For showtimes, see the events listing.
Odeon
Piazza
Strozzi, 2
tel.
055/295051
www.cinehall.it, www.odeon.intoscana.it
For movie listings from March 23
to 29, see the Odeon website at www.odeon.intoscana.it.
YOUNG ADULT
March 15, 16, 17
Soon after her divorce, a fiction writer returns home to small-town
Minnesota, looking to rekindle a romance with her ex-boyfriend, who is now
happily married and has a newborn daughter. Screenwriting phenomenon Diablo
Cody’s latest effort. ‘Shorter than a bad blind date and as sour as a vinegar,
Popsicle, Young Adult shrouds its brilliant, brave and breathtakingly cynical
heart in the superficial blandness of commercial comedy’ (New York Times). ‘A dark comedy that confirms Diablo Cody as a
screenwriter of importance, eliminates the last shred of doubt that Jason
Reitman is a major director and gives Charlize Theron her best showcase since
“Monster”‘ (San Francisco Chronicle).
‘By turns amusing and annoying, Young Adult could be the flip side, plus the
sequel, of “Juno”‘ (Time).
THE DOUBLE
March 19, 20
A retired CIA operative is paired with a young FBI agent to unravel the
mystery of a senator’s murder, with all signs pointing to a Soviet assassin.
‘While there’s the sense that this old guy/young guy spy angle has been done
better by films like “Spy Game” a decade ago, [Richard] Gere, never looking
tougher or handsomer, and [Topher] Grace, adding some action skills to his
relatively cerebral persona, invigorate the proceedings in roles that would
seem to benefit the actors’ career arcs’ (Variety).
‘Rarely has Mr. Gere walked through any movie with so little energy and so much
indifference. I’ve seen more fervor on the face of a man parking a car’ (New York Observer). ‘A barely warm dish
of Cold War leftovers that shows its hand too early, then works itself into an
increasingly implausible tangle of knotty plot developments without ever
mustering much intensity’ (Hollywood
Reporter).
GIRL MODEL
March 20
‘Opening with unsettling images of girls looking like concentration-camp
survivors in cheap swimsuits, this quietly effective lo-fi doc explores the
trafficking of Russian teens to the Japanese modelling meat market. But
although the journey of 13-year-old Nadya is quietly heartbreaking, the real
core is an intriguing character study. Once a teen model, now a conflicted
adult, Ashley Arbaugh scouts girls for the same exploited existence (revealed
in video diaries) she endured in her youth. The filmmakers stay back,
observing, for a restrained, intimate and poignant result’ (Total Film).
The British Institute
Lungarno Guicciardini, 9
tel. 055/267781
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
March 21
‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a
far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.’ ‘[Ralph] Thomas’s
film adaptation is by no means understated filmmaking. His montage of rampaging
mobs sacking the city in the midst of the French Revolution is typically
hysterical, down to the frenzied, garish expressions of the peasants
superimposed on all of that melee. But his filmmaking is also unabashedly
button-pushing, as when he sketches the cruel dichotomy between the smug,
aloof, uncaring aristocrats with the squalid life of the peasants who are caked
in filth, wear tattered clothes, and when a wine barrel spills open in the
middle of their street, scramble to drink the mess as it flows into the gutters’
(Turner Classic Movies). ‘Seems to suffer by comparison with earlier Dickens
adaptations by David Lean. However, this does not make A Tale of Two Cities a
bad film. It is certainly a faithful adaptation…’ (BFI screenonline).
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
March 28
‘Great Expectations (1946) was the first of David Lean’s two adaptations
of Dickens classics (Oliver Twist followed in 1948). Lean realised the
cinematic potential of the novel more skilfully than his predecessors and most
of those that followed him. The result is one of the finest British literary
adaptations, and one of the most acclaimed of all British films’ (BFI
screenonline). ‘David Lean’s black-and-white masterpiece may be a whirlwind
tour of Dickens’ novel, but what a well-performed, economic and atmospheric
tour it is, and one that manages in two hours to capture much of the
chronological and emotional sweep of a 525-page novel’ (Time Out). ‘Lean also lands the distinctly British elements of the
story-class distrust, unspoken love-bang on target. But it’s the director’s
skill at combining a rollicking pace, atmospheric cinematography, and
characters that you really care for that makes this one of the most definitive
Dickens movies on screen’ (BBCi Films).
