Edy Vessel Movies

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

In this Italian comedy, three unemployed actors are rehearsing for a crime scene in their boarding house unaware that they are being watched by a nosy neighbor who is convinced that they are professional assassins. He offers them money to kill his philandering wife, and the hungry thespians agree to do the deed. Of course, they don't plan on killing anyone. Meanwhile, the wife and her boy friend are cooking up their own plot. Real trouble ensues when all the different conspiracies get mixed up. As result, the husband has a fatal coronary, and to protect themselves, the woman and her lover lure into a sausage factory where they plan to throw the three into a meat grinder. Fortunately, the police arrive at the last minute and arrest the woman and her lover for the murder (even though they didn't really kill him) of her husband. The actors then attempt to resume their careers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Steve Reeves gives the most dramatically demanding performance of his career (and a surprisingly good one) in The Trojan Horse. Essentially a retelling of the final year of the siege of Troy from the point of view of Aeneas (Reeves), the movie is filled with fascinating portrayals. Aeneas, taking the interpretation from the poet Virgil, is the wisest of the Trojans and, after ten years of war, has become the leading advocate for finding an end to the fighting. His wisdom and nobility have earned him a place at the table with King Priam and the other rulers, which puts him at odds with the vain, jealous Paris and his Helen. Opening with the slaying of Hector by Achilles, the film is steeped in complex personal relationships and mythological conceits. John Drew Barrymore is the other "name" actor here, playing Ulysses as a clever, cynical, and bold warrior among the Greeks. Reeves brings real nobility to Aeneas and relies on his acting skills as much as his physique to bring off this movie, often mixing the two in a script filled with ironies, as when Aeneas must kill a Greek warrior for whom he earlier expressed respect. Along with Reeves' two Hercules films from the end of the 1950s, and Vittorio Cottafavi's Hercules and the Captive Women, this is one of the best examples of Italy's sword-and-sandal genre. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Aimed at the youngsters, this typical Italian fantasy-adventure stars Steve Reeves as Karim, the thief of the title. Karim is not only the strongest, fastest, and smartest of thieves, he also has a magic ring and a cape that makes him invisible. Thus armed, he is well-prepared to face a series of Herculean tests in order to win the hand of the Sultan's beautiful daughter Anima (Georgia Moll). These "tests" purify his past wrongdoings and ultimately lead to a blue rose, the key to winning Anima in marriage. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide