Nello Mascia Movies
- 2007
A brilliant detective from Southern Italy investigates the death of a young girl found drowned in a remote lake in the mountains of Friuli in director Andrea Molaioli's dramatic mystery. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toni Servillo, Nello Mascia, (more)
- 2001
Two men learn firsthand about the cruel twists of fame and fortune in a drama from Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino. In the early '80s, Tony Pisapia (Toni Servillo) and his younger brother, Antonio (Andrea Renzi), have each risen to the peak of their chosen professions. Tony is a nightclub singer who after years of struggle has achieved nationwide fame, and Antonio is a soccer player who becomes a star after scoring the game-winning goal in the European championship match. However, a few years down the line both men are experiencing a sharp reversal of their good fortune. Tony has developed a devastating cocaine addiction, and after it's revealed he's become sexually involved with an underage girl, it doesn't seem likely that the public will ever forgive him. Meanwhile, a leg injury has put an end to Antonio's career as an athlete, and he finds himself starting from zero as he tries to launch a new career in coaching; he faces another personal crisis when his wife, frustrated by Antonio's career decline, leaves him. L'Uomo in Piu was loosely based on the true stories of two Italian celebrities, musician Franco Califano and football star Agostino Di Bartolomei. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toni Servillo, Andrea Renzi, (more)
- 1999
Mariano Lambeerti debuts with this satire about the Italian bourgeois. The protagonist (Mariano D'Amora) is a depressed law student who can't be bothered to study for his exams, annoying his lawyer father and distracting his mother. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paola Pitagora, Nello Mascia, (more)
Romeo Spera (Carlo Verdone), an ordinary-looking middle-aged man, is a musician who used to be fairly popular. Even now he earns his living in music as an accompanist to female singers. His big problem, though, is that he is hungry for romance. The predictions of a fortune teller encourage his hope that he will know love. When he meets Iris Blond, it's love at first sight. In order to cultivate Iris for stardom, Romeo abruptly terminates his current professional and personal arrangement with singer Marguerite. But despite his newfound passion, Romeo maintains a non-sexual relationship with Iris so that he can focus on promoting her career. When Iris gets an important contract to perform without Romeo, she kindly violates their platonic contract. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1995
A former terrorist from the early 1970s, who has totally suppressed the memory of the night in which she almost executed a man; encounters her intended victim a few years after the crime was committed. He, who wound up with a bullet lodged in his skull has never forgotten her, and so begins a complex, compelling Italian psychological drama that does not provide any simplistic answers to a situation that is difficult for both parties. The woman, Lisa Venturi was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to serve a 30-year sentence. Though she has only been in prison 12 years, she is given a chance to do work release during the day. It is on her way to work that she runs into Professor Sajevo, the man she tried to kill. He shows some interest in her, but she has no idea why. Soon the meetings become a strange unspoken ritual. Every day on her way to work, he manages to block her way. Finally she begins thinking he wants to court her and so begins fabricating a perfectly normal life. He meekly seems to buy every word, but eventually, he tells her the truth. Lisa is so deeply upset at having to face what she so carefully tried to hide from herself that she gives up her job and returns to the prison so she will not have to face him. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable, as by then both of them are pulled inexorably towards more communication about the situation and the ideology that threw them together in the first place. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1993
The title of this movie refers to a typical Neapolitan shell-game in which a package of valuable merchandise is switched for something worthless while a brief diversion is used as a cover. This comic anthology is a survival guide to the mad, sometimes joyful anarchy of this ill-managed town, told in ten separate episodes. In one of the funniest, a woman swindled out of her apartment by a phony medium successfully uses his own superstitious belief that there are real mediums somewhere to get her apartment back. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommaso Bianco, Enzo Cannavale, (more)
- 1982
Gianni (Marzio C. Honorato) and Santa (Consuelo Ferrar) are in love but at odds about what really matters in life. Gianni drives taxis -- illegally -- to make a precarious living, a situation which at one point lands him in jail. As he is cooling his heels, his wife is having an affair, and being a "modern" woman she has no qualms about telling Gianni. When he gets out of prison, being a tradition-bound male yet in love with his wife, he does everything he can to "win" her back from his new rival, the erstwhile lover. While working on this problem, Gianni is developing some others when he steals a company truck in an effort to get out of a scam operation and obtain some more job security -- not the best solution, although it is sure to get his demand for job security some attention. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marzio C. Honorato, Consuelo Ferrara, (more)
