February
25, 26, 27, 28
TRUE
GRIT
This
Coen brothers’ movie has all the hallmarks of greatness that we can expect from
the most consistently excellent directing team in American cinema. It is the
story of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) and her search for the
murderer of her father with U.S Marshall ‘Rooster’ Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and
Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) in 1870s Arkansas. This is the second
adaptation of Charles Portis’ criminally underrated satirical Western adventure
story, one that puts back the grit that was missing from the first version.
‘The original “True Grit” might have been eclipsed by John Wayne’s
larger-than-life persona, but the Coen brothers’ remake is an ensemble piece
that feels freshly their own’ (USA Today).
‘This is a film by the Coen brothers, and this is the first straight genre
exercise in their career. It’s a loving one. Their craftsmanship is a wonder.
Their casting is always inspired and exact. The cinematography by Roger Deakins
reminds us of the glory that was, and can still be, the Western’ (Roger Ebert).
Odeon Original Sound, Piazza
Strozzi, 2 – tel.
055/214068. www.odeon.intoscana.it
March
1, 2
THE
KING’S SPEECH
The
story of the shy, retiring, stammering ‘Bertie,’ Duke of York (Colin Firth),
later, unexpectedly after the scandalous abdication of his elder brother, King
George VI, is one that has gripped the world. The engagement of an unorthodox
Australian speech therapist enables Bertie to overcome his most debilitating
limitation, and side by side with his consort Elizabeth provide the symbolic
leadership the country most needed in the dark years of World War II. ‘No
screen portrait of a king has ever been more stirring-heartbreaking at first,
then stirring. That’s partly due to the screenplay, which contains two of the
best-written roles in recent memory, and to Mr. Hooper’s superb direction’ (Wall
Street Journal). ‘Obvious, though, is the word for
Hopper’s direction. It amplifies to rock-concert level every pained plosive in
Bertie’s speech, forces certain characters dangerously close to caricature’ (Time).
Odeon Original Sound, Piazza
Strozzi, 2 – tel.
055/214068. www.odeon.intoscana.it
March
3
LOVE
AND OTHER DRUGS
Edward
Zwick’s movie takes on the American pharmaceutical industry and at the same
time sets it in the frame of a romantic comedy of sorts. Jake Gyllenhaal and
Anne Hathaway bare all in this 1990s set reworking of Love Story, with Viagra
and early on-set Parkinson’s having opposite effects on their libidos. ‘Two
very good looking people play two offbeat and abrasively charming lovers in
Love and Other Drugs. And when your screen romance is as sexual as this one, it
helps if your stars are about as good looking with their clothes off as human
beings get’ (Orlando Sentinel). ‘Porno plus Parkinson’s don’t quite add up to
sexy fun’ (New York Post).
Odeon Original Sound, Piazza
Strozzi, 2 – tel.
055/214068. www.odeon.intoscana.it
March
8
MADE IN
DAGENHAM
In
1968, women working at the Ford Dagenham car plant went out on strike in
protest against pay differentials on the basis of gender. Such protests against
sexual discrimination in the workplace were new and Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls,
Saving Grace) directs this movie to highlight the courage and dignity of the
protesters and dramatise the conflict their action causes in that turbulent
year. ‘There could hardly be anything more exotic and unfamiliar in mainstream
commercial cinema than the story of a successful strike. But this is what
screenwriter Billy Ivory and director Nigel Cole give us with their broad,
primary-coloured, good-humoured comedy’ (The Guardian).
Odeon Original Sound, Piazza
Strozzi, 2 – tel.
055/214068. www.odeon.intoscana.it
March 9
THE KIDS
ARE ALL RIGHT
Nic
(Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a couple whose children share a
common biological father, an unknown sperm donor. In their teens, the
half-siblings decide to trace their father and bring him into their lives, not
without misgivings on the part of their respective mothers. ‘Lisa Cholodenko’s
sparkling picture is an easygoing comedy of emotional difficulty, a witty portrait
of postmodern family life in which script, casting, direction and location all
just float together without any apparent effort at all’ (The Guardian). ‘It is outrageously funny without ever exaggerating for comic effect,
and heartbreaking with only minimal melodramatic embellishment’ (New York
Times). ‘There are not only glancing moments but whole sequences in this movie
when the agony of social embarrassment makes you want to haul the characters to
their feet and slap them in the chops’ (New Yorker).
Odeon Original Sound, Piazza
Strozzi, 2 – tel.
055/214068. www.odeon.intoscana.it
March 2, 8pm
FORBIDDEN PLANET
The best of
the science-fiction interstellar productions of the 50s lifted its plot and
atmosphere from Shakespeare: the magical island of The Tempest becomes the
planet Altair-4, where the sky is green and the sand is pink and there are two
moons. The magician Prospero becomes the mad scientist Morbius; Prospero’s
daughter Miranda, who knows no man except her father, is Altaira; and (though
this is less clear) the sprite Ariel becomes Robby, the friendly robot. Caliban
has become a marvellously flamboyant monster out of Freud-pure id.’ (Pauline
Kael).
The British Institute, Lungarno
Guicciardini, 9 – tel. 055/267781. www.britishinstitute.it
March
9, 8pm
MRS
DALLOWAY
Marleen
Gorris directs this adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel, about the course of a
single June day in 1923, when Clarissa Dalloway (Vanessa Redgrave), a
fashionable ‘perfect hostess’ in her early 50s, confronts the decisions she
made as a young woman 30 years before: whether it was right to have chosen a
safe, comfortable marriage to successful politician Richard Dalloway over the more
romantic and adventurous life she could have had with her other suitor, Peter
Walsh, who unexpectedly returns from India on this day of all days. ‘As potent
as one of Beethoven’s last string quartets, Mrs Dalloway becomes a
heartbreaking meditation on the evanescence of all things’ (Slate Magazine).
The British
Institute, Lungarno Guicciardini, 9 – tel.
055/267781. www.britishinstitute.it
