Odeon Original Sound
Piazza Strozzi 2
tel. 055/214068
*For showtimes see events listing
June 17, 18, 19, 21
BRONSON
An almost unrecognisable Tom Hardy plays Britain’s
most notorious criminal, Michael Petersen (aka Charles Bronson) in
Danish-American director Nicolas Winding Refn’s ultra-violent 2008 biopic. The
psychotic bank robber’s bizarre and extreme antisocial behaviour while
incarcerated is the subject of this nonjudgmental exposé of very bad behaviour.
‘Bronson invites you to admire its protagonist as a pure, muscular embodiment
of anarchy. And perhaps you will, but you may also be glad that he’s still
behind bars’ (The New York
Times). ‘Despite the
artistic flourishes, this is still an utterly repellent look at a psychopath
who does not deserve the attention of the filmmakers or the audience’ (Hollywood Reporter).
June 20
PAUL
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) join forces again, this time with an alien in tow.
This mad road movie of sorts has the two Brits helping Paul, the fugitive alien
(voiced by Seth Rogen), to get back to his mother ship in a pursuit across the
weirder, wilder deserted parts of the United States. ‘Affectionate, funny and
action-packed sci-fi spoof’ (Hollywood
Reporter). ‘Here’s a
movie that teeters on the edge of being really pretty good and loses its way’
(Roger Ebert). ‘While Paul seems great conceptually, he’s not particularly
interesting or surprising’ (The New York
Times). ‘Feels at
once secondhand in its eagerness and unknowing in its scorn’ (New Yorker).
June 23
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS
Prequel. The backstory: before arch enemies Charles
Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two
young men discovering their powers for the first time, working together with
other mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world
has ever known. But a rift between them opens and so begins the eternal war
between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men. ‘After undergoing some
unfortunate mutations in recent years, a beleaguered Marvel movie property gets
the smart, stylish prequel it deserves in X-Men: First Class’ (Variety).
‘All you’d expect from an X-Men film (or spin-off, or prequel), but not all
you’d hope for. It smacks of rush and compromise, but there’s thankfully enough
to make you feel optimistic about the series’ future once more’ (Empire).
June 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30
MICHEL PETRUCCIANI-BODY & SOUL
Shown in the Out of Competition (Special Screening)
section of the Cannes Film Festival, this documentary by Michael Radford (Il
Postino, 1984) presents
the life of the French jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani, afflicted from birth by
brittle-bone disease. Radford uses interviews, archive film footage and
photographs in an attempt to discover how grievous disability is transformed
into inspiring ability, how creativity and talent can emerge from the worst of
circumstances. ‘What emerges, not least from footage of the man himself, is
that Petrucciani was a hugely charismatic and ebullient character’ (Screen Daily).‘A soulful portrait of an artist who allowed nothing
to stand in the way of his embrace of life and his huge talent’ (Hollywood Reporter). Not only for jazz fans.
The British
Institute
Lungarno
Guicciardini 9
tel. 055/267781
http://www.britishinstitute.it
Nicolas Roeg Retrospective
Wed, June 22, 8pm
ARIA
Nicolas Roeg’s contribution to this portmanteau opera
film is a 14-minute sequence (the first and longest in the movie) featuring his
wife as King Zog. It tells of the 1931 assassination attempt on the king of
Albania in Vienna. Accompanying the fictionalised narrative is an edited
extract from Un ballo in
maschera by Giuseppe
Verdi, fragmented and disjointed to accommodate Roeg’s typical visual style.
Wordless throughout, the narrative is carried by its visuals, while the Verdian
melodrama heightens emotions-as it should. The other directors are Charles
Sturridge, Jean-Luc Godard, Julien Temple, Bruce Beresford, Robert Altman,
Franc Roddam, Ken Russell, Derek Jarman and Bill Bryden, featuring music by
Verdi, Lully, Korngold, Rameau, Wagner, Puccini, Charpentier and Leoncavallo.
