Stefano Madia Movies
- 1989
- PG13
This political drama chronicles the corruption of a mayoral candidate for New York City. His ordeal begins when he launches a campaign for the legalization of heretofore illegal narcotics. Alarmed by the support it gets, Mafiosos frame the candidate for a crime he did not commit and force him to choose between joining their ranks or going to jail. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Belushi, Mimi Rogers, (more)
- 1986
- R
Horror legend Lucio Fulci directed this outrageous erotic thriller about sexual revenge. Jessica (Bianca Marsillach) loses her kinky boyfriend Johnny when he dies on the operating table after a motorcycle accident. She holds Dr. Wendell Simpson (Brett Halsey) responsible and takes him captive at a beach-front house. Simpson is a bit strange himself, painting prostitutes' pantyhose red before he can get excited, but Jessica outdoes him in every way. During the days of his captivity, Simpson must eat dog food, submit to hot wax torture, and -- worst of all -- listen to Jessica reciting ridiculous poetry in the nude. The audience also gets to see Jessica's flashbacks of life with Johnny, including a bisexual threesome in a movie theater, a rape by pistol, and a staircase sodomy scene intercut with images of a dog jumping against a house's back door. Compounded by dialogue like "My name is Jessica...but you can call me fear!", Il Miele del Diavolo stands as one of Fulci's most laughable failures, although the erotic content is steamy enough for undemanding viewers. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
- 1982
The time is the 1930s and Caterina (Anna Melato) is a rather plain woman living in a small village with very little prospects for ever finding a husband -- she is already 30 and still single. Her parents worry about her future, and with the best of intentions the father decides to "buy" her a husband, a rather loutish, egocentric male with his eyes focused on the nubile maid of the household rather than the shy Caterina. Although Caterina begins to like her prospective mate, her father does not hold many illusions about the man's roving eye -- and when he finds the man in quite a compromising position with the maid, Caterina's chances for early matrimony are more or less booted out the door. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Stefano Madia
- 1980
Conflicts between home and a better life far away, and issues of loyalty and ethics are all addressed in this interesting drama from Pasquale Squitieri. Mario (Saverio Marconi) has left Sicily to go work in the northern city of Turin, where he lives with his sister and niece. His good friend Umberto (Stefano Madia) is now the owner of a successful nightclub and is one of the reasons why Mario is willing to stay with his factory job here. But during one weekend in the city, Mario's misplaced faith in his friend and relatives is trampled, as a whole new, realistic view of their lives opens up. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Saverio Marconi, Stefano Madia, (more)
- 1979
Dear Father and Dear Papa are the English-language titles for the Italian domestic drama Caro Papa. Vittorio Gassman plays a flint-hearted industrialist who thinks as little of destroying his business partner as he does of cheating on his wife. Gassman's son is an apparently weak-willed lad, who may or may not have become involved in the "Red Brigade". When Gassman learns that his son has been appointed to execute someone known only as "P", he assumes the victim is his ex-partner. Only as he is being gunned down does the industrialist realize that "P" stands for Papa. But that's not the end of Dear Father; there's still a viciously ironic coda before the final fade-out. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Vittorio Gassman, Aurore Clément, (more)
- 1979
- R
Ernesto (Martin Hahn) is a young Italian Jew of the early 1900s who works in his uncle's factory in Trieste. Not entirely secure with his sexual orientation, Ernesto enters into an affair with one of his uncle's employees--then experiments with heterosexuality, courtesy of an obliging prostitute. When the boy finds himself participating in an arranged marriage with the female twin of one of his male lovers, he finally makes the choice that will determine the direction of his subsequent sex life. The carnal confusion inherent in Ernesto is nothing new to director Salvatore Samperi, who has trod this path before in previous films. This particular effort was based on a novel by Umberto Saba. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Martin Halm, Michele Placido, (more)
- 1979
In this political drama, the critically acclaimed Russian director Grigori Chukhrai -- who also wrote the script -- focuses on the nature of political persecution through his hero Antonio (Giancarlo Giannini), a taxi driver in the capital of a dictatorship. Running alongside the political theme is a love story between Antonio and María, a waitress in a local café. Antonio was booted out of the military for refusing to fire on a boat carrying women and children during the Angola civil war. His main objective now is to stay aloof and uninvolved -- until he meets María. She has him take a man to the airport one day, and Antonio soon realizes that this fellow is a revolutionary working to oust the dictator. The ride he gave the man is the excuse the Secret Police need to pick up Antonio, and they put him in prison where they abuse him, trying to find out about his passenger. But he truly does not know anything, and he would never implicate María. The other prisoners at first turn against him but change their attitude when they discover he plans an escape, and soon everyone is about to make a break for freedom. Chukhrai's first film, The Forty-First won a special prize at Cannes in 1957, Ballad of a Soldier was also a 1960 winner at Cannes, and Clear Skies a winner in the 1961 Venice competition. Although La Vita è Bella indirectly involves the war themes of these preceding movies, it is not really in their same category. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ornella Muti, Giancarlo Giannini, (more)
