Romanzo Criminale Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Trailer Park: What Do You Aspire to Be?
Filed under: Drama », Foreign Language », Music & Musicals », Mystery & Suspense », Trailer Trash », DIY/Filmmaking », Movie Marketing », Cinematical Indie »
Growing up, your dreams and goals constantly change and evolve as you experience this little thing called life. I can't even count how many times I've been asked the question, "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?" From parents, to teachers ,to friends, to that weird guy who hung around the 24-hour convenient store (no, not Matthew McConaughey), we're forever on a quest to discover ourselves.
The following films all feature characters thrown into different situations in which they are forced to come to terms with who they really are. How should a Queen go about leading her country at a time of severe crisis? How can singers turn their love of performing into a lucrative career? How far can a life of crime really take a man? Oh, and why do three-day holiday weekends always seem so short? Welcome to this week's Trailer Park ...
Tribeca Interview: Crime Novel Costar Pierfrancesco Favino
Filed under: Drama », Foreign Language », Thrillers », Tribeca », Interviews », Cinematical Indie »
Crime Novel, an Italian film that had its North American premiere recently at the Tribeca Film Festival, is an epic, in-depth look at the rise and fall of a real-life Roman crime syndicate. Taking just a few central figures as its focus, the movie covers nearly 20 years of the group's history, and, along with Nanni Moretti's Cannes-bound The Caiman, was the big winner at this year's Italian Oscars (properly called the David di Donatello Awards). Though the film's eight awards were primarily for things like design and cinematography, Pierfrancesco Favino, who plays Lebanese -- the gang's driving force, and easily the best thing in the film -- was named the year's best supporting actor.
Favino sat down with Cinematical on the morning before Crime Novel's premiere, and proved to have a tremendous passion for film, acting, and European culture. In Part One of the interview, he addresses the film and its historical and culture contexts (beware of spoilers!), as well as the effect it's had on his life. In Part Two, coming soon, he'll talk in more general terms about acting, as well as his career and Italian cinema as a whole.
Finally, a note: Favino's English is fantastic for communicating, but transfered to the page, it can be bit a bit difficult to sort out if you've not heard him speaking. To that end, I've done more editing than usual -- all changes to his words (noted, of course, by ellipses or brackets) were done only for the sake of clarity; his meaning and intent are never adjusted.
Tribeca Review: Crime Novel
Filed under: Action », Drama », Foreign Language », Thrillers », Tribeca », Theatrical Reviews », Cinematical Indie »
Recently honored with 14 nominations and eight wins at the Italian film awards, Crime Novel is a gangster film with something of an epic feel, despite a seemingly narrow focus on a small group of friends. Beginning in the late 1960s, when all of its subjects are still bored, invincible teens, the film traces their rise from bumbling obscurity to one of the most feared criminal gangs in Italy, as well as their inevitable decline. Michele Placido’s film is based on a novel of the same name which, in turn, grew out of the story of a real-life Roman gang that was active from 1977-1992. Because of the film’s roots in reality, one assumes that it has a special power and immediacy to Italian audiences; this may well explain that country’s enthusiastic response a film that, while sporadically engaging, is also over-long (a punishing 150 minutes) and poorly-paced.
After completing their first stints in jail, a group of friends are brought together by the one known as Lebanese (as a teen, he named himself after the source of the hash he liked to smoke) to kidnap a wealthy man for ransom. Though the group is a fairly large one, a small core quickly emerges, and it is on those three men -- Lebanese (Pierfrancesco Favino), Ice (Kim Rossi Stuart), and Dandy (Claudio Santamaria) -- that Crime Novel keeps its focus. The kidnapping doesn’t go quite as planned, but the group nevertheless ends up with a substantial ransom, the majority of which Lebanese persuades them to invest in drugs. Instead of steering clear of the crime gangs that dominate Rome, under Lebanese's leadership, they make brutal, unexpected war on those in power, gleefully killing anyone who stands in their way.
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