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In films like Volver, Parallel Mothers, Everybody Knows, and now L’immensità, Penélope Cruz has cornered the market on playing mother figures that are both larger than life and movingly earthy. As Clara, the loving Spaniard expatriate trying to raise her children while staying married to an unfaithful man in 1970s Rome, Cruz does some of the best work of her already incredible, multilingual career.

To say director Emanuele Crialese’s camera falls in love with Cruz would be an understatement. She is lovingly shot and framed (even her Sophia Loren bob brings attention to her expressive eyes) and we don’t even need to hear her speak to know whoever’s gaze she’s under has completely fallen under her spell.

This adoration takes on a heartbreaking twist when we realize the camera is acting as a surrogate for Clara’s eldest, Adriana (Luana Giuliani) who was assigned female at birth,...

“L’Immensità,” the 1967 hit made famous by Don Backy and Johnny Dorelli, has the kind of lyrics that can make you cry just by reading them: “I am sure that in this great immensity/ someone thinks a little of me/ will not forget me./ Yes, I know it,/ all my life I won’t always be alone.”

It’s no wonder that the Italian filmmaker Emanuele Crialese (“Terraferma”) named his latest film after the song. “L’Immensità,” which Crialese co-wrote with Francesca Ranieri and Vittorio Moroni, is an aching and sumptuous ode to growing up and chafing against expectations. Making its North American premiere at Sundance after debuting in Venice, this is a film about adolescence and regression, defiance and surrender. By showing the tangled relationship between a mother and her dysphoric child, “L’Immensità” writes a love letter to the lonely.

The 13-year-old protagonist of “L’Immensità,” played by a stunning Luana Giuliani,...

Need a break from violence, misery, and injustice? Or maybe just the network TV news? Billy Wilder’s last great comic romance is an Italian vacation soaked in music, food, scenery and sunshine. It’s the best movie ever about Love and Funerals.

Avanti!

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1972 / Color/ 1:85 widescreen / 140 min. / Street Date October 10, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill, Edward Andrews, Harry Ray, Guidarino Guidi, Franco Acampora, Sergio Bruni, Ty Hardin.

Cinematography: Luigi Kuveiller

Film Editor: Ralph Winters

Art direction: Ferdinando Scarfiotti

Music Arranger: Carlo Rustichelli

Italian standards by Gino Paoli, Giuseppi Capaldo, Vittoriao Fassone, Don Backy, Detto Mariano, Sergio Brui, Salvatore Cardillo, Umberto Bertini, Paolo Marchetti.

Written by I.A.L Diamond and Billy Wilder from a play by Samuel L. Taylor

Produced and Directed by Billy Wilder

When Billy Wilder was reaching advanced old age, good friends rallied to make sure...

Stars: Lea Lander, George Eastman, Riccardo Cucciolla, Don Backy, Maurice Poli, Maria Fabbri, Erika Dario, Luigi Antonio Guerra, Francesco Ferrini, Emilio Bonucci, Pino Manzari, Ettore Manni | Written by Alessandro Parenzo | Directed by Mario Bava

Mario Bava for me is a director I mostly know for horror films and his importance to not only Giallo but the slasher genre. Now that Arrow Video have released Rabid Dogs on Blu-ray I see a new side to him, one that may have come too late for movie fans to fully enjoy but one that showed how good a director he truly was.

When a robbery goes wrong a gang of crooks are forced to take a woman prisoner and end up hijacking a car taking the man inside and his sick son prisoner. Refusing to get out and allow the man to take his son to the hospital they force him to help them escape into the countryside.