Lucio Dalla Movies

The feature film Quijote constitutes one-third of a triumvirate of interrelated artistic endeavors, all completed by the celebrated Spanish painter Mimmo Paladino. Inspired by what he considers the "eternal modernity" of the underdog and dreamer at the heart of Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century novel (the character who inspired the term 'quixotic'), Paladino interpreted the roman in several different media. The first involved creating and mounting a massive artistic exhibition to relay the tale of Quixote, that transports the audience into the knight's imaginary realm with over fifteen paintings and bronzes and forty watercolors. The accompanying film tells the same story with a cast of live actors that includes: Peppe Servillo (as Quixote), Lucio Dalla (as Sancho Panza), Enzo Cucchi (as Merlin the Wizard), Ginestra Paladino (as Dulcinea) and Alessandro Bergonzoni (as Wizard Festone). This co-production of Regione Campania and Ananas s.r.l relays Cervantes's now-familiar tale of Alonso Quixano, the delusional, overly-literate squire who sets out to right the world of wrongs in the name of his venerated lass, Aldonsa. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Lawrence Kasdan's black comedy about a wife's ultimate revenge against her womanizing husband is based on a true story about the wife of a pizzeria owner who decided to kill her cheating husband. When her attempt to murder him failed, the husband refused to press charges against her because he felt she had done the right thing. Kevin Kline is the pizzeria owner Joey Boca in I Love You to Death. Joey is a smooth Italian lothario, modeled after Marcello Mastroianni, who cheerfully dons his plumbers overalls to repair his female tenants' plumbing in the rental apartments the family owns. Joey feels he is justified in bedding down countless numbers of women because of all the hours he puts in day after day at the pizzeria. Plus, as he tells one of his women friends, "I'm a man. I got a lotta hormones in my body." His wife Rosalie (Tracey Ullman) sweetly ignores her husband's philandering -- that is until she visits the public library and sees Joey fondling one of tenants in the book stacks. At first Rosalie considers suicide, but finally, egged on by her mother Nadja (Joan Plowright), she determines that Joey must be the one to face the music. But the people Rosalie hires to do Joey in are of the cut-rate variety and are unsuccessful. They then try to knock Joey off by feeding him barbiturate-laced spaghetti, but also to no avail. Rosalie then enlists pizzeria employee Deco Nod (River Phoenix), who has a crush on Rosalie, to do the job. But even then, they have no luck. As a last resort, they try to hire professionals. What they get instead are two drugged-out junkies -- Harlan (William Hurt) and Marlin (Keanu Reeves) -- who arrive at the home and blast at a slumbering figure in the bedroom. Then, while they report on their progress downstairs, Joey ambles into the living room, very much alive. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

In this series of views of what New York must be, rather than what it is, several Italians have landed in the city to encounter such diverse circumstances as a lack of political awareness, an abundance of drugs and sex, and the financial struggles of aspiring actors. Depending on the Italian's own interests and profession -- from music, to acting, to journalism -- the experience of New York is different, yet the city has been somewhat mythologized to fit a pattern that does not always ring true. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this episodic anthology, written and directed by assorted Italian filmmakers, the political and social aspects of Italian life are chronicled. In one satirical episode, The Bomb, a bogus bomb threat at a police headquarters gradually balloons into a real terrorist plot culminating with the bombing of the police commissioner. Other episodes satirize the CIA, Christmas in Naples and pompous public officials. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This political Italian drama is set after the death of that country's communist leader, Palmiero Togliatti. It is a time when the glory days of communism have passed and the party is trying to settle into the serious business of running a country. The film takes an episodic approach to chronicle the widely varying effects the leader's death had upon the people. In one of the vignettes a wife embarks upon a lesbian affair with one of her husband's former lovers. In another story, a Venezuelan radical abandons the wealthy Italian woman he has been sleeping with so he can go back home and help his cause. More stories follow. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi