The Italians are crazy! I recently watched "L'ultimo capodanno" and "Paz!", two comedies that take their basic premises to extremely unexpected levels. The first one was directed by Marco Risi, son of Dino, the Italian filmmaker who has been acknowledged as the man who most contributed to the creation of the cinematic comedy "all'italiana", and the goings get so out of hand that maybe your jaw will drop. Max Mazzotta, the actor who plays the leading character (if there is one), also appears in Renato de Maria's "Paz!", a fantasy based on four comic strip stories by cartoonist and pop idol Andrea Pazienza, following students and radicals during the 70's in Rome. Actors look too old for their parts (as in "Grease"), but I guess that's the idea in a movie where sex is candid and free, where a kitchen turns into an auditorium full of leftist students or a professor asks structuralist silly questions to Mazzotta about "Apocalypse Now". I wasn't even looking to watch these two films, but after I did, I will look forward for future Italian movies on cable television, by different and new directors.
