Movie Review: The Great Beauty (aka La Grande Bellezza) (2013)

The Great Beauty(La Grande Bellazza) is an Italian film centered around the character Jep Gambardella(Toni Servillo), a journalist who is among Rome's social elite class.  Jep has turned 65 years old and the movie shows his interactions and his view of life after his birthday.

Toni Servillo as Jep is brilliant in this film.  He needs to be as this is all about hi as Jep and the way he navigates his life in Rome.  The film starts at Jep's 65th birthday and it's quite the party.  The beautiful people of Rome's social elite are there and it's a wild time filled with music and dancing.  This is where we start to see Jep pondering life.  Jep is in the social elite, not because he is a journalist, but because of a novel he wrote.  As the movie progresses, we see Jep's character progress and his sharp wit is on display when he grows tired of the elitism displayed by some of his counterparts.  I also really enjoyed when Jep decided to bring an unlikely someone into his inner circle.  The choice had some ramifications on his own psyche.  Again, Toni Servillo is brilliant.

The Great Beauty is directed by Paolo Sorrentino and you can see this is his homage to Federico Fellini.  The way Sorrentino was able to navigate through all of these lives but keeping Jep the central focus was wonderful.  I took notice in the focus on faces.  There were scenes of people at parties and we were treated with the focus on their faces which visually told you what was going on.  The film takes place in Rome so the backdrop to every shot had exquisite beauty.  Thhe Great Beauty was truly a pleasure to view.

I received this film in the Boxwalla Movie Subscription Box.  You can read my box review at HelloSubscription.com.

Movie Review: Guns, Girls and Gambling (2012)

A Native American artifact is stolen from an Apache casino and now a quirky bunch of Elvis impersonators, crooked cops, blonde haired women, guns for hire and more are on the hunt for it.

I love a good heist movie and I even like a bad one if the story is goofy enough.  This falls into the latter.  There are actually quite a few decent actors in this film and it was cool to see them working together.  Christian Slater totally fits the role as the main character, John Smith, who gets wrapped up in all the silliness that is a movie about Elvis impersonators hunting down a Native American mask.

As in all heist movies, there are twists and turns that I won't get into here, but they do keep you entertained.  At times it looks like things start looking up for John Smith, and then something happens(usually a hit to the face).  Slater's portrayal as the main character was extremely fun and kept the movie going.  His part made me think of his roles from the late 80s/early 90s where his career was at it's peak.

The person who shares a lot of time with Slater is "The Girl Next Door," played by Megan Park.  There was excellent chemistry between the two of them on screen making her a surprise of the film.


If you can get past the first five minutes, you should be fine the rest of the way with this film.  Although I felt most people played their parts the way they were intended, I did not like Helena Mattsson's line delivery.  She's an absolutely gorgeous assassin who quotes Edgar Allen Poe poetry before she shoots people.  Problem is, she doesn't sound confident doing it.  I'm assuming she was going for sensual but there's a crack or something else off in her delivery and it just comes off poorly.

The Elvis impersonators are great with Chris Kattan as "Gay Elvis," Anthony Brandon Wong as "Asian Elvis," Tony Cox as "Midget Elvis"- I mean "Little Person Elvis," and Gary Oldman as "Elvis Elvis."

Powers Booth is "The Rancher" and has a very Boss Hog look going for him.  Dane Cook and Sam Trammell are the Sheriffs.  The film even has Jeff Fahey and Matthew Willig as hit-men with cool nicknames.

Overall, I think that Michael Winnick as writer/director put together an okay film.  It was a lot of fun with cheesy over the top action and goofy lines.  It was definitely better than I expected.

On a scale of up to 5, I'm giving "Guns, Girls and Gambling" 3 Pile Drivers.

You can read more of my reviews here on Cinema Head Cheese and also please check out my blogs, reviews and podcasts on http://maskerpiecetheatre.blogspot.com/

Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Movie Review: The Zero Theorem (2013)

Qohen Leth(Christoph Waltz) is a talented computer operator in a futuristic world.  Qohen lives a very isolated life and it's due to his faith that he will be receiving a phone call.  He doesn't know when, so he has centered his life around working and waiting for the phone call.

Qohen is put on a project by Management(Matt Damon) to prove the Zero Theorem.  Proof that at if the universe ends, there truly is nothing.  The film explores the faith of people and what drives them.  It is explored wonderfully as you see Qohen giving up on experiences that would make him a happier person, but he needs to know what that phone call is.

The visuals in director Terry Gilliam's film help push the faith drive.  Qohen lives in an abandoned church with eyes on him at all time, much how people feel with religion.  The biggest visual metaphor would be the giant crucifix with Jesus' head removed and replaced with a camera.

The pace of the movie wasn't the fastest but overall I didn't get bored watching, especially with Christoph Waltz in the lead role.  Watching him deal with love, friendship, trying new foods and the like felt very organic.  Melanie Thierry as Bainsley was a delight to watch as well as her relationship with Qohen was played out incredibly well.  Lucas Hedges as Bob started off as someone I really did not like, but he turned out to be the most reasonable voice of the film.