valeria golino Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Gregg Araki's stoner comedy Smiley Face (pictured) mysteriously received only a token theatrical release in Los Angeles and New York after receiving favorable reviews (including two from our own Jette Kernion and Monika Bartyzel) from a short run on the festival circuit. Now the rest of us can see it. The DVD from First Look includes a "making of" featurette; look for Erik's review of the DVD later on today.

Danny Boyle's 'space mission to repair the biggest star in the sky,' better known as Sunshine, inspired Nick Schager to describe it as "a gorgeously crafted intergalactic saga sorely lacking in originality or profundity." You know what that means -- it should be perfect on DVD! Fox Searchlight's release includes an audio commentary by Boyle, two short films with intros by Boyle, deleted scenes, web production diaries and an alternate ending.

I loved Emanuele Crialese's Respiro, which featured a great performance by Valeria Golino, so I'm eager to catch up with his latest film, The Golden Door. Eric D. Snider said that this "story of an Italian family emigrating to America circa 1900 ... completely immerses us in the images and sounds of its world." The Miramax DVD has a "making of" feature and an introduction by Martin Scorsese.

Black Irish should play very well on the small screen. As I've written before, the film "revolves around a sterling, thoroughly engaging performance by Michael Angarano as a high schooler in Boston coming to grips with his family and his future; the script and direction by Brad Gann is solid and features a few surprising, gentle twists." The DVD from Anywhere Road Entertainment includes a commentary track and a "behind the scenes" feature.

Also out this week: Eagle vs. Shark, "(in some ways) even better than Napoleon Dynamite," per Scott Weinberg, DarkBlueAmostBlack, "a subtle, rewarding exploration of family," according to Martha Fischer, and Klimt, an unconventional bio-pic by Chilean director Raúl Ruiz.

I came into the world of Immortal Beloved very late in the game. I had been meaning to see it for years, to see what Gary Oldman did with the epic maestro, but I never got around to it. Then, one summer night in 2005, I had a long conversation about the film with a friend of mine. Instead of the normal, surface recommendation one is apt to get in cases like these, his eyes lit up as he began to list off the reasons I should see it. He didn't just vaguely like it; the film stuck with him and inspired him. He talked about how wonderfully the film portrayed Ludwig van Beethoven's music, and he sent me on my way to discover one particularly moving scene for myself.

Since he wouldn't tell me about this moment until I had seen the movie, I had assumed there would be one obvious and moving scene that stuck out above the others. Instead, I was faced with a partly true, partly fictional biopic that presented a number of well-crafted moments that matched perfectly to Beethoven's work. But really, they do not so much match his music, as live it. Many films can team music with a certain mood, but few actually embody the life of the music itself -- the story that it is telling. This film is a doorway into the world of symphonies -- not to notice their power, but to take the first step towards recognizing the story being told by the collection of notes.

To say that the lovely and talented Valeria Golino has been underused in Hollywood is an understatement. She kissed Pee-wee Herman (Big Top Pee-wee), valiantly struggled to humanize Tom Cruise (Rain Man) and gamely joked around with Charlie Sheen (Hot Shots!). Her profile started to diminish in the early 1990s to the point where it seemed that she had been resurrected when she starred in Respiro in 2002. Emanuele Crialese's Italian-language family drama effectively used gorgeous scenery, comedy and claustrophobia to illustrate a country town's view of mental illness. Set entirely on a small island where the residents know each other far too well, Respiro featured Golino in an exceptional performance as a wife and mother who rejects the traditional roles expected of her. The film may have brought her back to wider international attention, but she has been steadily working in Europe since before she came to Hollywood.

Her latest project, Black Sun, has just been released in Italy. Helmed by veteran Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, european-films.net notes that the film is an adaptation of a play by Rocco Familiari based on a true story in which a happily-married couple is torn apart when the young husband (Lorenzo Balducci) is killed. When the murderer's identity is revealed, the wife (Golino) must decide whether to avenge her husband's death or forgive the killer. It sounds like a meaty role for Golino to sink her teeth into. And director Zanussi knows how to sell his film. The press notes quote him as saying: "Agata and Manfredi are very beautiful, very much in love and ... very naked. During the rehearsals ... I explained to [Valeria Golino and Lorenzo Balducci] my personal understanding of the concept of 'innocence.' [They] only discovered they were required to act in the nude on the first day of shooting." If reactions are positive, expect to see Black Sun on the festival circuit.