Boris

This is a little masterpiece, a real work of art but it sure has a big limitation: you will hardly understand it if you are not Italian, or if you haven't at least lived and worked in Italy for quite some time.

Boris mocks a particular kind of shows (something in between a serial and soap-operas) that you can find on the italian television.

In these shows everything is unquestionably bad: acting, directing, screenplay, characters, dialogues, photography.

So it is a comedy about something that's so corny, trivial and low budget to result funny, but it is actually much more that that.

It depicts the whole world of italian tv entertainment for what it actually is (or, at least, was when it was shot), and that's what makes it interesting.

It highlights patronage, laziness, lack of passion and competence, abuse and a whole number of behaviours we as italians laugh about, but intimately we are fully aware they are the reasons scuttling our country and preventing us to unfold when it comes to entertainment and in general most creativity environments.

I myself work in entertainment, and it's no accident if near all tv/cinema/music/theater workers I know are huge Boris fans: everything in this show is both hilariously and sadly true to anyone who has experienced one of these work areas.

If you are not part of this world but you appreciate irony you'll still like it.

If you are not from Italy and you happen to watch it... well don't be too frightened! Let's just say everything is not this bad here, and luckily products like Boris can prove it.

Disguised as a comedy it gives a rather cynical and unforgiving look to the attitude Italy and italians have with work and, at times, with life, leaving you with a bittersweet taste after every episode.

What makes it even more brilliant, in my opinion, is that the creators did this "from the inside", as Boris was aired on the public national TV.

So, not for everyone but definitely worth a try.

Giacomo Ciarrapico, Mattia Torre and Luca Vendruscolo's groundbreaking slice of life on the set of a shoddy Italian TV drama leads Francesco Pannofino (René Ferretti) and the entire cast of Boris to create something memorable. In this regard, the quotes remain milestones of Italian comedy over the years.

This series was indeed a panacea for the questionable palates of the mediocre Italian audience, which in this case nevertheless fully understood the harsh but hilarious criticism that was being made of the whole rotten TV industry.

The characters are simply spot on; there is no star more of a star than Stanis, no slave more of a slave than Lorenzo, no "cursed b*tch" more of a "cursed b*tch" than Corinna. Some of the gimmicks are then ingenious: stupid and absurd but, alas, feasible ideas.

The direction of the series (the real one, not of "Eyes of the Heart") is, perhaps deliberately, quite crude and "Italian"; but all in all it's okay. The dedication in the season four finale, on the other hand, is touching, and brings to fruition the path that leads us to empathize with those slackers of the screenwriters (the directors themselves).

To them I say: thank you for this gem, albeit too "Italian".

This is an innovative and wonderful series even today many years later and remains one of the most fun and successful Italian series. Throughout its duration the series gives pearls on cinema in Italy and entertains for its entire duration. So funny that the episodes go by very fast and the series devours itself in very little.

I don't know if this could be a product interesting to export, but the idea is simple and original, the life inside a set of a TV serial. In Italy is common to make these awful productions, perhaps because anybody (or anybody without a proper culture) can appreciate these kind of soap operas. Those are not serials, like E.R, X-Files, or Doctor House, and they lack of imagination. "Boris" mocks every TV serial, especially one called "Incantesimo": bad recitation, bad scenes, the worst photography ever. It is so funny! Watch it. It's the best Italian comedy of these years. A good product, indeed. Nonetheless "Boris" has some of the bests Italian actors, some of them scarcely known by the public; for example the director, René (with his goldfish, Boris, which gives the title to the show), is interpreted by Francesco Pannofino, a singer, poet and actor, who gives the voice to many foreigner actors (George Clooney, to make an outstanding example). Another actress that requires a special mention is Caterina Guzzanti. The Guzzanti brothers (Corrado and Sabina are the other two), actors and comedians are good, but Caterina is simply astonishing sometimes. In this show it plays the part of Arianna, the director assistant, the most motivated and less hypocrite person of the all crew. Because, you know, it doesn't matter the level, could be a Z movie (or serial in this case), but phoniness is something so rooted in this world of entertainment, that sometimes it seems required to survive. I don't know if they'll make other seasons (we are waiting for a third), but hope so. Finally a TV show entirely Italian and, more important, of good quality!

This TV series perfectly represents the situation of Italian TV with a humor that will make you fall in love with it. One of the strengths of this TV show is that it is hardly redundant, surprising the viewer with increasingly hilarious gags. The interpretation of actors such as Pannolino (René Ferretti) is excellent, managing to optimally combine both the comic and dramatic parts of the TV series. Boris is also appreciated by non-Italians because those sad dynamics, staged by the directors, are found both in television and in the world of work of every nation. I recommend this series to anyone looking for something that makes them laugh but also think.