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Illustrations by Michelle Perez.The inner life of man is constituted by the fact that man relates himself to his species, to his mode of being. […] He can put himself in the place of another precisely because his species, his essential mode of being—not only his individuality—is an object of thought to him. —Ludwig FeuerbachThere are only individuals. —Friedrich NietzscheThe idea of the individual haunts much of the writing on Vittorio De Sica’s films. No other critic has played a greater role in shaping how we speak about them than André Bazin, who remarked that De Sica’s postwar masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (1948) allowed its actors “first of all to exist for their own sakes, freely … loving them in their singular individuality.”1 This line has cast a long shadow over the perception of De Sica’s neorealist work and the manner in which it is mythologized. Typically described,...

At the end of the 2000s, Roger Ebert published his list of the 10 best films of the decade for the Chicago Sun Times. It was the final ranking the beloved critic would assemble before his death in 2013, and it was as eclectic as would be expected. Included in a list that encompassed such heavy hitters as Synecdoche, New York, The Hurt Locker, and 25th Hour, Ebert selected a low-budget drama that probably flew under the radar of most casual moviegoers: Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop. Ebert called the film, "a vibrant modern equivalent of the Italian Neorealist classics like Shoeshine," and declared Bahrani to be, "the new director of the decade."...

Italy has selected “Vermiglio” as the country’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. The movie written and directed by Maura Delpero won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and will make its stateside debut at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 10.

“Vermiglio” is set in 1944, in Vermiglio, a high mountain village of the Italian Alps where war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a refugee soldier, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever. During the four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the eldest daughter of the teacher, instantly drawn to each other, led to marriage and an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from its tragedy, the family will face its own.

Italy has won Best International...

Levan Akin’s Crossing is now showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries.Crossing.Levan Akin’s tender, pensive new film begins in Batumi, the Georgian city where his family is from, and soon finds itself in Istanbul, “a place where people come to disappear,” as one character later muses. Forces of prejudice and patriarchy oppress these sister cities. In Batumi, Achi (Lucas Kankava) wakes to the sounds of a television talk show in a ramshackle house between the train tracks and the sea. A window over the sofa on which he sleeps frames the protean Black Sea, which hints at an escape route for the restless youth.When a former schoolteacher, Lia (Mzia Arabuli), comes looking for her lost niece, Tekla, who was turned out by her family after transitioning, Achi’s hateful brother complains about “prostitutes” and “degenerates” in their midst. Having been evicted from the nearby cottage where she had been living,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Anthology Film Archives

A Zoë Lund retrospective includes films by Abel Ferrara and Larry Cohen; Stan Brakhage plays in “Essential Cinema.”

Museum of the Moving Image

Films by Robert Altman, Isabel Sandoval, and Alain Berliner play in “From the Margins: The Trans Film Image“; “See It Big at the ’90s Multiplex” brings Pulp Fiction, Speed and Menace II Society on 35mm.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Powell and Pressburger retrospective continues, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp on Saturday.

Japan Society

An imported 35mm print of August in the Water screens on Sunday.

Film Forum

Seven Samurai, Powell and Pressburger’s The Small Back Room and Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine all screen.

Metrograph

Films by Akira and Kiyoshi Kurosawa play in In Pursuit of Shadows; films by Linklater and Otto Preminger play as part of Summer...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of the Moving Image

A Sergei Parajanov retrospective has begun, while “See It Big at the ’90s Multiplex” includes Speed and Strange Days on 35mm.

Anthology Film Archives

A Bruce Baille program plays in “Essential Cinema,” while Denys Arcand films screen.

Film Forum

Seven Samurai begins playing in a new 4K restoration, while Powell and Pressburger’s The Small Back Room and Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine continue.

Metrograph

The Infernal Affairs trilogy screens this weekend; films by Bergman and Wes Anderson play on 35mm as part of Summer at Sea; films by Marker and Godard play in Under the Pavement, the Beach; Summer of Rohmer and Piping Hot Pfeiffer continue.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Powell and Pressburger retrospective continues.

IFC Center

Blow Out, Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love, and The Cook, the Thief,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Fellow Roxy programmer Charli Xcx presents Project X, To Die For, and Velvet Goldmine on 35mm, as well as Party Girl; a puppet program plays on Saturday, as does City Dudes.

Anthology Film Archives

Prints of Citizen Kane, L’Atalante, and Andy Warhol play in “Essential Cinema.”

Museum of the Moving Image

“See It Big at the ’90s Multiplex” includes Hoop Dreams and Bound; a Marx Brothers double-feature takes place on Saturday.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Powell and Pressburger retrospective continues.

Film Forum

Powell and Pressburger’s The Small Back Room begins playing in a new restoration; Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine continues playing in a new restoration; Yankee Doodle Dandy shows on Sunday.

Metrograph

Films by Claire Denis, Hong Sangsoo, Jia Zhangke and more play in an mk2 retrospective; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Pitfall, and...

While certainly best-known for Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio De Sica’s vast, varied body of work is worth diving into. This June, those in NYC can experience quite a taste of it with four films by the director at Film at Lincoln Center’s Sophia Loren retrospective, immediately followed by the release of the new 4K restoration of Shoeshine at Film Forum. Restored by The Film Foundation and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata, in association with Orium S.A. Restoration, the new trailer from Janus Films has now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “One of the greatest achievements in the cinematic revolution known as Italian neorealism, Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine stands as a timeless masterpiece of trenchant social observation and stirring emotional humanism. In postwar Rome, street kids Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi) shine the shoes of American servicemen in hopes of saving enough money to purchase a beautiful horse.

David Schickele’s Bushman opens with Gabriel (Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam), a young Nigerian immigrant, walking down a San Francisco highway and conspicuously balancing a pair of shoes on his head while trying to thumb a ride. The image announces the film’s neorealist intentions, alluding to postwar Italian films’ on-location, street-oriented settings, and even puns on the title of Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine. Which isn’t to say that Bushman intends to turn neorealism on its head exactly. Rather, it aims to consider how the contexts the bred neorealism might relate to the late-1960s, when the United States was at war in Vietnam and Nigeria was in year two of a civil war following its decolonization in 1960.

After a playful opening sequence in which Gabriel is picked up by a motorcyclist (Mike Slyre) who looks as though he just stepped off the set of Easy Rider, the...

Italy has been a regular contender for the international feature Oscar since the 1940s, having won the award 14 times — the most of any country. Four of those winners were directed by Vittorio De Sica, whose 1946 film, Shoeshine, was the first foreign film to be recognized by the Academy with an honorary Oscar. Four years later, his Bicycle Thieves earned the honor. And in 1963, he collaborated with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni on what would become Italy’s third international feature Oscar winner: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

The film is a comedy anthology divided into three parts, following a triad of Italian couples across three regions of Italy: “Adelina” tells of a wife (Loren) who supports her unemployed husband (Mastroianni) and family by selling black market cigarettes in Naples as she tries to stave off being incarcerated for her illegal activity by staying continuously pregnant. In “Anna,” Loren plays the wife...

Starting in 1947, the Film Academy began recognizing foreign-language films for Oscars. For the first nine years, however, it was a non-competitive award as there were no nominations, just one winner. Italian director Vittorio De Sica was the first winner for his film Shoe Shine.

In 1956, the Academy created a Best Foreign-Language Film category and countries began submitting films for Oscar nominations. The prize has been given out every year since. The Academy changed the name of the category to Best International Feature Film in 2020.

The foreign-language competition has been dominated by European films. Italy and France have won 14 and 12 times, respectively. Outside of Europe, Japan has the most foreign-language Oscars with five. Akira Kurosawa was the first non-European director to capture the Oscar, winning in 1951 for Rashomon. Kurosawa’s other Oscar, oddly enough, did not come for a Japanese film, but for a film submitted by the Soviet Union in 1975, Dersu Uzala.

This year’s line-up will also celebrate classics such as Singin’ In The Rain and Indian director Satyajit Ray’s 1970 work The Adversary.

Late French filmmaker Jean Eustache’s recently restored cult 1973 drama The Mother And The Whore will open Cannes Classics this year, the line-up for which was announced on Monday (May 2).

Other highlights include two episodes of the series The Last Movie Stars directed by Ethan Hawke about Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman; a screening of Singin’ In The Rain to coincide with the 70th anniversary of its release and a restored 4K version of Vittorio de Sica’s 1946 work Sciuscià.

The Imaginary Friend (1994).Unknown to many, Nico D'Alessandria (1941–2003) was one of the most important directors of independent Italian cinema. His stories of outcasts and ghost-like characters create a unique kind of poetic cinema, in which reality becomes a dream and the dream becomes reality. If one could sum up his work and personality in one word, that word would be independence. D’Alessandria’s absolute freedom of thought and action from both mainstream and art-house cinema proved to be too much not only for audiences, but also for producers, distributors and critics, leading to his work being frequently misunderstood if not entirely forgotten. Throughout his career he made only three feature films and his total dedication to his work took him so far as to mortgage his house.D’Alessandria’s films were all shot in the last two decades of the 20th century, but his story as an author and director begins much earlier.

It’s thanks to Italian neorealist director Vittorio De Sica — the genius behind such films as 1948’s The Bicycle Thief and 1970’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis — that the Academy Awards has a best international film category. That’s because his 1946 film Shoeshine (or in Italian, Sciuscià, the Neapolitan pronunciation of the English word) was awarded a special foreign-language Oscar in 1948. (De Sica won again in 1950 for Bicycle Thief. But it wasn’t until 1956 that the category, then known as best foreign-language film, became competitive, with multiple nominees; after that, he won in 1965 for Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and ...

Documentarian Senain Kheshgi takes us through a few of her favorite documentaries.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

American Movie (1999)

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary

The French Connection (1971) – Dennis Lehane’s trailer commentary, Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary

Grey Gardens (1975)

Salesman (1969)

Real Life (1979)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Seven Up! (1964)

Don’t Look Back (1967)

Primary (1960)

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Reds (1981)

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) – Dennis Cozzalio’s 2020 best-of list

High School (1968)

Hospital (1970)

Titicut Follies (1967)

Harlan County, USA (1976)

Salaam Bombay! (1988)

Mississippi Masala (1991)

India Cabaret (1985)

The 400 Blows (1959) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary

Bicycle Thieves (1949) – Dennis Cozzalio’s Muriel Awards column

Shoeshine (1946)

Citizen Kane (1941) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Day For Night (1973) – Neil Labute’s trailer commentary

Sherman’s March (1986)

Capturing The Friedmans (2003)

I Think We’re Alone Now (2008)

The Mole Agent (2020)

The Act of Killing (2012)

Other Notable Items

Walter Hill

Walton Goggins

The Majority

Mark Borchardt

Mike Schank

The...

Mubi's retrospective Fellini at 100 is showing April 29 - July 13, 2020 in many countries.As someone raised in a town of 500, itching to escape to the nearest city for the best part of my childhood, Fellini’s characters have always felt familiar. “His films are a small-town boy’s dream of the big city,” Orson Welles told Playboy in a 1967 interview, and indeed, dotting them are heroes and eccentrics who either share the director’s provincial origins or dance through the frame with the stupor of perpetual strangers in strange lands. “He’s right,” Fellini said about Welles’s remark, “and that’s no insult.” For that naïve awe is the source of the ageless charm of Fellini’s whole cinema. If the films he made over a career spanning five decades still feel so alive and vibrant, it’s because they nurture the same childlike wonder of their protagonists, and their inordinate lust for life.

Everyone on the “Seinfeld” set wanted a piece of Jerry Stiller’s comedic greatness, and they got it. When the iconic NBC sitcom’s nine seasons were released together in a DVD box set, fans got access to one of the most beloved TV bloopers of all time.

In the 80-second clip, Stiller’s Frank Costanza spars with Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Elaine Benes. Or rather, they would spar, if Louis-Dreyfus and Stiller’s on-screen son Jason Alexander (playing George Costanza) could keep it together through the lines “What the hell does that mean?” and “You sayin’, you want a piece of me?”

Watch the video above.

Also Read: Jerry Stiller, Star of 'Seinfeld' and 'King of Queens,' Dies at 92

Stiller, the father of Ben Stiller and member of legendary husband-and-wife comedy duo Stiller & Meara, passed away at age 92 early Mondy.

“I’m sad to say that my father,...

Jerry Stiller, the Emmy-nominated comedy legend who re-emerged later in life playing loud-mouthed cranks on the TV sitcoms “Seinfeld” and “King of Queens,” has died at age 92.

His death was confirmed early Monday by his son, actor-director Ben Stiller. “I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes,” the younger Stiller tweeted. “He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad.”

In addition to his TV work, starting with comedy appearances with his wife Anne Meara, Stiller had memorable turns in movies, playing Walter Matthau’s NYPD partner in 1974’s “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” and the mild-mannered husband of Divine’s Edna Turnblad in John Waters’ original 1988 comedy “Hairspray.”

Also Read: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2020 (Photos)

He also appeared with his son, Ben Stiller, in a series of movies, including the Oscar-nominated 1987 short film “Shoeshine” as well as “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Zoolander” and “Zoolander 2.

“A Whole Lot Of Shirley Going On”

By Raymond Benson

Joseph E. Levine, head of Embassy Pictures, was at one time a formidable producer and studio head who brought us some outstanding pictures in the 1960s and 70s. In 1967, he managed to persuade the great Italian director Vittorio De Sica to do a picture in English with big Hollywood stars. De Sica had just previously done an English-language flick, After the Fox (1966). So, in 1967, he made a comic anthology movie called Woman Times Seven, starring Shirley MacLaine in seven different roles opposite seven different leading men (and others).

Anthology movies are often a mixed bag. In almost every case, there are two or three stories that are good, and two or three that are less so. Here, we have seven tales of a woman’s relationship with a man (or men) with a distinctly European slant (especially in its attitudes...

By Kirti Raj Singh

After the fall of the Shah regime, the Iranian cinema went through a hazardous state and came out with beautiful films…, Films which were not only praised in Iran, but throughout the globe. So what actually changed in films?

Iran was going through changes; nothing was unaffected by the revolt that broke out in 1978-79. Revolution resulted in the rise of the Islamic republic under Imam Khomeini, after the fall of the Shah Regime, which was absolute monarchy. Iran’s rapidly modernizing capitalist economy was replaced by populist & Islamic economic & cultural policies. Much of the industry was nationalized, laws & schools islamicized, and western influences got banned in every possible way. And then there was Saddam Hussein’s invasion in 1980, which, ironically, strengthened the revolution and fed Iranians the determination to carry the revolution outside Iran’s borders.

By 1982, Khomeini and his supporters had crushed their rivals...

The Academy Awards ceremony is Hollywood's biggest night of the year, celebrating the best that the film industry had to offer over the last 12 months. Of course, the Academy does not merely recognize the outstanding achievements of American filmmakers, but also those of filmmakers from around the globe. The most recent Oscars ceremony was no exception, with Parasite earning director Bong Joon-ho some impressive wins. Among the trophies that Joon-ho took home was the Award for Best International Feature Film. This did not catch many by surprise since the film is certainly a wonderful piece of filmmaking that ranks among Joon-ho's best work.

Related: Why Parasite Won The 2020 Oscar For Best Picture

With Parasite gaining further popularity since the Oscars, movie fans will likely be wondering what other Oscar-worthy international films they can check out after Parasite. Fortunately, the Academy has a long history of honoring international films, ever since...

As far as the Academy’s concerned, “Honeyland” is the bee’s knees.

A Macedonian beekeeper’s struggle to sustain an ancient way of life picked up three jury prizes at 2019’s Sundance Film Festival. Now it’s the first-ever dual nominee for documentary feature and international feature.

“Honeyland” thrives on elements traditionally revered in each category. Nature docs have been Academy catnip since 1948, when “Seal Island” kicked off a string of Disney-produced wins for true-life adventures, down to latter-day triumphs of “March of the Penguins” (2005) and “Free Solo” last year. “Honeyland” probes forbidding hillsides outside Skopje at breathtaking distance, then zooms in on a life-and-death battle between rival beekeepers spelling disaster for implacable heroine Hatidze Muratova.

Recipients of what was formerly best foreign-language film are generally strongly humanistic and politically aware, from 1948’s “Shoeshine” to last year’s “Roma.” Praised by Variety’s Guy Lodge for its “unexpectedly rich seam of moral tension,...

Italian director and actor (and neorealist luminary) Vittorio De Sica is best known to most stateside audiences for his honorary Oscar winners like “Sciuscià” (the first foreign film to be recognized by the Academy) and his enduring classic “Bicycle Thieves,” but there are still gems from the long-deceased filmmaker for fans to discover.

Like his 1963 comedy “Il Boom,” which has never had a U.S. release…until now! “Il Boom” will finally come to the States — complete with a new restoration — later this month, and we have a fresh trailer to celebrate.

Read More: ‘La Strada’ Restoration First Look: Federico Fellini’s Oscar-Winning Masterpiece Heads Back to Theaters — Watch

The film’s title refers to the Italian economic “miracle” that took place from the late 1950s until the 1970s after World War II. “Il Boom” follows Giovanni Alberti (Alberto Sordi), a small building contractor who is deeply in debt because...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Vittorio de Sica's Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) is playing January 8 - February 6, 2017 in the United States.Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), winner of the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, is a trio of stories directed by Vittorio De Sica in the omnibus fashion so popular at the time (just the year prior, he had contributed to the similarly structured Boccaccio ‘70, alongside Federico Fellini, Mario Monicelli, and Luchino Visconti). Spearheaded by international super-producer Carlo Ponti—helping to ensure global distribution and award-worthy prestige—the film is, first and foremost, a collaborative compendium of what partially defined the popular perception of its versatile director and its two leads, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.The first short, “Adelina,” was written by Eduardo De Filippo and Isabella Quarantotti, the second, “Anna,” by Bella Billa, Lorenza Zanuso, and one of Italian neorealism’s founding fathers,...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Mubi is playing General Della Rovere (1959) in the United States September 1 - 30, 2016.For a time, it seemed Roberto Rossellini was ready to leave behind the devastation of World War II, a milieu he as much as anyone helped to indelibly commit to cinematic memory with his Neorealist masterworks. While a traumatized psyche remained in films that followed his trilogy of Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), and Germany Year Zero (1948), it was revealed via a more subtle manifestation of conflict related angst. Rossellini had moved beyond explicit depictions of the war and its aftermath, even while lingering psychological effects still abound (see his collaborations with Ingrid Bergman). This would change in 1959, with the release of General Della Rovere, Rossellini's first full-fledged wartime film in more than 10 years. While not of the caliber of these earlier titles (not really even in...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

Want to see great movies for free? This Friday, Lincoln Center brings Film Foundation-restored titles to you at no cost. Ford‘s Drums Along the Mohawk, Scorsese‘s The King of Comedy, John M. Stahl‘s Leave Her to Heaven, Fosse‘s All That Jazz, Donen‘s Two for the Road,...

Italian film and stage actor best known for his role in Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni

The Italian film and stage actor Franco Interlenghi, who has died aged 83, will be remembered for two masterpieces of postwar Italian cinema. He was the elder of the two Roman urchins in Vittorio De Sica’s Sciuscià (Shoeshine, 1946) and went on to be the semiautobiographical Moraldo in Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni – big calves, or loafers (1953). In this he played the youngest of the band of provincial layabouts and the only good-looking one, who at the end of the film decides to quit the Adriatic seaside resort, intended to be Rimini (though it was not actually filmed in that town, Fellini’s birthplace, which he left for Rome in search of a more interesting future). This character would evolve into Marcello in La Dolce Vita, played by Marcello Mastroianni, with whom Interlenghi had acted...

It had been so long since I last saw Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves—the last time being long before I started to become involved with movie posters—that I had forgotten that Antonio Ricci’s job at the start of the film, the job he so desperately needs a bicycle for, is pasting up movie posters.Researching De Sica posters to coincide with the current month-long restrospective at New York’s Film Forum I discovered that De Sica’s most famous film centers—as does the Shawshank Redemption, coincidentally—on a poster of Rita Hayworth. I had hoped that it would be a poster by Anselmo Ballester, who painted Hayworth gloriously many times, but the signature on the top right of the poster is clearly that of one T. Corbella. Tito Corbella (1885-1966) was an artist known for his sensuous portraits of Italian divas since the 1910s. Dave Kehr...

Susanne Bier Oscar winner 'In a Better World' director Susanne Bier Susanne Bier, whose In a Better World won the 2011 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, is seen above on the 83rd Academy Awards' Red Carpet, just outside the Kodak Theatre. The other 2011 Oscar nominees in the Best Foreign Language Film category were: Rachid Bouchareb's Outside the Law / Hors-la-loi (Algeria). Alejandro González Iñárritu's Biutiful (Mexico). Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth (Greece). Denis Villeneuve's Incendies (Canada). As in previous years, several international favorites were left out of the 2011 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar competition. Among these were the following: Xavier Beauvois' French Academy César winner Of Gods and Men / Des hommes et des dieux (France). Semih Kaplanoglu's 2010 Berlin Film Festival winner Bal / Honey (Turkey). Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 2010 Cannes Film Festival winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives / Loong Boonmee raleuk chat (Thailand). Prior to In a Better World,...

Sometimes a really good movie will sneak into theaters with no fanfare or advance screenings. Disconnect played basically unannounced at one theater for a week earlier this year and it’s one of my favorites so far. That also looks to be the case with The Inevitable Defeat Of Mister And Pete. Despite its clunky title, it’s currently sitting on an 88% over at Rotten Tomatoes and looks like something well worth seeking out. St. Louisans will have the chance as it opens here this weekend exclusively at The AMC West Olive and the Regal St. Louis Mills 18.

David Noh at Film Journal International wrote of The Inevitable Defeat Of Mister And Pete:

“There very well may not be a more moving, honest film this year. In their depiction of the hardscrabble existence of these underprivileged children, laced with mordant street humor, director George Tillman, Jr. and screenwriter Michael Starrbury...

Despite not being particularly popular at the moment, foreign films have always held a special place in cinema. Freed from the constraints often found in Hollywood, foreign language films tend to take more risks, deal with more complex topics, and often pay more attention to the human element than English language productions. Despite many people being wary of foreign language films because of subtitles, good movies are good movies regardless of what language they’re in.

The influence of some of the best foreign film directors permeates throughout Hollywood. George Lucas drew on the films of Akira Kurosawa while creating Star Wars, Woody Allen was heavily influenced by the films of Ingmar Bergman, and the examples of other directors inspired by foreign cinema are endless.

The following directors not only made great films that have stood the test of time, but they are also incredibly influential on modern films in...

“You are not a director,” actor-director Vittorio De Sica once said, “until you have directed a child.” De Sica had proved himself memorable in this area with three of his post-war Italian neo-realist films, The Children Are Watching Us (1944), Bicycle Thief (1948) and Shoeshine (1946). Two other films that come immediately to mind for extraordinary child performances are Jackie Coogan in Charlie Chaplin’s first feature-length Tramp picture, The Kid (1921), and another Jackie—-Jackie Cooper in the powerful four-handkerchief 1931 King Vidor production co-starring ever-popular Wallace Beery as The Champ (available on DVD). Of course, Vidor had already distinguished himself…...

“You are not a director,” actor-director Vittorio De Sica once said, “until you have directed a child.” De Sica had proved himself memorable in this area with three of his post-war Italian neo-realist films, The Children Are Watching Us (1944), Bicycle Thief (1948) and Shoeshine (1946). Two other films that come immediately to mind for extraordinary child performances are Jackie Coogan in Charlie Chaplin’s first feature-length Tramp picture, The Kid (1921), and another Jackie—-Jackie Cooper in the powerful four-handkerchief 1931 King Vidor production co-starring ever-popular Wallace Beery as The Champ (available on DVD). Of course, Vidor had already distinguished himself with a touching child performance in his classic humanist drama of three years before, The Crowd, a silent picture I couldn’t recommend more highly (though it is currently not available on DVD).

Release Date: Oct. 11, 2011

Price: Blu-ray $34.95

Studio: Kino

Anita Ekberg is all smiles in Boccaccio '70

Four legendary Italian filmmakers direct some of Europe’s biggest stars in the landmark 1962 anthology comedy-drama film Boccaccio’70.

Mario Monicelli (Big Deal on Madonna Street), Federico Fellini (The Clowns) Luchino Visconti (Senso) and Vittorio De Sica (Shoeshine) direct Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg, Romy Schneider and many others through a quartet of titillating stories filled with unabashed eros. Modeled on Boccaccio’s Decameron, the four are comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy.

Monicelli’s “Renzo e Luciana” (cut out of the original American release) is a tale of young love and office politics in the big city. Fellini’s notorious “Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio” features Ekberg as a busty model in a milk advertisement whose image begins to haunt an aging prude. Visconti’s “Il Lavoro” stars Romy Schneider as...

Updated.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's newly restored Despair (1978) "was one of the hottest tickets in the Classics sidebar" in Cannes this year, notes Dennis Lim in his Los Angeles Times review of the new DVD out from Olive Films, which has also issued Fassbinder's I Only Want You to Love Me (1976). "The relative obscurity of Despair is surprising given its pedigree. It's based on a Vladimir Nabokov novel, adapted by Tom Stoppard, and starring the English actor Dirk Bogarde. Nabokov's story of a Russian émigré, written in the 30s, takes place in Prague. Fassbinder changed the setting to early-30s Berlin, teetering on the abyss of the Third Reich…. Despair is perhaps the most explicit elaboration of one of Fassbinder's recurring themes: the alienation of someone who not only 'stands outside himself,' as Hermann [Bogarde] puts it, but also wants to escape himself and indeed flee the trap of identity altogether.

In 1946, Italian director Vittorio De Sica (The Bicycle Thief) released his first major work Shoeshine, a neorealist film about two boys in Rome who get arrested for a crime they didn’t commit. The film is beautiful, deep and thought-provoking. It won an honorary Oscar the following year causing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create the Best Foreign Language Film category. This cinematic milestone is an absolute treasure and now yours to own on DVD.

Shoeshine follows friends Giuseppe (Finaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi), two young boys living in Rome shining shoes for money. They test-ride horses in their spare time and both have a dream of one day owning their own horse. They live life as mere peasants, hungry and dirty shining shoes day in and day out to feed themselves and to own day become owners of an equine. Their dream of owning...

The recipient of an honorary Academy Award and from Vittorio De Sica, director of The Bicycle Thief, Shoeshine is the heartbreaking tale of two brothers growing up on the street and sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit. Shoeshine stars Franco Interlenghi and Rinaldo Smordoni as the young shoe shining brothers Pasquale and Giuseppe. It's a beautiful film from an incredible director, and Entertainment One released it on DVD on May 17th. We've got one copy to giveaway, so if you want to win it, this could be your lucky day.

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A story of lost innocence in the rubble of post-World War II Rome, Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine isn’t short on heartbreaking moments, but one of the most heartbreaking doesn’t directly involve tragedy at all. Sitting in a courtroom late in the film, Rinaldo Smordoni, one of the two young shoeshine boys at the center of the film, looks away from his trial to a group of children watching it progress. Spotting a girl he’s sweet on, he shoots her a smile, and for just a moment, he looks like any untroubled kid his age. Then the ...

DVD Playhouse: May 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Blow Out (Criterion) Brian De Palma’s greatest Hitchcock homage, with a dash of Antonioni thrown in for good measure. John Travolta gives one of his best turns as a sound-effects engineer who unwittingly records a political assassination, then finds himself hunted by a ruthless hitman (John Lithgow, a memorably creepy psycho) after saving the life of the kindly, albeit dim-witted call girl (Nancy Allen, excellent) who was with the deceased. Terrific blend of suspense and very black humor, perhaps De Palma’s finest hour as an auteur. Beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Interviews with De Palma, Allen, cameraman Garrett Brown; Photo gallery; De Palma’s 1967 feature Murder a la Mod; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 2.0 surround.

Kes (Criterion) Ken Loach’s landmark 1970 film is both a heart-rending portrait of adolescence, and a pointed socio-political commentary on life in the North of England.

Kino Lorber is doing right by screen goddess Sophia Loren (Nine) with the upcoming release of three of her films on Blu-ray for the first time: The deliciously bawdy sex farce Marriage Italian Style (1964), the lovely comedy Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) and the melodrama Sunflower (1970) will make their high-definition debuts on May 3.

Sophia and Marcello love each other -- and we love them -- in Marriage Italian Style.

All are presented in their original Italian language with English subtitles and co-star that other gorgeous Italian screen legend of yesteryear, Marcello Mastroianni (8 1/2).

Marriage Italian Style Blu-ray and Sunflower Blu-ray each carry a list price of $29.95.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Blu-ray will be priced higher at $34.95, but it includes the feature-length documentary Vittorio D., a look at Yesterday’s director, the great Vittorio De Sica (Shoeshine).

Bonus features on the Blu-ray and DVD discs include trailers and stills galleries.

All of the films (including Vittorio D.

tuesday top ten returns! It's for the list-maker in me and the list-lover in you

The Cannes film festival wrapped this weekend (previous posts) and the most recent Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret in Their Eyes is still in the midst of a successful Us run. That Oscar winning Argentinian film came to us from director Juan Jose Campanella. It's his second film to be honored by the Academy (Son of the Bride was nominated ten years back). The Academy voters obviously like Campanella and in some ways he's a Hollywood guy. When he's not directing Argentinian Oscar hopefuls he spends time making Us television with episodes of Law & Order, House and 30 Rock under his belt.

So let's talk foreign-language auteurs. Who does Oscar love most?

[The film titles discussed in this article will link to Netflix pages -- if available -- should you be curious to see the films]

Best Director winners Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and Milos Forman

(Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

Please Note:...

Toronto -- Canadian distributor E1 Entertainment has gone for the sweet life by purchasing all North American rights to Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" as part of a library deal with International Media Films.

Toronto-based E1 Entertainment acquired the DVD, TV, digital and other rights to Fellini's classic 1960 film in time for a 50th anniversary special edition DVD release of "La Dolce Vita," and a theatrical re-release and a Blu-ray release, all in 2010.

Also included in the Italian film library deal is Vittorio De Sica's 1946 title "Shoe-Shine," and three early Luchino Visconti films, "Bellissima," "La Terra Trema" and "Ossessione."...

E1 Entertainment has acquired North American rights to director Federico Fellini's 1960 feature "La Dolce Vita," ("The Sweet Life") as well as other classic Italian films for North America, in a new deal with International Media Films.

A theatrical re-release for "La Dolce Vita" is planned for later this year.

Winner of an Oscar and the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the film follows the story of a passive journalist's week in Rome and a search for happiness and love that eludes him.

Other films included in the E1 deal are Vittorio De Sica's "Shoe-Shine" (1946) as well as Luchino Visconti's "Bellissima" (1951), "La Terra Trema" (1948), and "Ossessione" (1943).

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "La Dolce Vita"...