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A crushing or mediocre review from this film trade magazine institution can certainly sink a film, but Variety’s Ten Euro Directors to Watch (now in it’s 16th year running at Karlovy Vary) certainly comes across as a hallmark card to new European talents and in need of a little extra love. And while this curated series won’t prevent the films from slipping the cracks (of the ten, I believe only a pair have U.S. distribution), the filmmakers, producers attached to the 10-pack are deservingly getting one more final push. Day 4′s catch was a fresh, unique, ballsy and brave one beginning with Tokyo Film Fest selected Nina from Italian helmer Elisa Fuksas features the unbelievably cute actress Diane Fleri playing the titular character on a duel journey: one about finding herself and finding a match. This wickedly different viewpoint of Rome is exquisitely shot – I adored the repetition of shots,...

Chicago – Critics don’t have any business reviewing films if they aren’t able to admit when they are wrong. I am here to freely admit that I was wrong about “I Am Love.” While it blindsided me at the European Union Film Festival, I detected certain glaring flaws in its plot during the film’s limited theatrical run, which seem to have evaporated upon its magnificent DVD release.

Yes, the film is an unabashed melodramatic romance at heart, requiring the viewer to buy into its less-than-credible flights of fancy. But as an experiment in pure cinema, the film is an extraordinary hybrid of the classical and contemporary. Love is depicted as nothing less than a force of nature, inspiring its central character to evolve into the person she was always meant to be. The film is about revolution rather than repression, and that is its stroke of genius, reflecting...

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Chicago – “I Am Love” is the type of visceral tone poem that requires its audience to feel more than think. As the end credits roll, viewers may find themselves going over the plot in their heads, and discovering its inherent shallowness. It’s only after we wake up from a dream that we discover just how silly or inexplicable it all was.

Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino has created a romance so punch-drunk on passion that it forgets to tell a decent story. Any trashy romance novel available in the bargain box at Borders could probably tell a tale as complex and unpredictable as this one. Once the gears of the plot start grinding away, there’s no turning back. The melodramatic plot twists are a hoot, and threaten to derail the film into all-out lunacy toward the end. But this is one rare instance where a film’s style...

Chicago – In our latest drama edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of the new film “I Am Love” starring the Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton!

The film also stars Flavio Parenti, Edoardo Gabbriellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Pippo Delbono, Diane Fleri, Maria Paiato, Marisa Berenson, Waris Ahluwalia and Gabriele Ferzetti from writer and director Luca Guadagnino. “I Am Love” opens in Chicago on June 25, 2010.

To win your free pass to the advance Chicago screening of “I Am Love” courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This screening is on Monday, June 21, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. in Chicago. Directions to enter this HollywoodChicago.com Hookup and immediately win can be found beneath the graphic below.

The movie poster for “I Am Love” with Tilda Swinton.

Image credit: Anchor Bay Films

Here is the plot description for “I...

Images, the trailer as well as the poster are up for "I Am Love." The drama stars Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, Edoardo Gabbriellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Pippo Delbono, Diane Fleri and Maria Paiato. Luca Guadagnino directs from the writing by Walter Fasano, Barbara Alberti and Ivan Cotroneo. The film opens on June 18th in limited areas via Magnolia Pictures. We open on a journey through the idyllic snow covered streets of Milan in the run up to Christmas. We enter a stunning, bourgeois mansion house: the home of the wealthy Recchi family. The families are gathering for a birthday dinner in honor of the patriarchal figure of Edoardo Recchi Sr. We are introduced to Emma, the stylish head of the household who is overseeing arrangements with the servants. With his health in a poor state, Edoardo Sr is preparing to hand over the reigns to the Recchi textile business. It seems...

• There are films where the reward comes in sticking it out till the end - as was the case with Best of Youth (the 6-hour Italian tele-film, generational period piece that Miramax packaged as two separate films for a short theatrical release). For those who like their gelato and Italanio history, Th!NKFilm's latest import My Brother Is An Only Child has many similarities with the former - both are co-scripted by Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli and both look at national identity during turbulent times. The company eventually decided to take a title that they were handling internationally and bring about a domestic release. Coming out later this month, this has received international accolades (here is my Cannes review) and below you'll find the Na poster one sheet. Set in a small Italian town in the 60’s and 70’s, the film tells the story of two brothers who

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