Luigi Musini Movies
- 2009
In a series of bizarre and infamous events that transpired in 2001 and made local headlines, two half-baked Italian thieves learned of the death of banker Enrico Cuccia and ham-fistedly attempted to partake in a "victimless crime." Several weeks after Cuccia's demise, the men visited the Lake Maggiore cemetery containing his body, stole his coffin, and ransomed it to his poor family. The events grew more complex when the thieves were mistaken for terrorists and the French secret service became involved. With their feature L'Ultimo Crodino, writer Federico Mazzei and director Umberto Spinazzola spin this material into a contemporary comedy of errors with a slightly tragic quality. Director-actor Ricky Tognazzi and Enzo Iacchetti star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ricky Tognazzi, Serena Autieri, (more)
Spike Lee's World War II film Miracle at St. Anna begins in 1983 with Hector Negron, a veteran of that war, unexpectedly shooting a customer dead. Police discover that the suspect, a quiet postal worker, kept a statue head worth millions of dollars in his apartment. An eager young reporter (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) interviews Negron in his cell about the mysterious artifact. While serving in the all-minority 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division, Negron and three comrades managed to sneak deep into enemy territory in Italy. One of the men, Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller), picked the head up while they were serving in Florence and believes it brings him good luck. Negron (Laz Alonso), Train, and Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), along with their sergeant, Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke), take refuge in the Italian village of St. Anna, harbored by locals who are resisting the Nazis -- who themselves surround the area. Train also protects an injured Italian boy he discovers while investigating a seemingly abandoned dwelling. Eventually, the soldiers make contact with their superiors, and are ordered to capture a German so that he may be interrogated about an upcoming attack. Lee adapted Miracle at St. Anna from a novel by James McBride, who also penned the screenplay. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, (more)
- 2007
As celebrated Italian director Ermanno Olmi's self-declared final work, the feature 100 Nails (AKA Centochiodi, 2007) attempts to weave a narrative around a contemporary figure who harbors the humanity of Christ. In a startling prologue, the overseer of an ancient library screams out in horror and summons the cops when he discovers that some degenerate has nailed 100 rare manuscripts to the floor with giant railroad spikes, comparable to the ones used to nail Jesus to the cross. As the authorities conduct their investigation, the film then flashes back to events that unfolded over the course of the prior day. An unnamed philosophy professor at Bologna University (Raz Degan) wraps up the tail of the semester and leaves his students behind, including a young Indian woman who penned a thesis on women and religion - the work asserting that organized religion is of utmost importance in her familial culture. The professor climbs into his BMW and drives out of Bologna and into the countryside, where he reaches the Po River and a dilapidated peasant house. Journeying into a local village, he finds its residents far warmer and more welcoming than his colleagues and students at the university; indeed, they first help him fix up the ruined house, then turn to him as an activist and seek his help protecting their threatened community center. He not only becomes a Christlike figure to the locals, but takes a pointed stand against what the film presents as the intellectual decreptitude of the Catholic church, with his intense and seemingly limitless love of humanity. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Raz Degan, Luna Bendandi, (more)
Guillaume Depardieu, Jeanne Balibar, and Michel Piccoli star in director Jacques Rivette's adaptation of the Balzac novella The Duchesse de Langeais, which tells the tale of a Parisian socialite who is romantically pursued by a Napoleonic war hero. The story begins as grieving French general Armand de Montriveau (Depardieu) arrives at a Majorcan church to speak with French nun Antionette le Langeais (Balibar). General de Montriveau believes le Langeais to be a woman he once loved dearly, but eventually lost. As the pair is reunited under the watchful eyes of the presiding priest and mother superior, their romantic past gradually comes into focus. It was five years ago that bored socialite Antoinette first became enamored with the wounded soldier whose rousing tales of adventure offered exciting contrast to her highly refined lifestyle. Though she was married at the time, the coquettish cosmopolitan quickly fell under the spell of the commanding military man -- who vowed that very night that Antoinette would be his lover. As their romance grows more complicated, the passionate pair finds it increasingly difficult to deny the powerful connection that binds them. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume Depardieu, (more)
A reluctant Yugoslav hitman working in New York City finds his fate inescapably tied with that of his ex-wife and her law-enforcing current boyfriend in director Vladan Nikolic's contemplative character study in which all reality is subjective. An orphan from Bosnia who has been forced to assume the role of killer for hire by a blackmailing former covert-operations agent, the man known as Uncle Vanya (Sergej Trifunovic) is told that he must complete one final job before he is permitted to retire. When the simple money-for-drugs deal goes south and Uncle Vanya is forced to take a hostage, an already complicated situation takes a further turn for the worse when it's revealed that Uncle Vanya's hostage is none other than his former wife, Anna (Geno Lechner). As Anna's current boyfriend uses his police authority to close in on the pair and Uncle Vanya's enraged boss dispatches his bumbling thugs to scour the city for the killer-in-hiding, Uncle Vanya and Anna attempt to reconcile their past while begrudgingly acknowledging that a future together is impossible. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sergej Trifunovic, Geno Lechner, (more)
Hotel Rwanda tackles one of the most horrifically ugly events in recent history, when the Hutu extremists of Rwanda initiated a terrifying campaign of genocide, massacring hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsis (who had been given power by the departed Belgian colonists), while the rest of the world looked on and did nothing. Don Cheadle stars as Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager at the fancy Les Milles Collines hotel in Kigali. Paul is a Hutu, and a very successful businessman who smoothly greases the wheels, making powerful connections in all strata of Rwandan life. His wife, Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo of Aeon Flux), is a Tutsi. She urges Paul to use his influence to help local Tutsis, who are being harassed and beaten with increasing frequency, but Paul will only use the political capital he's built up to help his own family, if and when they need it. Soon enough, the violence escalates, and the Hutus begin their genocide of the Tutsis. European guests and staff at the hotel are flown out of the country, and Paul is left in charge. He finds that his conscience won't allow him to watch as the innocent are slaughtered, and before long, the hotel has become a well-appointed refugee camp. Paul is seen as a traitor by some, putting his life in danger, and the predicament of his "guests" grows more precarious every day, but despite good intentions on the part of a journalist (Joaquin Phoenix) and a UN peacekeeping colonel (Nick Nolte), the rest of the world is not eager to intervene and stop the massacre. Hotel Rwanda was directed by Irish filmmaker Terry George (Some Mother's Son), who co-wrote the script with Keir Pearson. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, (more)
Silvio Soldini's comedy Agata e la Tempestra (Agatha and the Storm) follows what happens to middle age Agata (Licia Maglietta) when a young man attempts to in her heart. His actions cause a number of disruptions in her own life as well as in the lives of many of her acquaintances. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Licia Maglietta, Emilio Solfrizzi, (more)
Award-winning Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) directs the intimate drama Father and Son (Otets I Syn), a companion piece to his 1996 film Mother and Son. Following the death of his wife, a handsome father (Andrej Shetinin) shares an apartment with his son (Alexei Neimyshev). The son goes to military school to train to be a soldier, while the father remembers his own history as a soldier. The father and son develop a strong emotional and physical attachment to one another. The son's girlfriend starts to grow jealous of the relationship. The son wants to spend more time with the other boys in the military school, but the father doesn't want to let go of him. Composer Andrei Sigle provides the original score, based on themes by Peter Tchaikovsky. Father and Son was shown in competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andrej Shetinin, Alexei Nejmyshev, (more)
- 2003
Directed by veteran helmer Ermanno Olmi, this Chinese folktale revolves around a young man (Davide Dragonetti) who mistakenly enters a brothel while trying to find his way through urban China circa the 1930s. Narrated by Bud Spencer, the young man succumbs to temptation, and the dialogue-free scene is performed through dance. Meanwhile, pirate junks begin firing at one another from a shoreside village. The leader, Admiral Ching (Makoto Kobayashi), is backed by a powerful group of profiteers, thus prompting the emperor to offer him a high ranking position if he stops firing. Unwilling to lose their income, Ching's backers murder the pirate, which sets off a strange sequence of events that will resound throughout the community for years to come. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Spencer, Jun Ichikawa, (more)
Vincent (Jacques Bidou, producer of Raoul Peck's Lumumba and several other films, making his acting debut) lives in a little French town, filled with eccentrics, and he follows the same routine, day in and day out. Up at five a.m. every morning, he takes the car to the bus to work, where he and his co-workers enjoy smoking a cigarette during the ten-second walk from the bus to the chemical plant gate. There the dreariness continues. He gets no satisfaction from his work, and none from his home life, where his wife (Anne Kravz-Tarnavsky) nags him, his older son, Nicolas (Dato Tarielashvili), ignores him and his younger son, Gaston (Adrien Paschod), gets into mischief. All Vincent wants to do is relax and paint, but he rarely gets the time. One day, instead of putting his cigarette out and going to work, he walks away from the plant and enjoys his smoke. He then goes to visit his father (Radslav Kinski), who encourages him to take a trip to Venice and visit an old friend of the family. In Venice, Vincent is robbed. He meets his father's old friend, Enzo di Martino (played by the writer-director of the film, Otar Iosseliani), a vainglorious fallen nobleman who goes to great lengths to impress his guest. Vincent also meets and befriends Carlo (Arrigo Mozzo), who turns out to lead a remarkably similar life. Iosseliani won the Silver Bear at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival for his direction of Monday Morning; the film was also shown at the 2002 New York Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Bidou, Arrigo Mozzo, (more)
- 2001
In Dervis, Italian director Alberto Rondalli returns to the theme of religion which has served him well in several earlier films. It is a story of revenge set in provincial Turkey in the early 1900s. Its main character is Ahmed Nurettin, a sheik who is responsible not only for upholding the civil law in his community, but also the Muslim faith. Because Ahmed is a dutiful man, he tries to do his best in this world by studying the Koran day and night. The problem is that his studies are so time-consuming that he has become out of touch with his fellow man. A wake-up call comes when Ahmed's brother is accused of a crime he did not commit and is arbitrarily sentenced to death. At first, Ahmed assumes that his position of power will get his brother off the hook, but he soon learns that the judges in the case are men just like himself -- men who are indifferent to society, knowing only the codes and punishments set down in their religious books. When the brother is executed, Ahmed sets out to punish the judges in his brother's case by stirring up a bloody revolt. Events spiral out of control until Ahmed comes into conflict with his best friend in the community, a man named Hassan. He believes he must kill Hassan, but the choice is a difficult one, as Ahmed knows deep down that the murder will be unjust. In the end, Ahmed must choose to obey his religious duties or the tugs of his conscience. ~ Connor McMadden, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Antonio Buil Puejo, Cezmi Baskin, (more)
