Li'l Duce's Reviews Palace

[titoli]

Get Smart (2008) Run of the mill Hollywood reworking of the tv series without the ingredients that made it one of the best ever. So much so that the best scene is the chase. Carell is just impassible but not as charming as Don Adams, while Heywood can't hold a candle to Barbara Feldon, one of my first yens. It seems they're planning a sequel. 6\10

[Groggy]

The Conspirator (2010) A small but good courtroom drama about Mary Surratt, accused of being an accomplice of Lincoln's murderer. I could have done without the flashbacks and made it shorter, but it is worth a 7\10.

Sounds about right.

[titoli]

Gallipoli (1981) Another boring effort from specialist Weir (thugh Picninc in Hanging Rock probably still remains unequalled as to being an alternative to sleeping pills). 90' wasted on nothing before at last explaining what the title promised. 3\10 because the main musical electronic theme was famous, though the use of Giazotto's adagio makes you skin cringe. 

[titoli]

Coluche, l'histoire d'un mec (2008)  This is interesting more for italians, I presume, than the french themselves, for the analogies and the differences between the candidature to the Presidency of France in the elections of 1981 of this comedian and what is happening in Italy with the Grillo's movement. The difference lies in the web: Coluche was boycotted by the media and had no alternative. Just an informative movie. 6\10

[Groggy]

Gallipoli (1981) Another boring effort from specialist Weir (thugh Picninc in Hanging Rock probably still remains unequalled as to being an alternative to sleeping pills). 90' wasted on nothing before at last explaining what the title promised. 3\10 because the main musical electronic theme was famous, though the use of Giazotto's adagio makes you skin cringe. 

Sounds about wrong.

[titoli]

No Way Out (1987) I caught this on tv by chance. Actually I think I had seen it but didn't remember anything because it sucks. I can't remember either if I saw the original noir and read the novel, but I'm sure they are better than this one. Funny how this looks so older than even older movies, as it is shot with still current techniques as to photography but the  technology is still that of the previous 30 ears: no cell phones, polaroid, an explanation of what a pixel is. 2\10

[titoli]

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965) A perfect rendition of the book. Only gripe I have is that no german talk is heard, apparently all the german judges and lawyers can speak a perfect english. But Burton is equal to Guinness and earns the movie a 8\10

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The Sleeping Car Murders (1965) The movie's finale works better than in the novel I reviewed a couple of days ago, probably because you don't follow the plot with much attention as on the page (still one wonders how one can suicide by shooting himself in the belly with a machine gun and not a spot of blood appear on the back of his mackintosh). Even the gay slant (not brought to the fore in the novel) makes sense and adds to the logic of the story. Probably the car chase at night into the streets of Paris is the only one in the history of cinema accompanied by the rhythm of a twist. 8\10

[titoli]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xajyl2BMAAA


This 2000 documentary about Janis Joplin is very interesting for some of the interviews, especially those with her sister and friends. The interviews made in her hometown comeback are impressive. 8\10

[titoli]

House of Games (1987) I was steered toward it by finding it mentioned in one of Carofiglio's books I rewieved these days. Well-made thriller about con artists. I presume that, like me, the not so naive viewer will get hip before the main character herself (a not pretty but attractive Lindsay Crouse) realizes it, to what game is being played, but still I think the pre-finale (with good dialogue between Mantegna and Crouse) and the finale are quite original. 8\10

[titoli]

La grande bellezza - The Great Beauty (2013) The dvd (subbed in english in case somebody here hates himself) was forced down my throat today by a colleague who, probably, aspires to discuss it with me. Which I won't. This is the kind of italian movie which makes me stay home and read or watch some old movie, an italian one possibly. It has nothing: no story, no characters (they're all bogus: the one played by Sabrina Ferilli makes me puke with her forced roman dialect which no person would adopt with that insistence), moronic dialogues. Rome and his vistas can be impressive for foreign audiences, but for people who live in it there's no reason to be  awed. This is the kind of movie which the late Luigi Magni would overtly deride as artsy-fartsy: no wonder people in Italy run in mass to watch the last Checco Zalone's lame comedy. 1\10

[dave jenkins]

Rome and his vistas can be impressive for foreign audiences, but for people who live in it there's no reason to be  awed.

Naturally. But as someone who has never been to Rome (and is never likely to go) I was impressed.

And are you saying Toni Servillo wasn't playing you? I'm very disappointed.

[titoli]

And are you saying Toni Servillo wasn't playing you? I'm very disappointed.

What do you mean by "playing me"?
Anyway, Servillo plays a character which Vittorio Caprioli has been playing throughout his career, 50 years before him. With the difference that the characters Caprioli played were less inconsistent and more funny than this one.

[dave jenkins]

What do you mean by "playing me"?

Oops, I forgot about your Humor Deficit Syndrome. Never mind.

[titoli]

Oops, I forgot about your Humor Deficit Syndrome. Never mind.

As usual, kicking the ball in the grandstand.