I Love Italian Everything

And so it begins, year four of obsessing about movies that most of my friends and neighbors don’t have any idea of or care about. Year four of going off on a tangent at dinner parties about Luigi Lo Casio and about how underappreciated Paolo Sorrentino is and watching people’s eyes glaze over and politely excuse themself. Year four of basing my entire calendar year around the Venice Film Festival in August and June’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema in New York.

This year I’ll be doing a few new things: I’ve booked a trip to Taormina for the film festival there, I’m talking to a movie theater in Cleveland, Ohio about co-sponsoring an Italian film screening, and  I’m scheduled to moderate a film discussion at the Washington DC center for Italian language and culture. I think I’m going to give them the chance to back out of it, though, because I don’t think they understand how bad my Italian is.

I’d like to congratulate Kristen and Flavia again for winning our contest. They will be receiving $100 gift certificates and I hope they use them to buy Italian films!

I made a mistake when I was pulling the names that I would like to correct. Kristen’s blog is so much fun but it’s called Diario di una Studentessa Pigra, all about her studying the Italian language and definitely worth checking out.

Diario di una Studentessa Pigra

I asked you all to send me the names of your favorite Italian movies and the answers were varied. I was happy that most were from the current century, because those are the ones that I am interested in. Fellini was great and all, but I love Sorrentino, Garrone, and Tornatore.

I got a message last night that asked me, “Hey, what’s your favorite Italian movie?” I think a lot of you know the answer to that question. Though I could rattle off a list of 20 of my favorites at any given moment, I have watched Pane e Tulipani a hundred times, no exaggeration. I know most of the lines and I laugh at the jokes every time just like it was the first time I’d ever seen it. The story of Rosalba finding the life that she was meant to live has been an inspiration to me.

Telling you my second favorite, that’s impossible because there are so many good ones. Check them out! The next time someone tells you that Italy doesn’t make good movies anymore don’t believe them. They don’t know what they are talking about.