You’re a guy who thinks that Italian cinema is too “artsy fartsy”? If you are tired of your wife or girlfriend picking pretentious foreign films, here are a 10 that are the polar opposite of “girlie”. Take off the black beret, the monocle, and the ascot, put on your sweats, and get ready for movies from Italy for REAL MEN.
Here they are, the 10 best Italian anti-chick flicks.
Gomorrah – In a way, this movie has something for everyone. It is a brutal piece of art, smart enough for those who like the art house films and gritty enough for those who love movies with violence. Directed by Matteo Garrone, it’s an extremely complicated crime story about the day-to-day operations of the lesser known and yet more prolific crime organization in Italy,the Camorra and the hard life of the normal people living in its grip.
20 Sigarette – Here’s something different; director Aureliano Amadei’s autobiographical experience in Iraq is an Italian action movie, with blood, bombs, and explosions. You don’t see that everyday. 20 Sigarette is Amadei’s story and his movie is about his tragically short stint as an assistant director on a film shot in Iraq in 2003, so short that he hadn’t even finished his 20th cigarette when a suicide bomber smashed the gates of the military compound he was staying at and killed nearly everyone but him.
Buongiorno, Notte – Director Marco Bellocchio tells the story about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro, Italian president of the political party, Democrazia Cristiana. A terrorist group – BR, Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) was wreaking havoc, responsible for 14,000 acts of violence, the kidnapping of public figures, and having murdered 75, Aldo Moro was the most famous. Bellocchio tells the story shown through the eyes of one of the terrorists, a 23-year-old girl named Chiara (Maya Sansa), who in effect, epitomizes the young, idealistic anarchists who believed, as Chiara’s leader told her: Per la vittoria del proletariato è lecito uccidere anche la propria madre. – For the victory of the proletariat it is lawful to kill your own mother.
Diaz, Non Pulire Questo Sangue (Don’t Clean Up This Blood) – Director Daniele Vicari, said of his film, “I’ve made a lot of documentaries before this, but this was the first time I realized I made a movie based on facts that were actually real”. During the G8 summit in 2001, police raided the Diaz school in Genoa, Italy, searching and beating the protesters who were staying there for more than two hours. Over 3000 hours of personal video and photos of events outside the school were released to the press and can be seen on YouTube, and the events inside the school were reconstructed from first hand testimony from hundreds of victims. Vicari said, “As soon as I started reading about the acts and meeting the victims, I started feeling nauseous”, and he transferred that feeling to the screen. The movie is very hard to watch, and with bits of actual footage mixed in it is easy to forget that it’s not all the real thing.
Anything by Checco – Is it a stereotype that guys love the Three Stooges? If not, they will also love Checco Zalone. The lovable goofball is stupid as all get out, neither a complete waste of humanity or an unlikely saint in disguise. He’s just a guy. A politically incorrect, not very educated, small town guy who wants the best for himself and others. Try his Che Bella Giornata, about a security guard who is getting played by an Arabic woman planning to plant a bomb on him and blow up a church.
Romanzo di una Strage – For lovers of true crime stories, Marco Tullio Giordana’s film is a fascinating account of the 1969 bombing of the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura in Milan. Based on a book by Paolo Cucchiarelli, Giordana tells the story that begs to be told about the terrorist attack in which a bomb exploded in Piazza Fontana (.1 mile from the Duomo) in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88. The same afternoon three more bombs were detonated in Rome and Milan and another was found undetonated. The police initially focused their investigation on an anarchist group and rounded up the usual suspects, including Giuseppe Pinelli, played by Pierfrancesco Favino.
La Scorta – La Scorta is “the escort”, rather 4 escorts, police officers chosen to protect mafia judges in Sicily – maybe the most dangerous jobs on the planet. In La Scorta, a judge and his “scorta” are assassinated and a new one arrives to take his place. Judge de Francesco is honest and determined and the escorts that who have been assigned to him come to respect him and share his cause in a way that makes it seem like it’s them against the world as they begin to unravel the web of government corruption that they’re discovering. The judge tells his four escorts, “You’re the only ones that I trust”, and I really can’t blame him.
Il Terzo Tempo – This sports movie just came out on DVD in Italy; Director Enrico Maria Artale tells the story of Samuel, played by Lorenzo Richelmy, in and out of juvie and on his way to doing hard time. His mother is a drug addict and he never knew his father, so when his parole officer, an ex-rugby star played by Stefano Cassetti, gives him the chance to play on his rugby team, he’s able get a little of his aggression out of his system and discover the value of working with a team.
Vallanzasca – Gli Angeli del Male – Vallenzasca, a low-life thug is a real guy who is currently serving four consecutive life sentences with an additional 290 years in a Milanese prison but for a decade wreaking havoc with Italy, outsmarting the police and the prison system, robbing banks, kidnapping, murdering, inciting riots in prison and periodically breaking out of it. The movie pretty accurately follows the real criminal’s real life, and portrays Vallanzasca’s (somewhat askew) code of honor and old-fashioned values and his success with the ladies, earning him the nickname ”il bel René”. He believed that he wasn’t such a bad guy, and used the media to help him get public support. Vallanzasca – Gli Angeli del Male is slick and exciting – and it’s bloody enough for those of you who like a good crime story.
I Cento Passi – Another from director Marco Tulio Giordana, I Cento Passi (one hundred steps) was the distance between the Impastatos’ house and the house of Tano Badalamenti, an important Mafia boss, in the small Sicilian town of Cinisi. The movie is the story of Peppino Impastato, a young left-wing activist that in the late seventies (when almost nobody dared to speak about Mafia, and several politicians maintained that Mafia did not even exist) repeatedly denounced Badalamenti crimes and the whole Mafia system using a small local radio station, with the arm of irony. In 1978 Peppino (30 years old) was killed by an explosion. The police archived the case as an accident or a suicide, but his friends never accepted this thesis. This is a true story. More than wenty years after Peppino’s death, the case has been re-opened. Tano Badalamenti, meanwhile, has been convicted in USA for drug traffic.
I Love Italian Everything 