Waiting for Viggo

Dec 22, 2003

Everyone in the world can see The Return of the King now, except us Italians; the film has had a simultaneous worldwide release, except in Italy. According to the New York Times, this is because "in Italy moviegoing is not an ingrained holiday habit." Wrong! Italian cinemas are more packed at Christmas than any other time of year, although the focus is generally on family movies: Finding Nemo has only recently been released, and the annual Disney film is usually shown at Christmas, even if it was a summer release in the US.

Another holiday movie tradition is the stupid Italian comedy, in recent years dominated by comedians (to use the term loosely) Massimo Boldi and Christian de Sica (the sadly degenerate son of director Vittorio de Sica). These films usually exploit the previous summer's pop music hits, so an Indian theme this time around was predictable - Panjabi MC hit the Italian airwaves earlier this year. Mr. MC even did a tour of Italian TV shows, being interviewed by dim hosts and hostesses who pretended he spoke Italian (they didn't bother to provide a translator - maybe they didn't realize he speaks English?), and ended up looking far stupider than he did even when he had no clue what they were talking about.

Fortuitously for Boldi and de Sica, a recently-popular Italian comic troupe is called "I Fichi d'India." Neither they nor their name have anything to do with India; "Indian Figs" is the Italian name for the fruit of the prickly-pear cactus, which is popular in Italy, though maybe unknown in India. But any excuse will do to enlarge the cast and add to the stock of fatuous jokes. No doubt there are plenty of scantily-clad women in this one as well, though in the trailer they're mostly shown dancing. Why any of these women would want to have even movie sex with Massimo Boldi is beyond me.

My husband's theory is that "The Return of the King" is being delayed in Italy because the Italian distributors know very well that Italians love to go to the cinema at Christmas, and any good film would wipe the floor with this rubbish. So here we are, waiting for Viggo (and Orlando, of course) until January 22nd. Boldi and De Sica are no substitute.

Parents Beware

Inappropriate Ads in Cinemas

Dec 10, 2003

The other night we went to see "Alla Ricerca di Nemo," a children's movie whose original title I think you can figure out. Ross and I had already seen it in the States, but Enrico hadn't, and it was worth seeing again. The dubbing was very well done, even the difficult Ellen deGeneres character, and the many small children in the audience clearly enjoyed it.

The problem came before the movie started. In Italy, it's usual before a film starts to show product advertisements (often the same ads you see on TV), as well as upcoming movie trailers. That evening, the very first ad was for a video game: "True Crime: Streets of LA". In the US, this game is rated for ages 17 and over, as the trailer also should be - it's all about the violence. Another ad was for a local radio station, an arty black-and-white montage of scenes from everyday life, including a nearly R-rated one of a couple making love.

In the US this could never happen (trailers are carefully rated and shown appropriately), and if it did, there'd be a storm of protest and probably lawsuits for traumatizing the kids. There was no comment in the Italian cinema. Admittedly, most of the kids were still bouncing around and making too much noise to even notice the first ad. Maybe Italian parents are used to this kind of thing and that's why they don't make their kids settle down when the ads begin (plus, given chronic Italian lateness, people are still bustling into the cinema during the trailers).

This reminds me of a similar incident from my childhood in Bangkok. I was going to see a kids' movie, but the trailer was for one of those cannibal horror movies, and showed all the worst scenes - people's guts being torn out and eaten etc. As you may recall, I am a complete wimp at movies, so this remained seared into my consciousness for years.