federicaboldrini1984

Bobby is a choral film, which tells the story of the tragic night in which US senator and presidential candidate for the elections of 1968 Robert F. Kennedy was shot to death in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, showing the few hours before and right after the assassination in the lives of a little crowd of characters, all, for a reason or another, staying at the hotel that night. The cast is all-stars: people like sir Anthony Hopkins (also executive producer), Demi Moore, William H Macy, Laurence Fishbourne et al. accepted to work at minimum wage just to be part of the project. Most of the scenes have been shot in the real hotel Ambassador, opened to the cast and crew the last week before being demolished, in 2005. Bobby is a political film - after all Estevez and his father, Martin Sheen, who also appears in the film, are outspoken liberals. In the few scenes about Vietnam is easy to see a reference to Iraq, but above all, the film speaks of a different America, who might have been, but never was, due to Kennedy's premature death. The film was presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2006, and had been acclaimed by the critics. Still, it has a lot of flaws. First of all, senator Kennedy is portraited too much as a saint. There are also a few embarrassingly rhetorical moments, like the scene between Laurence Fishbourne and Freddy Rodriguez. Most of all, the film has a way too many characters (about 22), all on the same level and with the same importance, so, naturally enough, in the end they are all underdeveloped. Bobby has also its redeeming features: good acting, especially from the surprising Sharon Stone, an intelligent use of archive footage, which reminded me a bit of Clooney's Goodnight and good luck, and a rather nice soundtrack. My rating is 6.5/10

There are lots of reasons to love "Coeurs" . At first, I must say, I hadn't great expectations for this French adaptation of the British play "Private Fears in Public Places", by the acclaimed Alan Ackynbourn. I was wrong: actor- director- screenwriter Jean-Michel Ribes did a clever job with the script. The stories of the six characters intersect smoothly, there are a few big laughs, but the general mood of the film is bitter-sweet and pensive. The ending is in a way very pessimistic: the very true-to-life message is love is a dream, and soon or later everybody has to wake up. The film shows remarkable acting. Italian Laura Morante was awarded with the Pasinetti award in Venice, but the rest of the cast is very strong as well. Honorable mentions go to Pierre Arditi's sensitive performance, and, with lighter tones, to André Dussollier's. Alain Resnais' direction, winner of the Silver Lion at the latest Venice film festival, left in the film a distinct theatrical feeling. The repeated image of the snowfall, used between one scene and another, is appropriate and poetic. Over all a good film - recommended. 8/10 in my book.

Irma la Douce was one of the biggest commercial successes in Wilder's long career, being one of the top-grossing films of 1963. Now, for some reason, it's nearly forgotten, at least in the USA, and that's a shame, 'cause "Irma" is a delightful film. Yes, it's overlong (nearly 150 mins). It's true, it lacks some of the best features of Wilder's masterpieces - the sharp social criticism of The Apartment, the genius laugh-out-loud script of Some like it hot, the dark atmosphere of Wilder's noirs. Still, it's a classic. The plot itself it's absolutely far-fetched and yes, kind of silly, but the script is on the usual Wilder/ Diamond standard, which means great. It deals with matters which at the time were pretty risquè in a light, innocent way. The cast is spot perfect. Lemmon plays a role which fits him perfectly, the sweet, clueless a bit neurotic "flic" Nestor Patou. Shirley MacLaine is at her best. She looks better than ever and she's wonderfully ironic -and more, her chemistry with Lemmon is amazing. It's funny to think she was just Wilder's third choice, the first two being Marilyn and Liz Taylor. Another one who wasn't the director's first choice is Lou Jacobi as Moustache. His role was meant for Charles Laughton, who sadly at the time was dying from cancer, so Jacobi got the role - and did great! his performance is highly enjoyable and he utters some of the funniest lines in the film. Other high points are the incredible set - a 48-buildings bit of Paris built in the Goldwyn Studios - and the score by Andrè Previn, which won Oscar. I have just one regret: that Wilder didn't attempt to film Irma as it was originally conceived, which means as a musical. It would be extremely interesting to see how the great director would have coped with a genre which was so unusual for him. Wilder, Lemmon and MacLaine were a wonderful team and Irma is a classic. Sure, it has its shortcomings and it's not a milestone in film-making like "the Apartment"... but that, as Moustache himself would have said, is another story. Don't miss Irma, you will love it. 8/10 in my book.

This film, the first ever produced by Disney in Italy, is not an awful one, but has lots of flaws. The plot line is simple: it's the story of Salvatore, a young Sicilian orphan, who quits school and starts working in order to support his little sister and his grandma. Only his young, idealistic teacher (Enrico Lo Verso) befriends him, going everyday after school to his house, to teach him the lessons he misses in the morning and to help him in his work. The title of this film literally means "Salvatore - that's life" - the problem is life isn't really like that. The whole plot is schmaltzy and unrealistic, and most of character are one-dimensional and underdeveloped. The acting is unequal: part of the cast is good, part is dismal. Lo Verso is a fine actor and does well as the lead character, Gabriele Lavia is great as the headmaster and does a convincing Sicilian accent. Giancarlo Giannini appears briefly as a mob boss - he's not bad, but you have the impression he's in the film just to please the American producers who invested in it. The boy who plays Salvatore is not very talented - he mumbles a lot, with a strong Sicilian accent, and in the most emotional scenes just screams with all his voice. But the real problem of the cast is the female part of it: Lucia Sardo, who plays the grandmother, is evidently a young woman heavily made up to look old - just awful!- and Galatea Ranzi shows some very bad acting as the social worker who wants to put Salvatore in an orphanage. One last thing: I hated the Laura Pausini song used in the movie. It's annoying and strengthens the feeling this film was thought to be exported. My rating is 6-/10

This morning, before entering the press screening of "Viaggio Segreto", I was saying to a fellow critic I was glad that at this first Roma Film Festival the Italian films presented were all surprisingly good and that I hadn't seen a bad one yet. I was wrong: there is a bad Italian film at the festival, and its name is Viaggio Segreto. Roberto Andò's direction left me a good impression; I didn't despised the soundtrack either. All the rest was hopeless. First of all, the film was a bore fest. I just kept on yawning and yawning, and hoping it would end soon. Alessio Boni shows incredibly wooden acting: he just has one perplexed, suffering expression, which is the same is he laughing, crying or dancing with a naked woman. Valeria Solarino is also bad, an you wonder what the hell is Emir Kosturica doing in this film. The script is a mess, with a lot of useless scenes, and the characters, especially Boni's, act incoherently. You just stay there and wonder why. Some characters are useless (ex. padre Angelo), almost everyone is underdeveloped, especially Ale (Solarino), even if she was the key character of the film. The script is full of pretentious, meant to be profound sentences that actually mean nothing, which is extremely irritating. The plot is basically a melodrama, but the film doesn't transmit any emotions. This is the perfect specimen of that collection of pretentious Italian films dealing with family drama, dark secrets etc in which Boni often appears. My suggestion is to avoid this film. My rating is 4.5/10

We have been waiting for Tornatore since Malena, in 2000, and now he has come back with this drama/ thriller, with a rather melodramatic plot inspired by the often very tragic news stories about the exploitation of women from East Europe in Italy. The main character, the Ukranian Irena, played by the wonderful and hardly known Russian stage actress Xenia Rappoport, has something very mysterious about her. She pursues an obscure aim, concerning the young Italian couple whom she works for and their 5 years old daughter. At the beginning the film has something very hitchcockian about it, then it turns to melodrama, with many emotional moments (don't forget your hankies!) There are few very hard scenes, with much violence, mental and physical. Tornatore does the usual good work. In this film he could count on a capital cast, including, besides Rappoport, the cream of the crop of Italian acting: an hairless and extremely sleazy Michele Placido, the very good Claudia Gerini and Pierfrancesco Favino, Alessandro Haber, Piera degli Esposti and Margherita Buy, who agreed to appear just a few minutes by the end of the film. Clara Dossena, the child actress who play one of the key characters of the film, is not only incredibly cute, but also much talented. A very remarkable thing is the score by maestro Ennio Morricone. Some critics said it's too invasive, but God, it's beautiful. I think you will love the sweet and heartbreaking "Lullaby theme". On the whole, a convincing film. Probably the best of the first Roma Film Festival. My rating is 8/10

"The Prestige" has everything a film need to be great: two lead actors named Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, for the first time together, a supporting cast including Micheal Caine and Scarlett Johansonn - I felt Johansonn was kind of useless here, though - and the direction of acclaimed Christopher Nolan. Still, it's ultimately unconvincing. Probably it will do big bucks, but don't be fooled by the current 8.5/ 10 user rating: the film's no masterpiece. Sure, it has its high points: great production values, with wonderful costumes and a gorgeous art direction - which succeeded in creating the visionary, sci-fi Victorian age that "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" tried in vain to create with massive digital effects in 2003 - . Most of the performances are strong; the best, in my opinion, is Jackman's. Bale is just a step lower. What didn't convince me is the script. It use a series of cross flashbacks which didn't always work well. The plot, very convoluted, is sometimes repetitive. The "surpise ending" is not that big surprise if you have paid attention. Even if its atmosphere of is definitely dark, with some brutal scenes, the Prestige is nothing other than a magic trick played to the audience: it will entertain you for a while, but will leave you nothing much. Maybe's my fault, but I was expecting much more. My rating is 6/10

Some months ago, Italian TV showed a French miniseries called "Dolmen". It was very bad, and they very soon cancelled it and rescheduled it at improbable hours. This film reminded me pretty much of Dolmen. It has the same dark and anguishing atmosphere, the same mythological, esoteric background and, unfortunately, the same bad computer generated wild animals that oppress the characters. The film casts Italian diva Monica Bellucci as the lead character. Quite unusually for her, she wears very short hair and doesn't show much of her celebrated sex appeal. Her acting basically consists in screams and panting. She does the wildest, most improbable things, like crawling in an air conduct and fighting with the previously indicated animals. The most surprising thing in the film is that a great actress like Catherine Deneuve agreed to appear in it. I wonder why - maybe she just needed some money. However, she is barely recognizable. At a point her character turns in a (bad, computer generated) bear (!!). Monica Bellucci even stabs her with a ritual knife. This should explain how ludicrous some scenes are. More, the film is full of clichés, like the Chosen little boy with a mark on his body and magical powers, or as I said, people crawling in air conducts (classic clichè!) and snakes appearing everywhere. At a point I really wanted to leave the theater, I stayed just because I'm learning French and I thought it could be useful for the language. I just hope that if I work very hard, one day I'll speak French as well as the Mongolian people shown in the film... 'cause of course, in this film every old Mongolian man living in an hut in the steppe speak perfect French! Yeah sure! If you want my advice on this film, skip it, you won't miss much. My vote is 4.5/10.

While fighting to enter in the theater where the press screening of the Roma Film Festival took place I hadn't great expectations for this film. The trailer looked so bad. More, I have never been much confident in Richard Gere's acting talents, but I must admit: in this film he proved me wrong. Appearing in almost every scene, not handsome as ever (he changed his hairline and his nose to look more like to the real Irving) Gere gives at last a good performance. I discovered he's also pretty good doing impressions - he does a great Howard Hughes, whose photos are constantly shown in the film and who, by the way, doesn't at all look like Di Caprio. Alfred Molina is also very good - hilariously funny, he's the best part in the movie. As for the supporting cast, there are pleasant cameos by Stanley Tucci and Eli Wallach. As for Richard Gere, I wasn't much confident in Lasse Hallström too - I found most of his films rather sappy. He did a good job in the Hoax though. The film has a nice "70s" look, with appropriate cinematography and a nice soundtrack as well. The one thing that didn't thoroughly convince me was the script: it started pretty well, but past the middle of the film it kinda loses its way and becomes more confused and repetitive. Still, a nice film. Gere fans, I'm sorry you will have to wait, since the opening in USA has been postponed to April, but the wait will be worth it. My rating is 7/10.

Screened this morning for the press at Roma film festival, "N - io e Napoleone" is easy to love. First of all it can count on great production values, as very few Italian films nowadays can, with wonderful settings and costumes. The cast is great too. Director Virzì constantly speaks of the young lead Elio Germano as "a young De Niro". Now, of course he is going a way too far, but sure the boy can act. I loved his performance, and he did a great job with the (tuscan) accent. Daniel Auteuil is a great actor and did very well as Bonaparte. It's really great to see him acting in Italian, I hope to see him working in Italy again very soon. The supporting cast worked well too - people like Valerio Mastrandrea or Sabrina Impacciatore may seem unlikely choices, but they all gave fine performances. Even Massimo Ceccherini, best known for appearing in his own moronic films and in trashy TV reality shows, fitted in well and was actually funny. The low point of the cast was the "Diva" Monica Bellucci. Sure, she was slightly better than usual, but she managed to look (and sound) utterly unnatural even in the part of baronessa Emilia, in which, with a good dose of self irony, she used her own umbro accent. The script, by veteran Furio Scarpelli and Virzì himself is clever, with lots of laugh out loud lines, and a few very emotional moments too. Sure, the ending left me puzzled. The message is kind of ambiguous: the whole film says that political ideals can bring you to blind hate, but if you get closer you will learn that the object of your hate is after all a little human being like everyone else, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes pathetic, so that suddenly it's difficult to hate him; then, in the last few minutes it says that after all it would have been better to shoot him in the head at the beginning. Personally, I dislike very much this notion. "Io e Napoleone" is still a pleasant film, the best presented at the Festival so far (the other being Fur and the Hoax). My rating is 8/10

Being lucky enough to have a free pass for the press this morning I attended the press screening of this film at the Roma Film Festival, which opened today. I would like to share some thoughts. First of all, this is far from being a biographical account of the photographer Diane Arbus. The film, with shows not a single of her works, just covers the few key months in which Arbus discovered to be an artist, leaving her well-to-do environment. One day ante litteram desperate housewife Arbus, married with the mild mannered advertising photographer Allan, looking outside the window sees Lionel, their new neighbour: this is the beginning of the most unusual of love stories, around which the whole film revolves. Lionel, which is an entirely fictional character, suffers from ipertrichosis, a pathological condition which makes his body and his face completely covered with hair. Lionel helps Arbus to discover herself and introduce her to the world of the freaks, like himself is, which would be the subject of most of her work. The title of the film states it is an imaginary portrait of the artist. It's more like a wild fantasy loosely inspired to her figure. Kidman's performance is good, but not mind-blowing. Robert Downey Jr.'s is more interesting: with his face completely covered with hair he manage to create a rather intriguing character, acting just with his eyes and his beautiful voice. I must say that after the screening the press audience was pretty harsh with the film. It's not really a BAD movie, one can say that in its way it has also a kind of weird charm. Steven Shainberg's direction is creative and interesting. Still, the film has many very weak points. There are really A LOT of unintentionally funny things, first of all the striking resemblance between Robert Downey Jr.'s character and Star Wars hairy fellow Chewbacca. Two or there meant to be serious lines made the audience (and me) laugh out loud. A few scenes were nearly ridiculous. If you are a fan of Kidman or Downey Jr. you can give a chance to this film: don't expect a serious work about Diane Arbus, but rather a very strange dream, and maybe you'll enjoy it. 6/10

Oh dear, this film is SO bad. It looks like director Brian De Palma thinks that "Film Noir" means "plotless gorefest". Humphrey Bogart and the other good ol' stars of film noir should be spinning in their graves. This film has only one good feature: Dante Ferretti's gorgeous sets. Most of the rest is rubbish. The performances of the lead cast are not really bad, but have their problems. Josh Hartnett, that pretty boy, kind of lacks in charisma, and personally I found Aaron Eckhart miscast - Blanchard is meant to be a man with a dark past, and he wasn't dark enough. Hillary Swank was grossly miscast, far worse than Eckhart. She has nothing, NOTHING of the femme fatale, and while in the film her character is often said to be the Dahlia's lookalike, she is nothing like Mia Kirshner. As for Johansonn, I'm not a great fan, and in this film I really can't see what the fuss is all about. Now consider that this quartet of actors move in a EXTREMELY convoluted plot, very hard to follow, and sometimes, especially the women, utter very campy, laughable lines. Add a massive dose of violence, with blood everywhere, and some fight scenes in slow motion à la Walker Texas Ranger. This is the formula of The Black Dahlia. The result? a serious contender to this year Razzie Award, and a major disappointment for moviegoers. If you want my suggestion don't waste your time and money on it.

"Baciami Piccina" is a very nice little dramedy set in 1943. Based on an idea by the late director Sergio Citti, the film is inspired to Italian classics like "I due marescialli" and "la Grande Guerra". Like these films "Baciami piccina" shows the tragicomic events of some little people (the carabiniere Umberto, his fianceè Luisa and the flamboyant con man Raoul, traveling in one way or another from Terni to Venezia) while on the background history (in this case Italy's armistice with Allies) happens. The first half of the film is very funny; then it takes a more serious and tragic turn. Everyone is perfectly cast an give a nice performance, especially Salemme and Marcorè; the script by veteran screenwriter Furio Scarpelli is pretty good and everything works nicely. One minor flaw: the song "L'eco der core" sung in the film by Tosca is a Roman song, in Roman dialect, very unlikely to be sung in a Venetian inn. Beautiful song, though. My vote is 7.5/ 10 - Give this little film a chance, you won't regret!

In 1956 Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady was a memorable hit on Broadway and for a while all the studios in Hollywood struggled to get the rights for the film version. Two years later, having lost the rights to Jack Warner, MGM hired Lerner and Loewe to work on a similar story, trying to repeat that incredible success. Their bet was won: Gigi did well and got 9 Oscars, including Best Picture, over Hitchcock's Vertigo (!) Now it is a bit forgotten - since 1964 it has been overshadowed by Fair Lady and, I must say, with some good reasons. The plot, if similar, is not as interesting as Fair Lady's, and it deals with somewhat "scandalous" matters (Gigi being trained by her aunt to be a first class hooker) in a very veiled, prudish way, so that it's not always easy to understand what's going on. A.J.Lerner's script, which follows very closely the original play by Colette, has none of the wit or the cleverness of the one he wrote for Fair Lady, closely following Shaw. As for the actors, Leslie Caron, whose singing was dubbed by Betty Wand, is a nice little thing, but on the whole, she's not more than the poor man's Audrey, and Louis Jourdan as the male lead can't hold a candle to Harrison. Gigi is still a pleasant film, though. Maurice Chevalier's performance is for sure one of its high points, even if he now looks a bit creepy singing "Thank heaven for little girls". Its glorious Technicolor is still gorgeous to look at and Cecil Beaton's costumes are wonderful. It has some very nice songs too, especially the bittersweet, nostalgic "I remember it well", sung by Gingold and Chevalier in one of the best scene of the movie. Other nice songs are "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" -originally written to be sung by Eliza in My Fair Lady and "The Night They Invented Champagne", a kind of French "Rain in Spain". On the whole, a light, graceful film - 7/10 in my book.

"Being Julia" is a pleasant period piece set in the 30s, best know for Annette Bening's Oscar nominated performance. Besides her acclaimed turn as British stage diva Julia Lambert, the film offers a few other high points: some good casting choices for leads (Jeremy Irons) and minor characters (Micheal Gambon, Miriam Margolyes, young Tom Sturridge), an effective, beautiful reconstruction of 1938 London (rebuilt in Budapest), beautiful costumes as well, and an original and clever use of Micheal Gambon's character, Julia's mentor Jimmie Langdon, constantly appearing as a ghost who dialogs with Julia. Still, in the film there are many things I don't like. First of all, comparing to the original novel by W.S.Maugham the characters of Micheal and Lord Charles are somewhat trivialized, especially the latter. In Maugham Micheal was one of the most amusing characters - so silly and vain, but also in his way a good fellow; in the film, despite a good performance from Jeremy Irons, has not this richness. With Lord Charles is even worse. The casting of Bruce Greenwood is inexplicable: he is at least 10 years to young - left alone Canadian!! - and in my opinion there was no need to make his character gay. The "attepmted seduction" between Julia and him was priceless in the novel, not quite so in the film. The "on stage revenge" scene was trivialized as well: in the book it was subtle and funny, in the movie, with all those clumsy laughs and big sneezes, it turns out a bit kitschy. As for the music, the soundtrack sounded a little too jazzy for that time and place. I didn't like how it fitted. In particular the use of "Smoke gets in your eyes" seemed to me totally inappropriate in the last scene. Yes, I know that song was written the thirties, but to me it sounded so "fifties", and so "Platters"!! More, the lyrics have nothing to do with the meaning that moment (Julia's final triumph) has in the story. I mean, they say quite the opposite. On the whole, Being Julia is a slight disappointment. A must see for Bening's fans, a nice period comedy-drama for all the others, but S.Maugham's fan could be disappointed.

With this film producer Aurelio de Laurentiis intended to do something similar to the Italian comedy classic "In viaggio con papà" (1982): put together a well known, veteran actor (in that case Alberto Sordi, in this one Verdone)and a young, promising one (in the first one Verdone himself, in this one Silvio Muccino, brother of director Gabriele), to appeal to two different generations. Even if the film is going strong at Italian box office the operation is only partly successful. Verdone stars, directs and is also author of the script. The plot is a bit messy, as the film starts as a slapstick comedy with some touch of family drama and suddenly turns to road movie. The script is average, not particularly clever nor as hilarious as Verdone's first movies, but with some funny, good lines. As for the acting performances, Verdone's is top notch, showing what a truly great actor he is, while Muccino has much to learn, and even if he has a nice screen presence, in some dramatic scenes he's still inadequate. On the whole the film is pleasant, with a good, heartwarming ending; it's not an unforgettable classic, but still better than Verdone's latest, bad films, like "Ma che colpa abbiamo noi" and "L'amore è eterno finchè dura". My rating is: 6.5/10

"Murder on the Orient Express" is a classy film, in so many ways. With an an intriguing plot, based on one of Agatha Christie's best works, it has wonderful settings and costumes, beautiful cinematography, a great score and of course, one of the most AMAZING casts ever. While Ingrid Bergman's Academy Award winning performance doesn't impress me that much, Finney plays a perfect Poirot (in my opinion much better than Peter Ustinov's) and the rest of the cast create many unforgettable characters as well. My personal favourites are Wendy Hiller as creepy princess Dragomiroff, Martin Balsam as delightful Italian signor Bianchi, and Lauren Bacall, who's BIG fun in this. Fine work also from sir John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins and Jean-Pierre Cassel; Sean Connery is remarkably sexy as colonel Arbuthnot. With such a cast this film is really, as its tag line states, "The Who's Who in the Whodunnit!". It offers a good deal of suspense, but also lots of humor, and more, a great, great ending. Even Agatha Christie was completely satisfied with this adaptation of her book, and I am too. My rating is 8/10.

Tonight I had much to study and very little feeling for my books. I watched this film instead: I vaguely remembered it had a poor IMDb rating, but I decided to give it a chance anyway. I'm so glad I did! I found out a delightful bitter-sweet comedy, with some good laughs and a few touching moments as well. To be true the plot about the depressed American businessman who comes to Italy and discovers the enjoyment of life has been heard before and could seem sometimes predictable, but has its great moments; the score is rather charming too. Marcello and Jack are a magnificent paring. This film is vastly and wrongfully underrated. I can't believe it's only rated 6.1: it would deserve much more. I highly recommend it to anybody loves truly great artists like Lemmon and Mastroianni.

Seen Finding Neverland yesterday in Rome...OK, it was nice, I think that the money for the ticket was absolutely well spent, but when I first heard about this film I thought "wow! exciting! lovely story, amazing cast...this will probably become one of my all times favourites!" and when I got out of the cinema I thought "Ok. Just another nice film." and I was a bit disappointed... First of all, Johnny Depp is not the right choice for that role. He looks too young, he doesn't seem much "edwardian" and I don't like his intent appearance: it's meant to be dreamy, it seems indolent, instead. I would love to see Ian Holm handle the role in the 1987 miniseries "the lost boys". By the way I loved all the other actors... Winslet was amazing, thought her character may be defined much better, Christie and Hoffman were simply great (Dustin's character is the best in the movie and has the funniest lines). The children were good, especially that young Highmore, and also Mitchell is very convincing. Another big problem is that in my opinion this film suffers a severe lack of humor: I wished its sad ending was counterbalanced by more humor, but they were always serious, also when Barrie comes in dressed up as an Indian! Afterall it's a movie about childhood and dreams! I think also that the relationship between Barrie and Sylvia should have been developed more,I think it's a very interesting theme. Barrie is meant to be in love with her but he is always seen playing with the children, and never has a moment alone with Sylvia, only when she's dead he tells to her mother that he was in love with her. Too bad, really, too bad.