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![]() Hail the maximum sword and sandal movie. Gladiator tells a relatively unadorned story stupendously well. Its great star – Russell Crowe – fights above his weight class, delivering a superman performance while hewing to his characteristically understated readings. Highly watchable then and … |
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![]() Deeply, floridly Italian, Malèna is a sumptuous WWII find, a Sicilian movie extraordinaire and a devastating depiction of Italian machismo reacting to the hottest signorina since Sophia Loren. Monica Belluci plays the title character, a gorgeous war bride living in a small Sicilian town, bro…
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where Malèna went, the town followed
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![]() A pre-sexual revolution Italian trifle, Matrimonio All’Italiana packs a considerevole punch 50 years on. Consider Sophia Loren – in her prime. Screen sirens come no hotter or more joyous. Marcel…
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Sophia Loren's Filumena, fully grown
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![]() “Introducing Audrey Hepburn” reads an opening credit. Yes, the elfin Screen Queen made her debut as a fairytale Princess in Roman Holiday, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar — a splash for the ages! One of the best RomComs ever, Roman Holiday enchants to this day, utterly charming begi…
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Moviestar Princess wearing Edith Head
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![]() Reverential movie, thy name is The Bicycle Thief. Long considered one of the greatest movies of all time, it still qualifies. Real people play the parts, none more affecting than seven year-old Enzo Staiola’s Bruno. The kid’s now my favorite boy in all of movie history. Bruno’s Dad hock…
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"They don't pay for repairs!" Love t...
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![]() Charlton Heston makes Michelangelo as operatic as Moses in The Ten Commandments. Facing off with Rex Harrison’s Warrior Pope in 1500s Rome makes The Agony and the Ecstasy a spectacle extraordinaire. The 2¼ hour runtime wisely starts with a 12 min. intro that covers Michelangelo’s highlight…
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Charlton Heston with the Contessina
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![]() Essential though Patton may be – as war movie, as American history, as biopic – it’s not the epochal statement the Academy thought they were canonizing with seven Oscars in 1971, including Best Picture. Back then Frances Ford Coppola’s script seemed subversive, undermining American militarism …
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If I had my way, I'd meet Rommel F2F.
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