There is no doubt that Roberto Benigni will forever have his name etched in the annals of film history after his Academy Award winning film Life is Beautiful – which took home Best Foreign Language Film, Best Score (for Nicola Piovani), and brought forth a most special moment when Benigni climbed atop the seats of the theatre to accept his Best Actor award. Yet, it is a bit of a shame that some of his pre-1997 works are lesser known outside of his native Italy. Case in point, the comedy Johnny Stecchino, circa 1991. Co-written (along with Vincenzo Cerami), directed and starring Benigni, he plays the titular character as well as a near identical lookalike of the man (who is actually our protagonist). Here’s a quick translation – Stecchino means toothpick. So, to explain, Dante is a charming yet rather simple bus driver (who is also trying to pull a disability scam with the government), when one day, he luckily. . . or perhaps unluckily, almost gets run into by a beautiful woman named Maria (Nicoletta Braschi – Benigni’s real life wife) – who seems to be immediately intrigued by the man. As she would exclaim – “Santa Cleopatra!”
The Academy Award season is creeping upon us again. . . and as I am running out of time, I’ve decided to combine and condense two reviews that feature stellar Lead Actress performances of 2019 (that also happen to be about real women), Rupert Goold’s Judy and Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet. Judy tells the tragic story of Judy Garland, flashing back and forth between the way she was mistreated during the filming of The Wizard of Oz, and how that, along with poor life choices, brings her to a point where she is forced to take an extended stay in London in 1968 (away from her children – who she dearly loves) in order to earn enough money to be able to purchase a home (so that she might win custody against her ex-husband).
It is funny what passes through your brain when something as monumental and horrible as Kobe Bryant’s unexpected death is heard (even more heartbreaking that his thirteen year old daughter Gianna, and seven others died in the helicopter crash). Logic and reason no longer control your mind, and it is as if a movie reel flashes before your eyes. For me, I immediately thought of a day almost fourteen years ago to the day when the Toronto Raptors seemed to have things in complete control (up fourteen against the Los Angeles Lakers at half). It was January 22nd, 2006, the day Kobe took over – almost forty-two minutes, twenty-eight field goals made (forty-six attempted), seven threes. . . a total of eighty-one points (that helped further his legend – the second highest total ever behind only Wilt Chamberlain’s one hundred). Then, the horrific 2011 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash flashed before me – 44 dead, including former NHL superstar Pavol Demitra (who I knew). You think of Jordan, Shaq, the championships, and the colossal loss. . . in complete pain for his wife, daughters and parents (who must now try to pick up the pieces after this tragic accident). You start to hear the reaction coming out – shock and disbelief. . . perhaps Tiger Woods’ forceful “excuse me” upon hearing the news from his caddy after finishing his round of eighteen sums that up nicely – for it seems surreal.
You just can’t beat a good idea. . . which is why most iconic stories have found their way onto the silver screen more than once – case in point, Little Women. Reuniting the director/actor dream team of Greta Gerwig and Saoirse Ronan just two short years after their success with Lady Bird, this 2019 effort follows adaptations released in 1917, 1918, 1933, 1949, 1994 and a 2018 tv movie (and no less than eight television versions) – I’ll leave it up to you as to what that proves (perhaps that classics are eternal. . . or maybe, that Hollywood can no longer muster up even one original idea). Gerwig, adapting one of her favourite novels (written by Louisa May Alcott), creates a visually striking world, from its perfectly framed opening shot to its closing scenes, the lush, New England landscape a brilliant backdrop for this nineteenth century tale. Each home, architectural flourish, costume choice, and colour selection painting a nuanced, impressionist piece of artwork.
Ranked as the 17th greatest British film of all-time by the British Film Institute (and perhaps a bit more surprisingly, finding itself on the Vatican’s top 45 “great films” – in the “art” category), 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob, written by T.E.B. Clarke (winning him the Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay) and directed by Charles Crichton (A Fish Called Wanda), is a clever send up of the crime caper. Setting out to write an authentic crime story, Clarke actually went to the Bank of England, looking for advice. The Bank formed a special committee, the screenwriter asking numerous questions as they basically laid out the only way such a heist could work (by today’s standards, this seems absolutely ludicrous), meaning that, what we see in this 1951 feature is an accurate portrayal of what it would have taken to rob this iconic institution.
When I first started watching the excellent British series Misfits (somewhat scarily, about a decade ago), I was completely impressed with their lineup of talented young stars (all playing delinquents forced to do community service – who also happen to have superpowers). I expected many of them to go somewhere, and I have not been disappointed – Joseph Gilgun is arguably the most entertaining part of the American show Preacher (as Cassidy); Iwan Rheon scared millions of viewers as the vile Ramsay Bolton on Game of Thrones; Antonia Thomas is a main player on the hit series The Good Doctor (as Dr. Claire Browne); while my favourite character on the series was brought to vivid life by Robert Sheehan (who played the hilarious Nathan). A man of many dimensions, I then followed him to the Irish series Love/Hate, a role that showed his range as a very serious young man working in the Dublin underground crime scene. Also, over the years, he has had some promising roles in films such as The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, The Messenger, Geostorm, Mute, Mortal Engines, and, currently has found his groove in North America on the acclaimed Netflix series The Umbrella Academy.
For whatever reason, World War 1 films have never been popular fodder for Hollywood studios. Since World War 2, money makers have obsessed over this more modern conflict, leaving the War to End All Wars behind. Skewed some ten to one in favour of the 1939-1945 clash, it is refreshing to see Sam Mendes’ 1917 (which he co-writes and directs) coming out exactly one hundred years after the end of The Great War. Following Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman – Tommen Baratheon in Game of Thrones) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay – Captain Fantastic), it is not surprising to first find them in a fugue-like state of nap. . . for they are now four years into a war that seems to have no end. Tasked with making a lengthy journey by dawn, the pair will have to deliver a message warning a battalion of sixteen hundred men, including Blake’s brother, Joseph (Richard Madden), that they are running into an elaborately plotted trap.