Angelo Rizzoli Movies
Italian producer Angelo Rizzoli was first a successful publisher before turning to the film industry in the mid-'30s. He is best known for the work he did in the '50s and '60s. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 2008
This unusual Italian-language seriocomedy from director Giulio Manfredonia walks a fine-line, suspended midway between genial farce and sensitive, compassionate drama. It tells of Nello (Claudio Bisio), a businessman from Milan who gets unexpectedly booted out of his job and ends up managing a collective of ex-mental patients; the individuals in question have suffered from the notorious Basaglia Law, and thus found themselves expelled from area psychiatric hospitals. Sensing a need for renewed purpose in these individuals, Nello defines a new occupational role for each of them, molded and shaped to each individual's abilities - with both humorous and surprisingly touching results. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudio Bisio, Anita Caprioli, (more)
- 1994
The relationship between a working class father and son provides the focus of this Italian drama set in Genoa. Corrado works as a night watchman on the Genoan harbor. His wife works at a dry cleaners. He is close to retiring, but finds he misses the factory where he spent his youth. He gets his son Gabriele a job there instead. Gabriele wants to pursue his own interests and soon quits. This creates a great gulf between father and son. The conflict is only partially resolved at the film's end. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michele Placido, Stefano Dionisi, (more)
- 1992
A self-described son of neorealism, director Gianni Amelio utilized non-professional actors, authentic locations, and unadorned filmmaking techniques to create this honest, uncompromising look at modern Italy and its faltering human relations. Il Ladro di Bambini (The Stolen Children) begins in Milan, where Sicilian siblings Rosetta (Valentina Scalici), 11, and Luciano (Giuseppe Ieracitano), nine, live with their destitute mother. The woman regularly prostitutes Rosetta and is arrested; her children are immediately made wards of the court. Carabiniere Antonio Criaco (Enrico Lo Verso) is assigned to escort them to a foster home in a mission that appears to be simple. Yet, years of abuse forbid the siblings to trust, obey, or even like Antonio. Rosetta is hostile and demanding; Luciano is sullen and remote. When the Catholic foster home will not accept the children on the grounds of Rosetta's past, Antonio independently decides to bring them south to a home in Sicily. The three begin on a road trip during which their relationship grows and Antonio -- the epitome of hope and grace -- attempts to give the children a normal, loving experience by temporarily stealing them from their uncertain future. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Enrico Lo Verso, Valentina Scalici, (more)
In this erotic thriller, a young English couple on vacation in Venice find themselves seduced by a mysterious older couple. Mary (Natasha Richardson) and Colin (Rupert Everett) have come to Italy to chart the future of their troubled relationship. They soon meet Robert (Christopher Walken), the enigmatic owner of a picturesque watering hole. He entertains them with copious vino and colorful stories of a childhood spent with a brutal, domineering father. Later, drunk and lost in the maze-like city, the couple once again encounter Robert, who puts them up at his gorgeous villa. They also meet his wife, Caroline (Helen Mirren), who suffers from crippling back pain and obvious emotional instability. Fascinated by the glamorous older couple but disturbed by their dysfunctions, Colin and Mary find themselves slowly drawn into sexual and emotional games that culminate in sudden violence. Directed by Paul Schrader, The Comfort of Strangers was adapted by playwright Harold Pinter from the novel by Ian McEwan. Richardson previously starred in Patty Hearst, Schrader's portrait of the newspaper heiress-turned-terrorist. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Walken, Rupert Everett, (more)
- 1991
Four countries-France, Greece, Italy and Switzerland-converged upon the production of Suspended Step of Stork. The film is set on the Greek border, where a steady stream of refugees flows on a perpetual basis. Reporter Gregory Karr thinks that he's spotted a familiar face among the anonymous throngs. It is the face of Marcello Mastroianni, cast as a politician who has long been missing and assumed dead. Karr takes it upon himself to repatriate the woebegone Mastroianni, starting with a reunion between the ex-politico and his reluctant wife Jeanne Moreau. Cowritten by director Angelopoulos, Tonio Guerra and Petros Markaris, this moving contemporary drama was originally titled To Meteoro Vima Tou Pelargoli. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, (more)
- 1990
- PG13
In this sentimental, tragicomic drama, Matteo Scuro (Marcello Mastroianni) is an old widower living in Sicily. His five grown children have scattered all over Italy, and he has heard nothing but glowing reports from them about their lives and careers. One day he takes it into his head to visit these paragons who have fulfilled every one of his ambitions for them. Eventually he discovers that all his children have been lying to him for a very long time because they were afraid to disappoint their papa; their lives are shabby and very much on the edge, and one of them has long-since committed suicide (unbeknownst to him). This daunting truth provokes a heart attack in the old man, who still has a few lies yet to tell and hear, because he insists (as do his children) that "everything is fine." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Michèle Morgan, (more)
- 1989
- R
Set during the Mussolini years, Open Doors stars Gian Maria Volonte as an old-line judge. Volonte tries to remain faithful to the letter of the law, despite the "improvements" made by the Fascists. His insistence upon justice over dogma results in government reprimands, and ultimately poses a threat to Volonte's well-being. The honesty vs. corruption theme transcends the film's period settings, resulting in an allegorical masterpiece that has significance in any country, any time. Open Doors was a nominee for the "best foreign picture" Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gian Maria Volontè, Renato Carpentieri, (more)
Based on the novel by Ivan Turgenev, this drama tells of a young Russian noble during the mid 19th century who, although engaged to a young pastry chef, falls for a seductive married noblewoman who has arranged to buy his estate. Timothy Hutton, Nastassja Kinski and Valeria Golino star in this period piece. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Hutton, Nastassja Kinski, (more)
- 1988
The loves and lives of three sisters provides the basis of this melodrama. The eldest is intelligent and very aware of life's ticking clock. The middle sister lives on emotions, while the youngest is an idealistic, impassioned pre-med student. The story is loosely based on Chekhov's play Three Sisters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fanny Ardant, Greta Scacchi, (more)
Africa, Blood and Guts is an edited-down version of the 1966 documentary Africa, Addio, a follow up to the directors' Mondo Cane. Whereas the original 138-minute version of Addio sought to criticize practices and customs in 1960s Africa and demonstrated a fair amount of substance (drawing extreme controversy for its political and social observations about Africa), this reduced version exists only for the sake of exploitation - exclusively emphasizing homicides, genocides, mutilations, the butchering of animals and all manner of other grotesquerie.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1968
In this satire, former Italian Resistance hero Natalino (Nino Manfredi) finds himself a total failure as a civilian. He becomes a mercenary when U.S. agents hire him to assassinate a neo-Nazi spy attempting to sneak his soft-drink formula to the communists. The Americans are to pay him $100,000 for the hit. His wife Elvira (Francoise Prevost) finds someone willing to do the job for half the amount. What should have been one gunman turns into five, each one chasing the other and the former Nazi for a coveted secret formula. The comedy comes full circle when the ex-Nazi is hidden in Natalino's apartment and makes love to his wife. After all assassination attempts fail, the spy confesses and kills himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nino Manfredi, Françoise Prevost, (more)
Juliet of the Spirits is a fantastical showcase for Federico Fellini's vibrant imagery, starring his wife, Giulietta Masina, as the titular leading character. Juliet is a wealthy housewife who constantly fears her husband, Giorgio (Mario Pisu), is cheating on her. While she yearns for a peaceful intimate evening on the night of their 15th anniversary, the egotistical Giorgio has forgotten about it and instead arrives home with his eccentric friends. After a trip to a séance, Juliet is haunted by images from the spirit world, including obsessions from her past involving religion and her late relatives. With her sisters and mother prying into her life, Juliet seems to be seeking an inner peace amidst all the sexual temptations surrounding her. She meets her neighbor, Suzy (Sandra Milo), a showy pleasure-seeker who lives in a sensual playhouse. It appears that all of Juliet's family, friends, and fantasies demand that she loosen up and embrace sexual freedom, yet she remains chaste and dowdy, lamenting over her unfaithful husband. The reasons for Juliet's repression are not clearly defined by the narrative, despite glimpses into her supposed imagination. Forced to endure the constant bombardment of sexually charged imaginings, the demure Juliet retreats on her own. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Giulietta Masina, Mario Pisu, (more)
Fresh off of the international success of La Dolce Vita, master director Federico Fellini moved into the realm of self-reflexive autobiography with what is widely believed to be his finest and most personal work. Marcello Mastroianni delivers a brilliant performance as Fellini's alter ego Guido Anselmi, a film director overwhelmed by the large-scale production he has undertaken. He finds himself harangued by producers, his wife, and his mistress while he struggles to find the inspiration to finish his film. The stress plunges Guido into an interior world where fantasy and memory impinge on reality. Fellini jumbles narrative logic by freely cutting from flashbacks to dream sequences to the present until it becomes impossible to pry them apart, creating both a psychological portrait of Guido's interior world and the surrealistic, circus-like exterior world that came to be known as "Felliniesque." 8 1/2 won an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, as well as the grand prize at the Moscow Film Festival, and was one of the most influential and commercially successful European art movies of the 1960s, inspiring such later films as Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and even Lucio Fulci's Italian splatter film Un Gatto nel Cervello (1990). ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, (more)
In one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s, Federico Fellini featured Marcello Mastrioanni as gossip columnist Marcello Rubini. Having left his dreary provincial existence behind, Marcello wanders through an ultra-modern, ultra-sophisticated, ultra-decadent Rome. He yearns to write seriously, but his inconsequential newspaper pieces bring in more money, and he's too lazy to argue with this setup. He attaches himself to a bored socialite (Anouk Aimée), whose search for thrills brings them in contact with a bisexual prostitute. The next day, Marcello juggles a personal tragedy (the attempted suicide of his mistress (Yvonne Furneaux)) with the demands of his profession (an interview with none-too-deep film star Anita Ekberg). Throughout his adventures, Marcello's dreams, fantasies, and nightmares are mirrored by the hedonism around him. With a shrug, he concludes that, while his lifestyle is shallow and ultimately pointless, there's nothing he can do to change it and so he might as well enjoy it. Fellini's hallucinatory, circus-like depictions of modern life first earned the adjective "Felliniesque" in this celebrated movie, which also traded on the idea of Rome as a hotbed of sex and decadence. A huge worldwide success, La Dolce Vita won several awards, including a New York Film Critics CIrcle award for Best Foreign Film and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Yvonne Furneaux, (more)
- 1953
Blonde French sex symbol Martine Carol is incongruously cast as the title character in Lucrece Borgia. The bloody excesses of the incestuous Borgia family during the Renaissance are given ample screen time, albeit within the bounds of reasonably good taste. Mexico's Pedro Armendariz struts and frets as the cruelly ambitious Cesar Borgia, who forces his sister Lucrece into a marriage of convenience. Depicted with historical accuracy as a relatively innocent victim of circumstance, Lucrece never utilizes poison as a weapon in the course of the film, though she does manage to inflict bodily injury on Cesar when the latter threatens her romance with the handsome Aragon (Massimo Serato). The highlight of Lucrece Borgia was Martine Carol's nude bathing scene, only a portion of which made it to American theatre screens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martine Carol, Pedro Armendáriz, (more)
