Leo Benvenuti Movies

Immaturity and poor sportsmanship once again find their firmly established place in children's athletics (at least among the adults) in this sports comedy. Phil Weston (Will Ferrell) is a tightly wound suburban father who had a competitive streak worn into him by his father, Buck (Robert Duvall), who never seemed to feel that his son measured up. When Phil's son joins a Little League soccer team, Phil signs on as coach, only to learn that Buck -- who also has a ten-year-old son these days -- will be coaching a team in the same league. Determined to show his father he can do the job, Phil impresses upon his young charges that winning is the only important thing, and soon gains a few enemies as he humiliates not only the kids on his own team, but their opponents as well. Directed by Jesse Dylan, Kicking & Screaming also features Kate Walsh and legendary football coach Mike Ditka. The screenplay was authored by Steve Rudnick and Leo Benvenuti (The Santa Clause) prior to the latter's death in 2000. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Piero C. (Piero Chiambretti) has an unusual knack for meeting beautiful women -- which, in this comedy, turns out to be more of a curse than a blessing. As we first meet Piero, he's just been given his walking papers by his beautiful girlfriend (Vanessa Asbert), and a close friend (Gretha Cavazzoni), who also happens to be a gorgeous woman, stops by to cheer him up, though it's obvious she has no romantic intentions in mind. As Piero tells his long, sad story, it seems that as far back as he can remember, he's been a magnet for lovely women -- but they have the bad habit of either leaving him or deciding they'd rather be "friends," even after he becomes the host of a popular dating show on television. Ogni Lasciato e Perso marked the big screen debut for Piero Chiambretti, a popular comic on Italian television; he also directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Italian comedy star Sergio Rubini is top-billed in this story about a country bumpkin making his way in the big city, Central European style. Nelu is a intellectually challenged man from a small village in Romania. He heads to the big city of Bucharest to seek his fortune when his grandfather dies, leaving his family in need of financial assistance. In time, Nelu finds a job as an assistant to an undertaker, but his slow climb up the economic ladder becomes more complicated when his father dies while visiting him in the city. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Saying that she needs to "discover herself," Irene has just left her boyfriend, Andrea. Because she was the wealthy one with an apartment, he is now in need of a place to stay. In this comedy, when he goes to see his buddies for sympathy, he finds that they are in even worse straits. Sandro's wife has finally kicked him out after his umpteenth affair with a married woman, and Alberto has been trying (and failing) to conceive a baby with his wife. When Christian, a young soccer star, offers to put up the beleaguered Sandro and Andrea in his expensive bachelor digs, it looks like a heaven-sent opportunity for non-stop good times. However, Christian has had a surfeit of casual sex, and he longs to find a nice young girl to settle down with. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This Italian political satire from filmmaker Lina Wertmuller will be most enjoyable for those well-grounded in Italian politics. Covering the late March through April general elections of 1994 in which right-wing conservatives routed the incumbent leftists. This is particularly upsetting for Tunin, a mechanic with a firm belief in communism. Fearing that his party is about to lose, he journeys to a northern village to stir up trouble. He isn't there long before he is arguing with a beautiful hairdresser. Their debate is fiery as is his growing and impossible-to-disguise passion for her. She too is intrigued with him, but their disparate ideologies threaten to keep them apart. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Italian filmmaker Carlo Verdone both directed and starred in this lightweight comedy comprised of three segments, each dealing with the experiences of three grooms embarking upon disastrous honeymoons. In the first a very proper, fastidious and socially conscious doctor marries a nervous wreck of a girl who only married him because she was expected to; soon after their ceremony, he takes her to the tomb of his first wife where he proceeds to compare them. In the second, a vulgar boor and his tawdry wife embark upon their wedding night with the intent of breaking records for marathon and inventive lovemaking. In the third, an innocent, meek fellow does his best to please his bride who is disappointed by her new husband. Things go awry from the start when the cleric stretches out their ceremony to a nearly unbearable length. Later during their first night together, his gravely ill father's nurse quits and her sister tries to kill herself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Television sitcom star Tim Allen made his big screen debut with this light, family-friendly holiday comedy. Allen stars as Scott Calvin, the divorced dad of Charlie (Eric Lloyd). Scott is distressed to learn that his ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson) and Charlie's psychiatrist stepfather Neal (Judge Reinhold) have informed his son that there is no Santa Claus. While a sullen Charlie visits his dad on Christmas Eve, a noise on the roof brings them outside, where Scott startles the intruder, who tumbles from the roof. It turns out that there is a Santa after all, and Scott has just accidentally killed him. Because of a legal technicality known as "the Santa clause," Scott inherits the jolly old elf's job. As the next year passes, Scott rapidly gains weight, grows a white beard and meets the elf Bernard (David Krumholtz) -- who is the one who really runs the North Pole -- while Charlie regains his Christmas spirit. However, Neal becomes concerned about Scott's sudden change in appearance and insistence that he's Santa, and he forces him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Director John Pasquin previously directed Allen in the TV series Home Improvement and would team with him again for Jungle 2 Jungle (1997). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Lina Wertmuller's Ciao Professore was released in Italy as Il Speriamo che me la Cavo. Paolo Villago plays an urbane, supercillious schoolteacher who hopes to be assigned to an upper-crust district. Instead, a bureaucratic snafu ships Villago to the impoverished town of Corzano. Of the fifteen third-graders in his class, only three show up on the first day of school. Fortified with condescention and disgust, Villago personally sets out to collect his deliquent students. He discovers that most of them are absent because they're forced on a daily basis to hustle for their very survival; in some instances, the kids are their familys' sole support. Villago not only develops a stronger understanding and bond with the children, but he also ends up adopting their street smarts in a moment of crisis. Based on Me, Let's Hope I Make It, a collection of essays written by Neapolitan street kids and edited by Marcello D'Orta, the location-filmed Ciao Professore is one of Lina Wertmuller's most benign and life-affirming efforts. Enhancing its appeal is the use of non-professionals for most of the secondary roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ricky (Renato Pozzetto) has been a prosperous businessman, but lately things haven't been going so well, and he isn't sure why. Whatever the reason, he attempts suicide and is saved by Barabbas (Christian De Sica), a very peculiar man with the hereditary vocation of being a hobo (he's the seventh generation). Not only is Barabbas a hobo, but he's got a real talent for living elegantly and well. As Barabbas restores his new friend's spirits, he also investigates the causes for his business reversals and discovers that the culprit is his adulterous wife (Francesca Reggiani), who has been sharing her bed and important business secrets with a business rival. Together, they concoct a scheme to put things right. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, Saverio (Carlo Verdone) and his brother-in-law Filippo (Sergio Castellitto) both work at a travel agency which is wholly owned by their wives. In effect, they are their wive's employees. In the course of doing his job, Saverio discovers that his brother-in-law is setting up a woman in an apartment using company money. If this is what he thinks it is, Filippo is going to be in trouble. He goes over to meet Alice (Ornella Muti), the lady in question, and instead of sustaining a sense of outrage, he is bowled over by her charm, her beauty, and the poignancy of her story. Before long, both brothers are condoning what they imagine to be an affair the other one is having with the cagey Alice -- when in fact, she is fancy-free. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Guerilla wars against the major powers have been a factor in Central American politics for a long time. This biographical drama is based on the life of Nicaragua's prototypical 20th century guerilla, Augusto C. Sandino (born as Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino). His name and life were the inspiration for the anti-U.S. forces in that country fifty years after his death: they called themselves the Sandanistas. It is helpful to remember, and this movie demonstrates, that the U.S. military has been actively involved with the domestic politics of Nicaragua many times in this century, most notably during the 1912 invasion which resulted in over twenty continuous years of U.S. military intervention. In the story, Sandino loves two women: his wife, who remains at home, and his warlike mistress, a guerilla who accompanies him into the jungle. He has a tendency (common at the time) of wanting to trust politicians. As a result, he was betrayed by Anastasio Somoza in 1933, and vanished from sight. Somoza soon became the sole ruler of Nicaragua (from 1936 to 1956). The free-thinking rebel, who renamed himself Augusto César Sandino in the late 1920s, identified strongly with the indios or indigenous people of the region, and proposed a political agenda under which the countries of the Central America would unite against European exploitation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This wickedly funny Italian comedy centers upon a lascivious, fun-loving old uncle who hands out blood-test certificates to potential lovers to prove that he is "clean" and wreaks all sorts of havoc when he must temporarily stay with his wealthy but emotionally constipated nephew. At first the nephew is appalled by his uncle's lust for wild-living, but in time he becomes utterly fascinated by the old man. Soon the previously staid young man finds himself drawn into his uncle's crazy life-style and begins learning the value of living life to the fullest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

For well over twenty years at the time of this film's release in 1988, the adventures of the hapless innocent Ugo Fantozzi (Paolo Villagio) have amused Italian audiences. In this latest installment of the Fantozzi series, he's about to retire from his job working in the hellish basement of a mortuary company. At a retirement ceremony he receives the obligatory gold watch, which, with his usual luck, has his name misspelled in the engraving. Energetic and capable of getting into more trouble in a few minutes than most of us manage in a whole lifetime, retirement is a daunting prospect for him. It proves to be an even more odious challenge to his wife Pina (Milena Vukotic), who soon takes a second job in order to pay her boss to hire Fantozzi for a make-believe job just to get him out of the house. When this fails, even more desperate measures are called for. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide