overcoming every day an obstacle, even if it’s going relatively smoothly. On the set we are sometimes speaking different languages and using hand gestures to communicate. Everybody was immediately very passionate about the story and it was really beautiful, so it was difficult not to remain involved with each other.

What did you notice in particular?

This film can be seen on many different levels and one of these is the act of devotion versus the pain that women have during war or in their daily lives. It speaks of violence, and in particular, like the kind that Saadet Aksoy demonstrated in a rape scene, showing an incredible courage facing fear and difficult times. As I’ve said before, a great actor must first have courage; talent isn’t enough.

At this point in your career, what do you prefer, acting or directing?

I am above all an actor and once in a while I amuse myself directing. When I’m directing I do it with such strong emotion that it’s almost like a student’s. To make a film is a lot of work because you have the chance to put all of these thoughts and emotions into your hands, a very intense and personal process. And it’s not just the film, but also the memories that remain between everyone that has participated.

In the end, which is better – the film or the book?

The book. The book is always better.

Margaret, Sergio’s wife, who had been in the room but had remained silent throughout the interview had the last words, disagreeing with her husband:

“The film“, she said. “The film is really beautiful.”

Carlo Verdone

Actor, writer, director and funny guy Carlo Verdone was in New York City a few years ago for Open Roads: New Italian Cinema. Out for a stroll on 5th Ave. he heard the familiar, “Carloooooooo!” Looking up he saw that it was a tourist from the top of a double-decker tour bus calling to him, most likely Italian, but a stranger that was acting like they were best buddies.

That’s because Verdone’s everybody’s best buddy, and at this year’s film festival in Rome it was no different. The calls from the crowd, “Carlooooooo!”,echoed the documentary about him, “Carlo!” directed by  Fabio Ferzetti e Gianfranco Giagniand and presented out of competition.

Carlo Verdone and Margherita Buy at the Rome Film Festival

A public hero, they called him at the press conference, “The man capable of maintaining a dialogue with the public for three decades”. Of himself, Verdone said it was a documentary about “a man who loves the people” and one of “many colors, melancholy and at the same time a fierce irony. That’s why it’s very difficult to define my comedy. I’m proud and touched by this sincere, authentic, and true portrait.”

Verdone talked about how lucky he was and about starting out in the clubs of Rome and then becoming an actor; about the 150,000.00 lire (about $100 American dollars) he was paid to act on stage for the first time, and about how Sergio Leone discovered him while channel surfing on late night TV.

“I was lucky to have a family that gave me a push – my father was very ironic and severe, and my mother was a true Roman who encouraged me to know my neighborhood and to notice funny things about it.”

Verdone with Claudia Gerini

“I wanted to be an autore, but I was always thinking a little about the public. It’s inevitable, when you make comedies.”

Due out soon on DVD, I’ll hope against hope that Carlo! will be released with subtitles and available outside Italy. Carlo Verdone is someone who everybody should know about.

Happy Birthday, Riccardo Scamarcio! Born November 13, 1979, in Puglia, he’s the super cute Ashton Kutcher of Italy, the boyfriend of Valeria Golino.
Celebrate his birthday today and watch a Riccardo Scamarcio movie.

Mine Vaganti

Ferzan Ozpetek’s Mine Vaganti, Loose Cannons

Mio Fratello è Figlio Unico

After big success with Io Sono Li (Shun Li and the Poet) in 2011, Director Andrea Segre scores agains with La Prima Neve. I first saw Io Sono Io at the 2012 Open Roads: New Italian Cinema in New York City and was very taken by Segre’s insight during the Q&A after the film’s screening.

Andrea Segre in New York

Previously a documentary filmmaker, he said that he was interested in making a movie about the relationships between immigrants and locals in Italy, and that for the fishermen who used the bar as their “living room”, the woman who served them their coffee became a surrogate wife. The Chinese businessmen who had sent her there wanted her to do her job and keep to herself, creating one of the clashes of culture in the movie.

WATCH IO SONO LI ON NETFLIX

Originally from Chioggia, Segre said that most of the Chinese in the film were non-professional actors that he found around Chioggia or in Rome, where he lives now. It’s amazing how Italian directors have such a talent for finding ordinary, local people to fill important roles. He talked about how Italy is changing, and that when he was a child in school all of his classmates were Italians but that his children go to school with kids from all over the world.

Discover for yourself what’s so special about him and spread the word.  Like La Prima Neve and Io Sono Li on Facebook!

Watch Io Sono Li On Netflix

And watch for La Prima Neve, my favorite film at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Opening in the US on September 27, we’ll finally have the chance to see Pierfrancesco Favino in another English language film, Ron Howard’s Rush. Rush is a biographical action film directed by Ron Howard about the 1976 Formula One season and the rivalry between drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Favino plays Formula One race car driver Clay Regazzoni. Regazzoni was a Swiss driver that won 5 Grands Prix and then was paralyzed in an accident in 1980 and died in another accident in 2006.

READ WHY THE MOVIE IS SEXIER THAN YOU’D EXPECT

“I am beyond proud to have participated in Rush, to have been chosen by Ron (who already directed him in Angels and Demons), and to know these people”, said Favino at a press conference in Rome. “This is the greatest film that I’ve ever been part of. The quality of the screenwriting brings everything to life.”

“I tried to document the characteristics of the person in the story. I worked on looking and talking like him, even though I had trouble replicating his Ticincese (Southern Swiss) accent, because it would have sounded strange in English”. In his research for Rush Favino was fascinated “by the Supermen that risked their lives, and the adrenaline that came from it every day.”

They aren’t very active, most of them. You aren’t going to hear about every little thing that they are thinking like you can with a lot of American celebrities. But I’ve found some Italian actors and directors on Twitter and I’m fairly certain that these are the real deals.

Click on them for links to their Twitter pages.

Angela Finocchiaro

Claudia Gerini

Pierfrancesco Favino

Raoul Bova

Flavio Parenti
Silvio Muccino

Valerio Mastandrea

Paolo Virzì

Rocco Papaleo

Luca Argentero

Laura Chiatti

Vinicio Marchioni

Nanni Moretti
Ferzan Ozpetek

If there was any doubt that Checco Zalone is not the ignoramus, however lovable, that he plays in his movies, Che Bella Giornata and Cado Dalle Nubi, there shouldn’t be anymore. Checco let Barillo Pasta have it, after the president of the Pasta company said, “We won’t make commercials with gay people because we believe in the traditional family. If gays don’t like it, they can buy another brand.” (And I’m sure they will.)

Checco defends gay pasta lovers on his Facebook page, promoting his new film Sole a Catinelle (due out in Italian theaters on October 31) with his song, sung in half Spanish and half Italian and ‘dedicated to the homosexual universe”, “Come es malada nostra sociedad…” ( Our society is so sick).

Checco, one of the 10 biggest reasons to love Italian movies these days, is the most popular Italian comic actor since Totò.

With two weeks until my favorite actor, Luigi Lo Cascio’s birthday (October 20), I’ve begun preparing his birthday card and I’d like your help.

I credit Lo Cascio for the “ah-ha!” moment in which I realized that the Italian film industry was alive and kicking back in 2004 in a movie theater in Firenze. I was there visiting my daughter, who was doing her semester abroad, and I decided that going to the movies would be a good way to help my Italian.

It was me and a handful of women my age and older in the movie theater that day; I’d been told that Italian movies were pretty bad so I figured that Giuseppe Piccioni’s ‘La Vita Che Vorrei’ starring Lo Cascio and Sandra Ceccarelli would be fun to mock, if nothing else.

To my surprise, I loved the movie. There, in that dark theater with my diet coke ( without ice…why won’t you let me have ice with my diet coke, Italy?) the other ladies and I had a special little moment together when we realized the fate of Stefano (Luigi) and Laura (Sandra); we gasped, looked at each other in surprise, then giggled, and I was smitten. Luigi Lo Cascio was an actor I wanted to know more about.

I’ve seen all of his movies now, except the newest ones that just haven’t been available to me yet. His directorial debut, La Città Ideale, premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year and made me happier than I can say; after almost a decade of watching Luigi Lo Cascio movies, his own mother couldn’t be more proud.

I’m making a birthday card, an “auguri di compleanno”, celebrating the career of the actor that I consider Italy’s best, Luigi Lo Cascio. You can add photos, reviews of his movies, movie memories, or just birthday wishes to his card by filling out the card below.

Shhh….it’s a surprise. Don’t tell Luigi.

Check the progress of the card here.

Tanti Auguri di Buon Compleanno to Cetto La Qualunque!

He’s worked with Silvio Soldini and Margherita Buy in Giorni e Nuvole (Days and Clouds), Woody Allen in To Rome With Love, and most recently came to the Venice Film Festival with L’Intrepido, competing for the Leone D’Oro, but to me, actor Antonio Albanese is Cetto La Qualunque.

The 2011 film Qualunquemente left me walking out of the theater in horror, but it delighted audiences all over Italy and it got a big standing ovation when it premiered at the Berlinale (The Berlin Film Festival).

Qualunquemente (Whateverly) is about Cetto, a guy that runs for mayor to get himself out of some local legal problems. Cetto’s campaign slogan is “Pilu per tutti” and I had to look that one up – my Italian teacher didn’t tell me about “pilu” – it’s Calabrian dialect and means tail or booty. “Vote for Cetto, More Tail For Everyone”. The first time I watched it I could only think of how much it reminded me of the American TV show,  ”The Jersey Shore”. Maybe there was a part of Italy that those numbskulls could identify with.

What would Albanese say to Berlin before the screening of  the grotesque, cynical, and bitter look at Calabria? Albanese’s response: “Maybe nothing. Maybe they should just be left to enjoy the film by themselves. After all, I don’t want them to think that’s a film about anything specific or any specific politics. I think that Cetto is a universal character and it speaks to our country and to all of Europe. Even around Berlin there are hundreds of Cetto La Qualunques all over the place.”

“I liked the character. I never thought of it as a reality show.” Good point. I hated Cetto so much that it affected the way I felt about the film, and I had to go back and watch it again to appreciate the sarcasm and the farce.

Albanese was asked, “Were you ever afraid that people would laugh “with” Cetto instead of “at” him?

“It’s a little like Coppola making the Godfather, and everybody that wanted to be godfathers. But I really don’t think they’ll laugh with him. If this happens it’s not my fault.”

Was I the last person to know that Italian actor Vincenzo Amato (Nuovomondo, Respiro) was going to be on my favorite TV show? We’d DVR’d the October 13 Boardwalk Empire and hadn’t gotten the chance to watch it until last night.

Nucky Thompson’s in Florida working on a land deal in Tampa and he’s rounding up investors. He’d been talking with Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano until Luciano backed out when he learned about a  new potential partner, Vincenzo Petrucelli (Amato), an investor with ties to Joe Masseria in New York.

Petrucelli meets Nucky and the others at the alligator fights (lovely sport), and assures them that he is a reliable investor. (“Just ask around”, he tells them.)

But Lucky Luciano is already acquainted with Petrucelli and isn’t so happy to see him. “What are you doing so far away from home?” Petrucelli asks a nervous Lucky.  ”I’m glad Joe (Masseria) let’s you come down.  Do your business. I should call him, that way we can all make money together.”

“This could be bad for me”, Luciano later tells Lansky, and Lansky decides to go it alone . The Florida story line opens up an exciting opportunity for us to watch Amato in an English-speaking role.

Don’t know VIncenzo Amato? Nuovomondo and Respiro are a couple of good films to get to know him. Both were directed by Emanuele Crialese and both are easy to watch in the US.

READ MY REVIEW OF NUOVOMONDO

WATCH THE GOLDEN DOOR INSTANTLY ON NETFLIX

More well-known as an author than for films Margaret Mazzantini never-the-less has left her indelible mark in Italian cinema. The wife of Sergio Castellito,  Margaret will be forever remembered for her collaboration with her husband on the 2004 movie Non Ti Muovere (Don’t Move).

Non Ti Muovere was first an award-winning novel written by Mazzantini; she won the coveted Strega Book Award, the most important Italian literary prize. The book remains one of my favorite, and the discussion (it was more of an argument) with my book club was intense. Is it a love story or a tale of violence against women? You can decide for yourself; you can buy the book, translated into English, on Amazon.

Penelope Cruz and Sergio Castellito

I’ve called Non Ti Muovere one of the 30 best films since 2000; it stars Castellito, Claudia Gerini, and Penelope Cruz as the prostitute Italia, a unflattering role that only a very brave actress would take. With Sergio directing and acting and Margaret as the screenwriter, this film went on to win David di Donatellos, Nastro D’Argentos, Italian Golden Globes, European Film Awards, and other film festival honors.

RENT NON TI MUOVERE 

Watch it for free without subtitles

Born in Dublin in 1961, Margaret is the daughter of the writer Carlo Mazzantini and the painter Anne Donnelly. When she was three the family moved to Tivoli where she grew up, attending the National Accademy of Dramatic Arts.

Primarily a theatrical actress, she began her career in a 1980 horror film called Antropofago. (We’d better ask Nigel Maskell at The Italian Film Review about that one.) It was on a movie set that she met Sergio Castellito and they married in 1987, going on to have four children. Margaret and Sergio gave all of their children the middle name of either “Contento” or “Contenta”, which means “happy”, a name that seems appropriate for this famous family. Her son, Pietro has been trying his hand at acting as well.

Happy Birthday Margaret! Auguri!

Paolo Sorrentino’s muse, Italy’s treasure, and I Love Italian Movie’s Man of the Year, Toni Servillo is not like any movie star we have here in the United States. I don’t think so, anyway; I know so little about him. He’s not the kind of guy with his face plastered on People Magazines ( or Chi, a similar magazine in Italy ).

“That an actor is so often asked their opinion on soccer or cuisine or politics or public transport,” he says, “is part of the degeneration process in show business.” (Wow. Refreshing. Take notes, Tom Cruise.)

Want to know who he’s sleeping with?  As far as I can tell, that would be his wife, Manuela, a pretty, age-appropriate teacher. Want to know about his fabulous, star quality “digs”? Nobody I know has ever done a photo spread of his house ( been there since the ’60s) in Caserta, south of Naples. Google “Toni Servillo – Gossip”, and you get pretty much nothing, NULLA. Have his two sons have been following in his footsteps, or designing new fashion lines, or getting in trouble with the law; I don’t think so, I think they are just normal kids going to school.

So what has Toni Servillo been doing if not rubbing elbows with celebrities every night and mugging for cameras?

Acting. He’s been acting. This year he’s in the news more than usual, promoting what is being called Paolo Sorrentino’s masterpiece, La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty). As the film’s protagonist, Jep Gambardella, a Roman socialite who dabbles in journalism, he nails it, just like he nails every role he takes on.

The Great Beauty is making the rounds in American theaters on a limited basis right now, but there are other opportunities to see his work here in America.

CHECK HERE FOR THE GREAT BEAUTY LOCATIONS

Though some of the best Toni Servillo films have not been distributed in the US, like one of my very favorites of 2012, Daniele Ciprì’s ‘È Stato Il Figlio‘, there are some good choices from Netflix below.

READ MY REVIEW OF È Stato Il Figlio

È Stato il Figlio

Will Toni Servillo every get the recognition he deserves? Doesn’t seem like he cares that much about it to me. He’s an actor that acts. And he’s one of the best of our time.

He’s I Love Italian Movie’s Man of the Year.

Get these other films starring Toni Servillo from Netflix. Click on the images for the links.

Il Gioiellino

Gomorra

La Ragazza Del Lago

 

Il Divo

Le Consequenze Dell’Amore

 

It was a pretty productive year for women filmmakers in Italy, and however well their films did at the box office, it’s clear that they are forever changing the face of Italian cinema.

Maria Sole Tognazzi, sister of Ricky, daughter of Ugo, came up with a film that proved immediately exportable.

Maria Sole Tognazzi

In Viaggio sola (A Five Star Life), starring Margherita Buy and Stefano Accorsi,  Maria did more way more right things than wrong, starting with the incredible cast. With Ivan Cotroneo writing the screenplay and the beautiful luxury hotels as the backdrop it’s lots of fun.  It’s about a mystery guest for hotel chains, checking in as a normal guest but actually there to make sure their 5 star rating is deserved and it’s scheduled to open in US theaters in Spring of 2014.

Emma Dante’s Sicilian stand-off movie Via Castellana Bandiera ( A Street In Palermo ) opened at the Venice Film Festival this year. Starring Alba Rohrwacher and Emma herself, it’s about a lesbian couple on the verge of a breakup/nervous breakdown when one of them refuses to back down in an impass with another car in a narrow Palermo street. While not my favorite at the festival, it is a bold and exciting effort for Dante’s first feature film.

A Street in Palermo is coming to Netflix and you can SAVE IT NOW.

Emma Dante’s in the driver’s seat.

Young director Susanna Nicchiarelli is delightful and bright in her telling of the story of Italy’s terrible “Anni di Piombo” (the 70s and 80s period of terrorism by the Red Brigades) in a creative way with her film La Scoperta Dell’Alba  She says that she wanted to tell about her country’s history in a more inventive and free way and decided to use a science fiction approach which, I have to admit, was pretty cool.

Nicchiarelli, who also stars in the movie with Margherita Buy says that their is an intended metaphor; a woman  trying to resolve something in her past symbolizing a country that struggles to do the same. For Italians who remember the period of terrorism, it’s not always easy to reconcile, and the effects of it are still felt by young Italians.

Susanna Nichiarelli and Margherita Buy

I want more, more, more of comedies like Giorgia Farina’s ‘Amiche Da Morire‘. It’s a dark screwball comedy with an exceptionally strong cast made up of hilarious women like Cristiana Capotondi, Claudia Gerini, Antonella Attili.

Cristiana Capotondi, Claudia Gerini, Antonella Attili, ‘Amiche Da Morire

Giorgia Farina with the cast

Maybe the most important new feminine force in Italian filmmaking: Valeria Golino. What can’t this woman accomplish? The beautiful and talented actress crossed over and made Hollywood films like Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman and now she’s directing. Her 2013 Miele (Honey) stars Jasmina Trinca and is winning awards all over the place.

It’s about a young “right to die” advocate, but it’s not a preachy message film. It’s more about the people that have to spend a little too much time on Death’s front porch.  Irene could have been a soldier,  a cancer doctor, or a psychic who conducts seances. She’s belongs that society of people that see death every day and have to pretend that they don’t when they are out in the real world. Can anybody really successfully do that and not end up pretty screwed up?