Barbara Cupisti Movies

Vulgar, blood-soaked humor abounds in this rollicking Italian black comedy that follows the hellish, bizarre New Years Eve of two average guys who find themselves stumbling from one outlandish situation to the next. After one guy gets dumped by his girl friend, he brashly invites himself to the exclusive party his pal plans to attend. His friend is not happy at spending the evening with such a morose character but allows him to go. Unfortunately, things go awry at the party and he must take the troublesome friend to his parent's suburban home. On a dark, empty highway, the two spy two hitchers. They offer them a ride and end up held at gun point, robbed and then running frantically for their lives in a field. Their flight leads them through dense woods and ultimately to a seemingly empty farmhouse that proves inhabited by a criminally insane poetry fan and his brutal gang. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A woman throws caution to the wind in the pursuit of the man of her dreams -- whom she's never met -- in this romantic comedy. Eleven-year-old Faith (Tammy Minoff) and her cousin Kate (Jessica Hertel) are playing with a Ouiji Board when Faith asks who she will marry -- the magic oracle answers "DAMON BRADLEY," and Faith is convinced that she will one day meet this ideal love. Fifteen years later, Faith (Marisa Tomei) has yet to meet her perfect man and has settled for Dwayne (John Benjamin Hickey), a sweet but boring foot doctor whom she's engaged to marry, with Kate (Bonnie Hunt) helping her plan the festivities. The day before the ceremony, Faith gets a call from one of the groom's friends, who won't be able to attend because he's travelling to Italy instead -- and his name is Damon Bradley. Convinced that fate is trying to tell her something, Faith hops on the next flight to Venice, where she searches for the elusive Damon, and along the way meets the charming Peter Wright (Robert Downey, Jr.). This was Tomei and Downey's second romantic pairing, following their roles in the biopic Chaplin. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

When policeman Carlo Vinciguerra (Carlo Verdone) arrests everyone attending a party in order to break up a drug ring, he is left with one partygoer he can't arrest: Giulio (Federico Rizzo), the six-year old son of the (relatively blameless) hostess. While his mother is in the slammer, the courts give temporary custody of the boy to the bachelor policeman. The bemused bachelor is delighted by the antics of the boy, even when he winds up breaking things. He is less amused when the boy's presence puts the kibbosh on his romance with a married woman. However, with the boy's help he not only puts the screws to the drug-pushers, but gets a new family as well. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

The polar-opposite worlds of opera and horror collide in this gory giallo film from director Dario Argento. Christina Marsillach (Tom Hanks' romantic interest in Every Time We Say Goodbye) stars as Betty, a beautiful understudy who gets an unlikely break to play the female lead in a contemporary opera of Verdi's Macbeth. Her fear of Macbeth's notorious curse proves to have foundation when a psychopath with a strange connection to Betty murders a stage hand in the midst of her debut and later kills several ravens being used in the opera. Characters introduced at this point who could be the killer include: the show's director, Marco (Ian Charleson); Betty's publicist, Mira (Daria Nicolodi); and the police inspector, Alan Santini (Urbano Barberini). The middle third of the film is devoted to the killer's bloody work which serves to torment Betty. The madman binds her and tapes a row of tiny needles beneath her eyes so that she is forced to watch him butcher a young stage manager and a costume designer, among others. With the police investigation going nowhere and the killer zeroing in on Betty's death, Marco decides to enact his own plan to stop the madman; he releases the ravens (apparently, they always remember their enemies) during a performance. The birds circle wildly before attacking the killer and plucking one of his eyeballs out. He absconds with Betty, but dies in a fire after revealing his demented motivation and his connection to the young singer. A final scene set in the Swiss mountains provides a couple of final shocks. ~ Patrick Legare, Rovi