Franco di Giacomo Movies

A wise guy turns his own trial upside down by serving as his own lawyer in this comedy drama based on a true story. In 1987, an extensive investigation into the activities of the Lucchese crime family led to charges being filed against most of the key members of the gang, leading to the prosecution of 20 different men, each represented by their own council. That is, except for Giacomo DiNorscio, aka Jackie Dee (Vin Diesel), a longtime Lucchese family "mechanic" implicated in everything from kidnapping to drug dealing. While Jackie Dee is obviously a common criminal and guilty of all he's charged with, he also has a fierce sense of loyalty to his colleagues, despite the fact his cousin Tony Companga (Raul Esparza) previously tried to kill him out of fear he might talk. Sean Kierney (Linus Roache), the prosecutor tackling the Lucchese Family case, tries repeatedly to persuade Jackie Dee to testify against his partners in exchange for leniency, but he stubbornly refuses. Tired of the way things are being handled, Jackie Dee informs family attorney Ben Klandis (Peter Dinklage) that he intends to represent himself in court; this seemingly suicidal move turns into an unexpected success as Jackie Dee's sense of humor and streetwise charm has a remarkable impact on the judge and jury. Find Me Guilty also stars Ron Silver, Alex Rocco, and Annabella Sciorra. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

"A family walks into a talent agent's office..." So begins "The Aristocrats," a joke kept mostly secret by stand-up comedians for decades. An intentionally "bad" joke, the laughs in The Aristocrats aren't in the punch-line (one of the only elements that's the same every time), but in the set-up, made unique by each comedian who tells it in an attempt to fashion the world's dirtiest joke. The cat was finally let out of the bag by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza, the seasoned funnymen who gathered together a hundred people to tell a hundred different renditions of the bit. Among those presenting their personal take on The Aristocrats in this film of the same name are Jason Alexander, Robin Williams, Gilbert Gottfried, Jon Stewart, Emo Philips, and Chris Rock. The Aristocrats premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

The insidious emergence of state-sanctioned anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy sets the stage for this historical drama. In 1938, Umberto (Diego Abatantuono) is a tailor who is beginning to lose business to Leone (Sergio Castellito), a haberdasher whose shop is next door to Umberto's. Leone offers stock much like Umberto's and at lower prices, which has brought plenty of customers into his store, causing Umberto no small amount of annoyance. Umberto's ire is hardly soothed by the fact that his teenage son Paolo (Elio Germano) is dating Leone's daughter, Susanna (Gioia Spaziani), or that the two men's younger sons, Pietruccio (Walter Dragonetti) and Lele (Simone Ascani), are best friends. The rivalry between the two shopkeepers eventually leads to a heated public argument, in which Umberto refers to Leone's Jewish faith in a derogatory manner. A policeman overhears this, and Leone, who had previously been quiet about his Jewish heritage, soon finds himself having to deal with the sanctions being levied against Jewish citizens. As Umberto sees his neighbor slowly stripped of his property, his rights, and his dignity, his anger turns to sympathy and to a wish that he could do something to help a man not so different from himself. Concorrenza Sleale was directed by Ettore Scola, who previously examined Italy during Mussolini's rule in Una Giornata Speciale. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Adapted from Lorenza Mazzetti's acclaimed autobiographical novel inspired by her experiences in WWII Tuscany, Il Cielo Cade is a coming-of-age tale that pits the emotional growth of its young protagonists against the encroaching horrors of war. In 1944, newly-orphaned pre-teen sisters Penny (Veronica Niccolai) and Baby (Lara Campoli) come to live in the Tuscan villa of their Uncle Wilhelm (Jeroen Krabbe) and his wife, Katchen (Isabella Rossellini). Wilhelm, a German-Jewish intellectual, and Katchen subtly discourage the pro-Mussolini and fascist sympathies the girls inherited from their late father, and Penny and Baby gradually make friends in their new surroundings and become somewhat smitten with their uncle and his group of cultured friends. As war rages around them, Wilhelm receives warnings from the local priest to flee with his family to Switzerland. He refuses, putting his loved ones at risk. Everything comes to a climax as the family members, who are awaiting the arrival of Italy's British allies, are caught off-guard by the return of the Nazis to their small town. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

Love blooms amidst the backdrop of czarist Russia in Nikita Mikhalkov's The Barber of Siberia. The story opens in 1905 Springfield, MA, when a woman writes a letter to a young man in a military summer-training camp. He is currently being punished by one of his superiors, who forces him to wear a gas mask until he acknowledges that Mozart was a worthless composer. The woman has an important story to tell her addressee, and our story flashes back 20 years to Russia, where American Jane Callahan (Julia Ormond) is traveling to Moscow. A man who may or may not be Jane's father, Douglas McCracken (Richard Harris), is trying to perfect a machine, christened "The Barber of Siberia," that will harvest trees from the vast Siberian forests. Douglas hopes Jane can charm Gen. Radlov (Alexei Petrenko), the head of a Russian military academy, into arranging the financing that will enable him to complete his work on the harvester. En route, Jane meets a friendly Russian soldier, Andrei Tolstoy (Oleg Menshikov), and the two soon fall in love. Jane then meets and flirts with Radlov, who grows reciprocally fond of her -- enough so that he asks her to marry him. When it becomes evident she'd rather be with Tolstoy, he finds himself shipped off to Siberia after allegedly attacking a grand duke. Merging romance, costume drama, and slapstick comedy, The Barber of Siberia was screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Much like Alcatraz, Santo Stefano is a fortress-like Mediterranean penitentiary closed by the Italian government in the mid-'60s. The prison, named for the small island where it's located in the Tyrrhenian Sea, provides the setting for the directorial debut of screenwriter Angelo Pasquini. Antonio (Andrea De Rosa), the pre-teen son of prison director Bruno D'Assisi (Claudio Bigagli), attends the prison school although his mother (Laura Morante) is back on the mainland. Antonio becomes friends with Nicola (Claudio Amendola), an inmate who has the trust of director D'Assisi. Campaigning in the Church and press for prison reform, D'Assisi attempts to upgrade the atmosphere in the prison by creating a sense of community and trust. However, escalating right-wing reactions build into a backlash against his methods. After a mainland visit, D'Assisi finds the evil Ardito (Antonio Petrocelli) and a brutal bunch of guards have replaced his more trusted guards. The character of D'Assisi is loosely based on the humane activities of the chief who headed the prison between 1952 and 1960. Shown at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

The three performers (one Italian, one Frenchman and one German) in a ramshackle and miniscule traveling circus are traveling through rural Italy looking for an audience when they encounter Father Gregorio who asks them to portray the three wise men in his village Christmas pageant. This comedy chronicles the many misadventures that ensue when they take the job. First they must deal with irate union actors, then with the women's chorus with whom they dallied, but their biggest problem comes when they must find an infant to play the baby Jesus. For some reason, everyone in town is childless and so the three hit the road in search of their Christ child. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this remake of the 1983 Ardiente Paciencia by Antonio Skarmeta, the time and place have been changed to Italy in the 1950s, but the relationship between the Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda and Mario (Massimo Troisi), the postman who delivers his copious mail, is still the focus of attention. In this version of the story, scripted by a collective of Anna Pavignano, the director Michael Radford, Troisi himself, and a few others (based on Skarmeta's original story), Neruda is an aloof and slightly elitist figure who is seeking solitude on an island off the coast of Italy, taking a respite from political problems at home. Mario is a poet at heart and employs every measure he is capable of inventing to win his way into the affections and attention of the great author. As his efforts start to bear fruit and Neruda unbends and begins to share conversation and philosophy with Mario, the postman idolizes the poet all the more. Eventually, Neruda shares his leftist political philosophy as well -- and helps him win over the captivating Beatrice, the woman of Mario's dreams. When Neruda leaves, Mario enters into high gear as he prepares material for the next time he sees Neruda -- his ardor and patience, alluded to in the original title -- are essentially indestructible. (Massimo Troisi) was fated never to know that Il Postino would receive worldwide acclaim and be nominated for an Oscar for "Best Picture" in 1995 (the first foreign film nominated in that category since Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers 22 years earlier). Suffering from a heart ailment and unable to work more than an hour or two on the filming of Il Postino each day, he died in his sleep at the age of 41, the day after shooting ended on the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Ann-Margret stars in the made-for-cable movie Nobody's Children, filmed on-location in Bucharest, Romania, and based on a true story. Ann-Margret and Jay O. Sanders star as the real-life Carol and Joe Stevens, a married couple from Detroit who are unable to conceive a child of their own. They travel to Bucharest in 1990, just following the end of Ceausescu's regime, where a secret police controls the populace and state institutions are filled with abandoned children. The Stevenses bear witness to the deplorable conditions under which the unwanted babies must live as well as the extreme poverty and illness of the other Romanian children. French doctor Stephanie Vaugier (Dominique Sanda) helps Carol wade through the bureaucracy so she is able to adopt two children and return to the States. Originally aired on the USA television network in March of 1994. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In the hippie era, the motto used to be "never trust anyone over 30." In this geriatric romance, the motto might be amended to read "never trust anyone under 60." Still sprightly and interested in life though they are in their 70s, the two lovers in this film are confined in an unsympathetic "rest home" by their relatives and are only able to meet rarely in a camper loaned to them by some black immigrant workers. When the staff at the home get wind of their affair, they take vigorous action to try and "calm them down" simply to reassert their deadening control over them. Eventually the two of them end their romance, but the woman escapes the rest home and finds freedom in the company of the immigrants. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Lupo (Paolo Hendrel) and Edo (Giovanni Guidelli) take to the swamps after robbing a wealthy Italian in this neo-western comedy. They are pursued by the victim's son and three Austrian mercenaries. The duo goes through several memorable adventures as they encounter many offbeat characters in their travels as fugitives. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide