Author Topic: ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!  (Read 2533660 times)

Offline Fran

  • "ABCs of BBM" moderator
  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,905
"N" is Notti di Cabiria, Le (1957)
« Reply #5850 on: February 24, 2009, 01:56:16 pm »
Also known as:  Nights of Cabiria


From IMDb:  I almost turned this film off. I'm so glad I stayed with it. It's one of the best films I've seen. Cabiria, the street prostitute, is not sympathetic. She's rough, vulgar, not very attractive, a showoff, loud, proud, inelegant. I just didn't feel anything for her character at the beginning. But Fellini must have been reading my mind. He purposefully played it that way to draw the viewer in.

The streets of Rome are unforgiving and harsh for a prostitute. There are those who sleep in caves and in the archways. Cabiria braggingly says, "I've got my own house... here's one girl who's never slept under the arches. Well, maybe once. Twice maybe." By the end of the film I was completely hooked by her charm, desire, and hope, for hope is what keeps Cabiria going. A great film.

Offline oilgun

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 3,564
"O" is Osso Bucco (2007)
« Reply #5851 on: February 24, 2009, 05:22:08 pm »


Synopsis: A lovable, misfit mobster becomes trapped in his favorite Italian restaurant during the worst snowstorm in Chicago’s history.                               Reluctantly, he is forced to choose between the family he knows and the woman he loves in this dark, romantic mobster comedy.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Another one I obsessively loved....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119248/ 

Hamam (1997) 

Also Known As:

Bagno turco, Il (Italy)
Hamam: The Turkish Bath (UK)
Steam: The Turkish Bath (USA)




Writer (Story and Screenplay)
and
Director:
Ferzan Ozpetek

Alessandro Gassman ...  Francesco
Francesca d'Aloja ...  Marta
Mehmet Günsür ...  Mehmet


Find your place in life -- mesmerizing!, 3 July 2002
Author: Tim Evanson ([email protected]) from Washington, D.C.
An official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, "Steam (The Hamam)" is a mesmerizing, astounding film that grips you almost from the beginning. Francesco and Marta are a feuding, materialistic, adulterous married couple [living in Rome]. But when Francesco inherits a Turkish bath from an aunt he barely knew, he heads to Instanbul to sell it. There, he is seduced away from his high-tech, wealth-obsessed life by the slow, human pace of life led by the people of the ghetto. Francesco finds his bitterness salved by the love of the family who manages the hamam, his heart stolen by the family's hunky son Mehmet, and his too-fast life slowed by the need to rebuild and maintain the hamam. And then Marta arrives, wondering what the heck has gotten into her husband... The film even has a surprise ending. The musical soundtrack was a major hit on the dance circuit. And the film itself became notorious when the Turkish government refused to nominate it for a best foreign film Oscar because of its homosexual content. (The controversy led the Academy to change the way foreign films are nominated.) "Steam"  is MUST-see, ranking right up there with "Muriel's Wedding" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral."

I too obsessed about this film (and its jaw-droppingly handsome star, Alessandro Gassman) which is why I played it many rounds ago.  ;)  I think we're still suppose to use un-played titles so in the future you may want to check the New Archive of Movies Played thread.

----------------------------------------





Offline memento

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 5,889
  • There But For Fortune
"P" is Il Posto (1961)
« Reply #5852 on: February 24, 2009, 06:29:57 pm »
AKA The Postman

Plot: Domenico and Antonietta are two suburban Italian youths who meet while seeking "a job for life" from a big city corporation. After a bizarre screening process made up of written exams, physical agility exercises, and interview questions such as "Do you drink to forget your troubles?" (Domenico and Antonietta are no older than 17 or 18), they land jobs in the "Technical Division" and "Typing Services" respectively. From there, Domenico works as an underutilized errand boy until a clerk position is vacated by the death of an older employee. Domenico finally takes his place in a room of 12 other clerks with a manager overseeing them from a desk at the head of the room. The film ends as Domenico ponders his fate, from behind his tiny desk at the back of the small windowless room, listening to the sound of the mimeograph machine as it runs off carbon copies next to the manager's desk.

=comment=

Sometimes when a film has more than one title, especially in different languages, it's easy just to look in the archives under one title and not the others.  That's probably how "Hamam" was missed, but I think we should let it stay. We just have to remember to check all the titles.



Offline Fran

  • "ABCs of BBM" moderator
  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,905
Wildcard "Q" is Miracle at St. Anna (2008)
« Reply #5853 on: February 24, 2009, 06:49:26 pm »

From IMDb:  "Miracle at St. Anna" follows four black soldiers of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division who get trapped near a small Tuscan village on the Gothic Line during the Italian Campaign of World War II after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy.


Offline HerrKaiser

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,708
"R" is Ragazza del bersagliere (1966)
« Reply #5854 on: February 24, 2009, 09:31:11 pm »
Handsome Rossano Brazzi starred in this love story of 'the soldier's girl.'

Offline memento

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 5,889
  • There But For Fortune
"S" is Shoeshine (1946)
« Reply #5855 on: February 25, 2009, 10:19:09 pm »

From IMDB: At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride... The boys meet Attilio, Giuse's much older brother, and his shady friend at a boat on the Tiber. In return for a commission, the boys agree to deliver black market goods to a fortune-teller. Once the woman has paid, Attilio's gang suddenly arrives. Pretending to be cops, they shake the woman down. With a payoff from Attilio, the boys are able to make the final payment and stable their horse in Trastevere over the river... The fortune-teller identifies Pasqua and Giuse. Held at an overcrowded boys' prison, they are separated. Giuse falls under the influence of an older lad in his cell, Arcangeli. During interrogation, Pasqua is tricked into betraying Giuse's brother to the police. With their trial still in the future, the two friends are driven further apart..

Offline oilgun

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 3,564
"T" is Teorema (1968)
« Reply #5856 on: February 26, 2009, 10:43:57 am »


From ITALIAN director, Passolini.
Plot:   A strange visitor in a wealthy family. He seduces the maid, the son, the mother, the daughter and finally the father before leaving a few days after. After he's gone, none of them can continue living as they did. Who was that visitor ? Could he be God ?
« Last Edit: March 07, 2009, 12:17:30 pm by Fran »

Offline Fran

  • "ABCs of BBM" moderator
  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,905
"U" is Uomini contro (1970)
« Reply #5857 on: February 26, 2009, 11:21:58 am »
Also known as:  Many Years Ago



From IMDb:  On the Italian/Austrian front during World War I, a disastrous Italian attack upon the Austrian positions leads to a mutiny among the decimated Italian troops.

Offline memento

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 5,889
  • There But For Fortune
"V" is Viaggio in Italia (1954)
« Reply #5858 on: February 26, 2009, 08:22:55 pm »
aka Voyage to Italy


Plot: Catherine and Alexander, wealthy and sophisticated, drive to Naples to dispose of a deceased uncle's villa. There's a coolness in their relationship and aspects of Naples add to the strain. She remembers a poet who loved her and died in the war; although she didn't love him, the memory underscores romance's absence from her life now. She tours the museums of Naples and Pompeii, immersing herself in the Neapolitan fascination with the dead and noticing how many women are pregnant; he idles on Capri, flirting with women but drawing back from adultery. With her, he's sarcastic; with him, she's critical. They talk of divorce. Will this foreign couple find insight and direction in Italy?

Offline southendmd

  • Town Administration
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,962
  • well, I won't
"W" is When in Rome (1952)
« Reply #5859 on: March 05, 2009, 04:55:33 pm »

Starring the recently deceased Van Johnson.

IMDb user comment:  Paul Douglas, Van Johnson, and Joseph Calleia are all excellent together. The "love story" between priest Johnson and tough-guy Douglas is as affecting a character study as you are ever likely to see. The magnificent photography shows the divine beauty that is Rome inspirationally. Just when you think it can get no further into your soul, it comes up with something else clever and simply profound. Well worth watching. I give it 10/10.