niutta-enrico

Mario Monicelli embodied my personal ideal of filmmaker: prolific, wit, kind and committed to comedy.

He wrote for himself and for others, directed the best European actors of his time and on my arbitrary opinion he is the real father of 'Comedy Italian Style'.

The present title is an incredibly pleasant 2-hour piece that celebrates the feminine way of dealing with life compared with the stressful / sometimes overbearing and selfish ways of males.

As I stated in the Title, I think this was the last great movie from the master, who was 71 at the time: he went on directing a dozen more flicks in the following 20 years but the present title is the last I feel worthy of comparison with Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958), The Great War (1959) or Il Marchese del Grillo (1981).

I know that Italy had Fellini, Rossellini, Visconti and many other great directors, I'm aware that Monicelli never won an Oscar (he was nominated 6 times) but his movie list is outstanding and everything he did shows such grace and such a natural and unaffected style that I'm sure people will love his timeless classics forever.

Enjoy.

For those who played the video game (I am not one of them...) I'm told (by Wikipedia) that the TV series is true (and canon, whatever it means) with the games.

And Todd Howard (who directed various games in the series and ended up in charge of the franchising for Bethesda) refused several offers before meeting Jonathan Nolan (an avid gamer of the series, they say) and deciding that his vision for the adaptation was the best possible.

For those who didn't know that the game even existed (I am part of this group) I can assure you that this is one of the funniest, cleverest, most spirited and entertaining TV series ever.

Ella Purnell is mesmerising (too beautiful... at least in this jumpsuit), Walton Goggins is the coolest Ghoul you'll ever meet and the story, although far from being 'original', is super catching.

Enjoy.

I don't know how far in the world an Italian production can go these days but if you like watching movies from abroad (as I do), there is a good chance that you'd like this title, no matter where you are from.

It's the 2nd feature film from Pietro Castellitto (both author and main character) and the richness of witty details (most of them nice) he included in the flick seems to speak of a long period spent stockpiling ideas before starting to shoot. Which is good.

In any case the movie is indisputably entertaining, built around a well organised plot that even though (alas...) doesn't escape the Italian cliché of considering mob an irreplaceable narrative element, shows originality in other ways such as nice dialogues and a pleasant general candour.

Acting is very good: the two main characters above all but I'm sure that Benedetta Porcaroli won't go unnoticed as well. A mention for Author's father, who is a very famous Italian actor and plays his son's father in the movie: you can notice him stealing the scene even when he listens, completely still, to his wife (the talented Chiara Noschese).

Frames are good and the ending, although metaphysical (another unfortunate Italian cliché...) however brings the story to a coherent end (which is always nice).

There is more in the movie, such as several nods and hints to other movies or to other Authors, and I'm sure you'll notice them as I did.

Enjoy.