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Join us at the Egyptian and Aero Theatres for our annual celebration of Italian cinema, opening with Italy's official Oscar submission for Best Foreign-Language Film, Paolo Sorrentino's dazzling THE GREAT BEAUTY, a look at the bewitching power of Rome and a writer caught up in it. That film's star, Toni Servillo, also appears in a dual role as a po...

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I first discovered the cinema of Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino in 2008 when I saw "Il Divo" at Cannes, which stars the incandescent Toni Servillo as former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. Even though the biopic did a deep dive into decades of arcane Machiavellian politics in Italy, the movie was utterly accessible because Servillo carried you th...

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"The Great Beauty," won at the 71st Annual Golden Globes for Best Foreign movie. The Italian movie beat France's "Blue is the Warmest Color," Demark's "The Hunt," Iran's "The Past," and Japan's "The Wind Raises."   "The Great Beauty," was directed by Paolo Sorrentino and starred Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso...

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"And the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film goes to... Paolo Sorrentino, La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty)."   Not everyone has the opportunity to sit and watch the Oscars as their mentor (and colleague) wins an award. Stage 32 member Andrea Lodovichetti had that opportunity last week when Director Paolo Sorrentino stepped on stage to...

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The Sedona International Film Festival looks to bring a celebrated foreign film nominated for an Academy Award this year to Flagstaff as part of its monthly independent film series.   "The Great Beauty" will screen 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Harkins Flagstaff 11 Theatres. Tickets are $12, $9 for film festival members, $6 for full-time students a...

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Italian cinema is hot right now with Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and grossing a cool $2.8 million in the United States, good for No. 9 on the Italian-language box-office list. So it's the perfect time to brush up on some of the latest Italian movies at the 2014 Atlanta Film Festival, which wi...

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Jep Gambardella, the aging Roman journalist played by the great Toni Servillo in Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's tour de force "The Great Beauty," tells us that when he was young his friends always had the same answer to the big question: "pussy." His answer was different: "The smell of old people's houses." The question was, "What do you value...

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Italian cinema had a real shot to the arm recently with the triumphant Oscar win of Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza, a beautiful and bittersweet portrait of the lives of the Roman upper crust.   This film, however, is not the first time that Director Sorrentino and Actor Servillo have worked together. In honor of their magical partnership, t...

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By Neal Dhand "La Dolce Vita is a masterpiece. La Grande Bellezza is only a movie," insists Paolo Sorrentino. He's talking, of course, about the current comparisons between Federico Fellini's indisputable classic from 1960 and his recent film, "The Great Beauty," which premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.   Sorrentino is, of course,...

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By Mauro Battocchi   In the eyes of San Franciscan cinema fans who took part in the closing night of the New Italian Cinema Festival of San Francisco ("NICE"), the protagonist of "The Great Beauty" Jep Gambardella (alias Tony Servillo), has probably become a new Italian icon.   He symbolizes Italy's current transition from its "Dolce...

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