Andrea Occhipinti Movies

This was not a promising debut for young Italian actor Andrea Occhipinti, caught in a nonsensical drama about a lothario named Danilo. After Danilo (Occhipinti) comes back to his home town he is attracted to a beautiful, wealthy young woman who is already engaged to an aging Count. Danilo is not exactly daunted by her engagement and he does not bother to change his offensive lifestyle. He has not taken a bath in two years and if that does not put people off, then his tendency to insult everyone will. He now has to figure out some way to get to the woman he desires, no matter what. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Jack Hedley of The Anniversary stars as a hardbitten police lieutenant tracking a sadistic sex-killer in this gruesome thriller from splatter-maven Lucio Fulci. The misogynistic script (by Fulci and prolific collaborators Gianfranco Clerici and Vincenzo Mannino) posits a femme-hating psycho (who talks like Donald Duck) slashing beautiful women with a switchblade and a straight-razor because his daughter is in the hospital and will never grow up to be beautiful. Fulci was apparently trying to work in a statement about American competitiveness by making his heroine (Antonella Interlenghi) an aspiring Olympic athlete, and having a killer who is concerned that his daughter will never be "the best," but the point gets lost amidst the buckets of blood and gratuitously kinky sex scenes. Pandering to the lowest common denominator as never before in his career, Fulci showed with this blatant play for the sicko slasher crowd that the days of well-plotted, stylish Italian horror were gone, replaced with the most vicious sort of sexual violence and perversion. Despite all of that, there is one fairly masterful sequence in which the suspect's S&M sex partner learns his identity from a radio broadcast and must untie herself and escape while he sleeps. This scene is tense and nerve-wracking, a high-point of genuine fear amidst a nauseating collage of metal blades slicing female flesh. A shameful piece of work that makes Mario Landi's Giallo a Venezia look positively liberated, it co-stars Renato Rossini, Andrea Occhipinti, and Paolo Malco, with cult figures Alessandra Delli Colli, Daniela Doria, and Barbara Cupisti on the chopping block. Cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, editor Vincenzo Tomassi, and composer Francesco De Masi have all done better work. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Acclaimed horror director Lucio Fulci infuses the sword-and-sorcery genre with gory decapitations, pus-squirting lesions and flesh-eating zombies in this uneven fantasy. The hero of the piece is young Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti), who, along with his bolo-swinging friend Maxz (Jorge Rivero), battles monsters, mutant tribes, and an evil queen (Sabrina Siani) on his journey to manhood. As the evil Ocron, the topless Siani wears a gold mask and bikini bottoms while writhing around on a fur rug covered with live snakes. Siani rules over a risible tribe of people in dog masks who blow narcotics up each others' noses through a straw, and conjures up wolf-warriors from her dreams to shoot poisonous straws at her enemies. The American version is missing much of the gore, but is still far too explicit for the young audiences at whom it is apparently aimed. Terrible special effects, hazy cinematography and inappropriately modernistic music by Claudio Simonetti do not make the film very enjoyable for adults either. Still, it is well-paced and Occhipinti makes a sympathetic lead, making the film worthwhile, if only for genre completists and Fulci devotees. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

In a semi-erotic film almost universally lamented, Bo Derek, last wife of the late John Derek (who wrote, directed, and photographed Bolero), plays Ayre, a virginal young woman who, on graduating from an exclusive British boarding school, is determined to find the right man for her first sexual encounter wherever he might be in the world. Rich enough not to venture forth alone, she brings along her friend Catalina (Ana Obregon) and the family chauffeur (George Kennedy). Ayre first travels to an Arab country where she meets an ideal lover, a sheik (Greg Bensen) who offers to deflower her but falls asleep almost immediately (he was, after all, reciting lines from this script). Giving up on the sheik, Ayre goes on to Spain, where she meets the toreador Angel (Andrea Occhipinti) who is even better than the sheik because he manages to stay awake. Unfortunately, after she has succeeded in her quest, the perils of Angel's profession are brought home when he is gored in a sensitive location -- the arena, of course. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A family history is recalled by the venerable patriarch Carlo (Vittorio Gassman) as he prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday. Young Carlo (Andrea Massimo) marries Beatrice (Stefania Sandrelli) in 1926 but later has an illicit affair with her bohemian artist sister Adriana (Fanny Ardant). Fascism, World War II, and the raising of children and grandchildren mark the passing of a lifetime. Old Carlo lives with his grandson where his recollections are interrupted by the gentle nagging of his beloved Beatrice. This feature received an Oscar nomination in 1987 for "Best Foreign Film." ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Jack Higgins, this WW-II thriller chronicles the daring rescue of a captured American officer who has vital information concerning the upcoming Normandy invasion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this evidently experimental, episodic film, moments in the lives of a disparate group of people who love or make love to one another are screened. Some of these scenes are filled with whimsey, others are tragic. In one of them, a girl develops an obsession with the transplant recipient of her dead lover's heart. In another, a woman struggles to break off an unhappy romance. In yet another, a mischievous wealthy woman helps a shoplifter escape from a store she has stolen from. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A woman goes to investigate the apparent suicide of her mother and ends up having to face the grim reality of her past in this Italian psychological thriller. It all begins when Amalia, the sixty-something mother of Delia, is found dead on the beach. She had been on her way to Bologna to celebrate her daughter's birthday. Delia, wanting to know why her mother killed herself, journeys back to Naples to discover the truth. There she encounters her mother's supposed lover, Caserta, and his son, Antonio. She also sees her estranged father, who alienated himself from his family with his violent temper. As she continues to explore, she must face the fact that her relationship with her mother was as based on jealousy and disgust as it was with love. She then must face up to a terrible lie she told as a child, one that questioned her mother's fidelity and ruined the lives of everyone around her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Though set amidst the punk scene of Rome this is essentially an Italian western. The main players are the explosive Zago, who has just been released from prison, his brother Francesco, an impoverished sheep herder living on the outskirts of Rome and Zago's lover Chiara. Zago wants to start afresh, but cannot do so without cash. Rather than getting a regular job he decides to rob a local loan shark who has a lonely office in a junk yard. His brother and girl attempt to dissuade him but to no avail. They accompany him and are appalled when he icily shoots the shark. A young witness manages to call the cops before Zago finds her. A tense stand-off results with gambling-addicted police inspector Tiresia attempting to manipulate the dangerous situation from the outside. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a popular novel by Spanish author Antonio Gala, this romantic melodrama centers on the struggles on a Seville rancher's dissatisfied wife. Poor Palmira; her husband Willy has not slept with her in ages, her teenaged son is sexually confused, her sister a lesbian, and her daughter is seeing a man on the sly. Matters worsen when Palmira finds out that her husband is having an affair, that her daughter is pregnant with a hemophiliac child and her son has died in a motorcycle accident. If that weren't enough, she learns of his homosexuality shortly after the funeral from his bisexual best friend, the one with whom Palmira had a brief affair. Overwhelmed, Palmira leaves the family to search for herself and for her long-lost first love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mario Martone (L'amore Molesto) wrote and directed this drama about the tragedy of war, beginning with acting exercises in a garage rehearsal area and then intercutting between the lives of Italian stage actors and scenes of their rehearsals on Seven Against Thebes. Director Leo (Andrea Renzi), in 1994, arranges to have his Italian company, as an act of solidarity, do a show in Sarajevo where theaters have remained open. With the support from actor Vittorio (Marco Baliani), Leo seeks a key to staging the Aeschylus play about a civil war and a city under siege. Theater in Sarajevo is shown in contrast to the mainstream theater in Naples with a lavish production of The Taming of the Shrew staged by pompous Franco Turco (Toni Servillo). Actress Luisella (Iaia Forte) leaves Leo's Greek drama for Turco's production. Even though the actors are going without pay to Seven Against Thebes, young talent Diego (Roberto De Francesco) and diva Sara Cataldi (Anna Bonaiuto) both turn away from Turco to work with Leo, while set designer (Sergio Tramonti) contributes to both. Outside the rehearsal space, Neapolitan life goes on with neighborhood disputes, drug deals, fights, a police round-up, and murder -- events drawing parallels with Sarajevo. Some street scenes are unstaged, adding a documentary authenticity. Martone spent several years on this project by filming the rehearsals of a Seven Against Thebes stage production he directed in 1995-96 (featuring the same cast). Martone wrote his screenplay around that material, and then he filmed in the infamous Spanish Quarter of Naples, shooting in 16mm with a blow-up to 35mm. Shown in the Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Written and directed by Paolo Genovese, Incantesimo Napoletano ("A Neopolitan Spell") is a fanciful tale of the horror felt by a fifth-generation Neopolitan couple whose first daughter's first words are in Milanese. By the time Assunta (Chiara Papa) is 10-years-old, she has rejected her mother's cooking in favor of traditional Milanese food, and hasn't adopted any Neopolitan slang. Desperate, Assunta's father (Gianni Aiello) sends her off to a Neopolitan slum, where the dialect is so thick that the residents have a reputation for not being able to understand one another. Things don't go as planned, however, and a 20-year-old Assunta (Serena Improta) not only comes back speaking Milanese exclusively, but is pregnant from one of many sexual encounters. The clashing father and daughter eventually come to terms with one another, as told in flashback through an 80-year-old Assunta's (Clelia Bernacchi) perspective. Incantesimo Napoletano also features Marina Confalone and Tonino Taiuti. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide