Bianco, rosso e Verdone - 1981

 

The story of a voting day in Italy, meaning the stories of three different men who travel to  get to their right place of voting (since of course you can’t vote wherever you are but you must go to the place that has your name written down, your town of residence even if you’re not living there now).

It’s a funny movie, to appreciate the most famous characters portrayed by actor and director Verdone, but it’s never been clear to me why he ended the movie with a death… to bring us to reality, maybe, and to remind us that amidst all the comedy there is also much serious satire… maybe.

 - Pasquale lives in Monaco, Germany now, and comes back to Italy to vote, but as soon as he’s inside our borders things start going badly for him, bringing it home for him how really different this place is - and not in a good way.

 - Furio is totally satisfied with his life, and with the way he himself is, and sees nothing wrong with his behaviour at all. He is so maniacally precise to the point of madness, and his wife is there already, poor woman.

 - Mimmo is a kid in a grown-up’s body, more or less. He goes up north to collect his grandmother and drive her all the way back so she can vote.

So:

Pasquale lives with his German girlfriend who doesn’t seem to mind that he never speaks but likes to whistle a lot. He drives to Matera to vote.

He stops just inside our borders to drink something, and it’s enough time for someone to steal his radio. 

He stops the car for some hitchhikers, but they’re quite choosey, and after a look inside they change their mind.

He stops for a sandwich but eats a lollypop instead after seeing a young girl eating it. Then he sees other things he’d like and he buys a lot, but when he goes back to his car, someone stole all his stuff.

He stops to play football with some strangers.

He stopped to eat and finds his car without front glass and seat.

Pasquale hands in his vote and then for the first time he speaks, very fast and angrily, telling the people there everything that happened to him since he entered Italy. He’s barely understandable, and then he goes out, supposedly to hurry back to Germany, already fed up with Italy.

Furio is married to Magda and they have two sons, and they drive to Rome. She’d really like to stay home, and have a bit of time to herself, but he won’t hear of it, he insists she goes too.

She can’t stand it anymore. “Non ce la faccio più” is her most frequent phrase.

He refuses to let his sons AntonLuca and AntonGiulio use the public toilets. It’s not that easy for Magda, being a woman she insists she needs to go to the bathroom and goes anyway but he openly judges her.

He gave her a list of all the things to bring and she forgot just a silly thing. She sneaks into bathrooms to vent her frustrations, and into bars to get her pills to go on.

They need to change a tyre, but instead of doing it himself, Furio calls for ACI Support because he says that he’s a member and it is his right to demand it. Raul saw Magda at their last stop and was quite taken with her, and now he insists on changing the tyre for her despite all her protests. Furio is not ok with that at all and blames her for this ‘big trouble’. So he changes the tyre again to wait for ACI to arrive. She can’t stand it anymore.

Furio has an accident that involves many cars. The doctor wants to keep him for a few hours so she checks into a hotel with her sons. Raul goes too, into his own room.

Raul keeps pursuing Magda, she does her best to resist and sleeps with her sons instead. He keeps following her and when they finally reach their destination and Furio comes out after voting, he finds the boys alone without her.

Mimmo drove from Rome to Verona to get his grandma, she was there with her daughter, Mimmo’s mum’s sister. Mimmo comes to get her to drive her back home. He has a lot to deal with, he helps her put on her stockings and must remember to give her her medicines. They also stop the car for an injection, but a truck driver stops as well seeing the scene, and helps, He’s good at that. Then she insists of a detour to visits a cemetery, but she can’t remember the name of the person she wanted to visit.

He always speaks really loudly. They stop to eat and sit with a Russian family and Mimmo gives the girl his phone number because grandma insisted.

He checks everything she eats or drinks because mindful of her health.

He stops at the same hotel Magda is staying at, for a toilet-stop.

They finally reach their destination, and grandma finally gets to vote, but then she is found dead inside the cabin. Mimmo screams but nobody seems to share his distress or to offer any kind of comfort, and he runs out crying.

Pasquale, Furio and Mimmo - Carlo Verdone

Sono pazzo di Iris Blond - 1996

 Romeo is in a pop band with his girlfriend and his best friend, then they break up because the other two get together.

A year later Romeo speaks to the Saint, a woman who sees everything and knows everything, and she tells him that his life is about to change, that he will meet a woman whose name is a flower, and will find love and money and happiness.

While working - he plays the piano - he meets Marguerite, who sings, and six months later they’re still together in Bruxelles. He’s not happy though, and goes out at night to eat at a fast-food, and meets the waitress, Iris. 

He meets her again and starts with the lies - he says his partner is a 27 year-old fashion photographer,Sylvie.

She writes small poems, so he tells her they should turn them into songs and record them. Marguerite follows him and sees them together, so they break up and he goes to stay at Iris’ place.They decide to focus on their work, and Iris tells him they must never sleep together so not to ruin their partnership. They practice a lot and make a few song, and find a job playing at some club in town, and they are much liked.

A producer sees them and makes a big offer to Iris, but only her. She’s 25, and it’s a great offer, but they don’t want Romeo because they say he’s demodè, they want a younger image for her.

Iris gets home and they make love, she waits to tell him the news til the morning. Romeo tells her he’s in love with her, and then she tells him her news. Romeo is so angry, he yells at her saying things very very hurtful, calling her names, bad words, making her cry, wanting back all the money he paid for her home and their job, until she goes to stay with her father… or so she says. Romeo is exactly her father’s age.

Iris takes the train to Paris, wants him to go with her, but he’s still angry, talks to her like a scolding father, then he asks her not to go. 

Of course she goes anyway.

It ends with Romeo playing in the club, without her.

Romeo - Carlo Verdone

Iris- Claudia Gerini

Borotalco - 1982

 It starts with showing Sergio and Nadia preparing themselves to go out (first shot is at his feet being washed and dried). Only Sergio is with Rossella, while Nadia is with a guy that doesn’t want her to find a job for herself.

Both Sergio and Nadia show up for the same job. They both go door to door selling contracts, she does really well, he doesn’t. When he learns how good she is, he asks her to help him, to show him how it’s done. 

She was supposed to speak with Mr Fantoni, to sell him a contract, so he goes there to meet her, but after a long wait she still isn’t there, so he goes in by himself. Nadia was busy buying tickets for Dalla’s concert. 

Sergio enters his apartment and there’s a woman who for no reason whatsoever has him see her in the nude, completely, front and back.

Sergio and Manuel talk a lot, then the guy is arrested, his real name is Cuticchia, so Sergio is left there to tidy up and leave. Sergio takes a look around, tries on some of his clothes, tries to talk like him. When Nadia arrives, Sergio continues the charade, pretending to be Manuel Fantoni. 

Later he tries to break things up, inventing a trip abroad, but he likes her so he goes to her house intending to come clean and tell her everything, but there are all her friends so he goes back to be Manuel, but runs away when his girlfriend comes looking for Sergio.

He keeps seeing her as Manuel, inventing lots of stories of things he’s done, places he’s been, people he’s met. He even pretends to know Lucio Dalla, so he pretends his bike is broken to make her miss the concert. He keeps up the pretence, and when they get there, he leaves her new song in his roulotte.

He visits Manuel in prison for advice, and has permission to take her to his house. He does, but tired of waiting for Sergio to show up, Rossella’s father went to his friend Marcello and got the truth out of him, so he barged into the apartment, revealing everything. Nadia goes out and cries while driving, so she has an accident. Sergio goes to the hospital, but she never wants to see him again.

Nadia marries Cristiano, they open a bar together. Sergio marries Rossella, and now they have a baby boy together. 

Nadia calls Sergio under another name, to see him again and talk, and then they kiss.

Sergio - Carlo Verdone 

All the other actors are known, but I don’t remember their name and Italian movies do not have the cast in the ending credits. Absurd, I know.

Ah, Marcello is Christian De Sica, and for whatever reason he spoke with an unnatural accent, as if he was Sicilian or something.

Compagni di scuola - 1988

 Not really funny, no, it’s more bitter than funny. Not a bad movie per se, it’s not, but it’s not for me, I never want to see it again. It’s the story that I don’t like. It’s about a group of people and what became of them. They were in school together and after 15 years they meet again.

All these people have their own problems, no doubt, but I can’t stand that nobody of these grown up took care of the teenage girl that joined their group, and left her alone with a man that took advantage of her, and nobody really seemed to care. A woman does, a bit, and takes her home, but nobody seems to care about what happened to her. No, it’s the film that doesn’t care about her, that treats her like an object needed to talk about the man.

 

It starts from Federica, who sent everyone an invitation, she wanted to have a party and see her old friends, of a time when life was easier. All her classmates came but 4 because one died, one refused and for the other two the reason is not known. 

-

• Piero Ruffolo, called Potato from his mates, seems almost ashamed of being a high-school teacher. He is always nervous, appears scared by the world, in a way, and is not surprising that he fell in love with one of his students. He is weak, clumsy and submissive. He went to the wrong party first and let the lady of the house take all the bottle he brought, then tries to steal a plant but is caught.  When Valenzani tells him to go and get the girl, take her to the party, he never questions it, he does it. He is married to a woman that he finds vulgar and annoying, with a son that he doesn’t even know, always with his mother. He can’t stand that situation, but he would have usually been too scared to do anything about it . After talking to MariaRita and also a waiter in his same situation, who wishes he had divorced many years before, he leaves the party to break things up with his family.  His wife’s father tries to patch things up between them, but has a hard time containing his crazy daughter and there’s little nothing he can do. When Piero gets back to the party and sees Cristina crying, at first he tries to beat up Valenzani, but then he refuses to talk to her. Maybe he was jealout that someone touched her when he never did, which shows that he’s a sh*t person somewhere inside, because she didn’t cheat, didn’t want it, she’s the victim here but nobody seems to realise that. When Cristina gets a ride home, Piero realises she’s going away and suddenly he’s all over her again, wants to see her again, maybe because he’s in love or maybe because after leaving his family she’s the only thing he had left.
• Federica Polidori is their host, a beautiful, elegant woman living in a beautiful villa. She calls herself a kept woman, for a long time it seems that the sixth man among the richest in Italy paid for everything for her. She does not look happy, and at the end she admits she’s been evicted and has nothing left. She’ll go stay with Gloria, a classmate who offers to take her in.
• Ciardulli has always been a bit of a clown, and he plans to scare them all with a fake robbery but the politician’s bodyguards beat him up. He went into show-business, but at the moment is full of debts. He tries poker, but his classmates win. He refuses to pay because he has no money and instead asks them for some, even going round on his knees. Still, he’s also always ready to help, like when they need to carry the wheelchair upstairs or when Piero’s car is broken. He’s the only one that tries to help him with it.
• Walter Finocchiaro arrives driving an expensive red car. He’s loud and blunt. He drives a mate away, Fabris, with his constant mocking of him. Much later he complains that the money he had with him is gone, someone in there stole it, but then re stays for the rest of the party.
• Valenzani went into politics, he’s an undersecretary, and is used to people trying to ask him for favours, as he is used to getting whatever he wants, whatever the cost. He acts like a big man but he’s nothing more than a criminal with a drug problem. He takes advantage of a high-school student and then goes away.
• Valeria Donati and Luca Guglielmi- She comes with a friend. She’s angry at her soon-to-be ex-husband and almost leaves when she sees him at the party, she says she never wants to see him again, and spends the first half of the party avoiding him. Postiglione keeps talking to her though, and eventually she can’t listen to him anymore and prefers Luca’s company. He talks to her all night trying to win her back, and eventually they kiss and he’ll take her home on his bike.
• Maria Rita is a psychologist, a therapist, and therefore everyone tends to talk to her about their business. She listens to people all night, then after a bit of drinking she snaps at Piero that nobody ever wants to listen to her, but later apologises. She takes Cristina home.
• Lepore and Santolamazza, they prank the others all night. Lepore tells them that Lino Santolamazza had an accident, that all his family died and he was badly injured and on a wheelchair. We see quite early that they laugh about it together. They go on with it all night, planning for a big scene at the end, when he would scream of a miracle that he can walk again, but Ciardulli sees him and understands it was all a lie, so he ties his wheelchair to the catering van, about to leave. Lino gets hurt and everybody learns the truth.
• Piermaria Fabris apparently changed a lot since his school days. He appears to be a friendly and kind man, brings flowers for their host and is happy to meet his old friends, but quite soon he gets fed up with their mocking and the fact that nobody recognises him and nobody has a friendly word for him, and goes away.
• Postiglione is so boring, talks so much that they all avoid him. He talks incessantly to anyone he can grasp, literally, until they put something in his wine and he spends the rest of the night sleeping on a couch.
• Gloria arrives with a baby boy that she could not leave at home. She is not married and does not want to talk of the baby’s father. She loves her child and is friendly with anyone, and when she learns that Federica doesn’t have a house anymore, promptly offers her to live together for a while, until she’s settled.
• Jolanda drives Valeria to the party, and is totally on her side against Luca. She’s outgoing and self-confident, and a bit annoyed when Valeria stays with Luca at the end. Jolanda gets stuck with Lino more than once, the two pranksters (lets call them that…) have her spoon-feed him, and then move his chair around to dance. 
• Margherita is married to a man from the south, a Carabinieri captain, who will come get her at midnight. She spends the whole night with Toscani, they talk, they dance, he keeps flirting with her. At 2350 her husband arrives and he says that the man came ten minutes early. She replies that it’s him that arrived 15 years too late, and then kisses him before going out. Later we see that he finally found the earring (or whatever it was) that she lost, and smiles. Either because he’s thinking of her, or because he’s planning to see her again, maybe using the earring as an excuse
• Gioia is the female clown of the class, always making the others laugh. She’s sad inside because she can never have children.
• Giulio Atteni is clearly in love with Federica, unrequited. He is enthusiastic, shoots a video of their reunion, and is the only one that tries to stop Walter and the others when they keep mocking Fabris at the beginning. He laughed too, at first, but then he noticed Fabris’ expression and tried to stop the others from continuing. 

Piero Ruffolo - Carlo Verdonea

Federica Polidori - Nancy Brilli

Bruno Ciardulli - Christian De Sica

Walter Finocchiaro - Angelo Bernabucci

Mauro Valenzani - Massimo Ghini

Valeria Donati - Eleonora Giorgi

Luca Guglielmi - Piero Natoli

Maria Rita Amoroso - Athina cenci

Cristina - Natasha Hovey

Armando Lepore - Maurizio Ferrini

Lino Santolamazza - Alessandro Benvenuti

Piermaria Fabris - Fabio Traversa

Ottavio Postiglione - Luigi Petrucci

Gloria Montanari - Luisa Maneri

Jolanda Scarpellini - Isa Gallinelli

Margherita Serafini - Giusi Cataldo

Toscani - Giovanni Vettorazzo

Gioia Savastano - Carmela Vincenti

plus

Gianny Musy - Piero’s father-in-law

Le vie del signore sono finite - 1987

Camillo has a psichosomatic paralysis, can’t walk but there is nothing wrong with him. He is like this since his girlfriend Vittoria left him. He went to Lourdes with his brother Leone to help him and became friends with Orlando, also on a wheelchair.

When Vittoria goes back to Camillo, he soon finds he can walk again, but doesn’t want to tell anyone for Orlando’s sake. He tells his brother and Vittoria though.

He asks Vittoria to introduce a friend to Orlando, but it doesn’t go well. Orlando, not knowing that Vittoria is Camillo’s girlfriend, likes her instead of her friend. On the other hand, the girl Anita is a passionate supporter of Mussolini rising to power, and thinks him a subversive.

Orlando sees Camillo on his feet through a crack in the door.

Camillo tries to get a patent for his inventions, but it doesn’t go well because a cure for hair loss is not the priority during Mussolini’s reign.

Back home, he learns that Orlando went out with Vittoria and becomes crazy jealous, and is hurtful to them both.

She says she was simply translated his poems into French, but Camillo doesn’t relent, and after all Orlando was in love with Vittoria.

Because of Anita going to tell on Camillo’s political ideas, he is assaulted, but in defending himself one of the others gets shot in the leg, and Camillo ends up in prison.

Two years later, the prison has taken its toll and he is once again on a wheelchair. Well, he also thought that Orlando had gone to Paris with Vittoria, that they were together, but orlando comes to tell him he’ll soon be out of prison and that he was never with Vittoria.

Finally Camillo gets out and goes back home, to his brother and father.

Camillo is still crazy jealous and goes mad when he finds a postcard from Vittoria in Leone’s drawer, hidden away. He’s mad at his brother from keeping it from him, and since the postcard is a picture of her with the hat he gave Orlando (and Orlando gave it to her before she left), he thinks that she actually is with Orlando. Leone reinforces this idea. Leone had been the one always taking care of him and now he feels abandoned.

Camillo goes to Paris to look for Vittoria who is not at the old address, but some people help him find her. She works as a translator for an Italian writer and Camillo is of course sure that it is Orlando, who lied to him and betrayed him… but of course it’s not, Orlando is not the only man in Italy who writes.

Camillo talks with the writer (and once again is less than kind…) and waits for Vittoria to arrive. 

They finally meet and kiss and promise to stay together forever.

Camillo Pianese - Massimo Troisi

No grazie, il caffè mi rende nervoso - 1982

 Michele Giuffrida works for a newspaper in Napoli, but he’s not a great journalist, he does whatever small job they give him. He has a father he keeps locked in a house with a woman watching over him, and he doesn’t let him out because he says he’s dangerous. This is because his father is resentful that he says that he wrote various songs and they were all stolen from him.

Lisa is a photographer with ambitions.

There’s going to be a Festival in Napoli, but there’s an accident and three people are injured.

A postcard arrives at the “Il Mattino”, signed by Funiculì Funiculà, which is the title of an old song, warning that everyone connected with the Festival will die. Michele wants to ignore it, but Lisa gives it to their boss and it gets printed. Michele is assigned to write on this, but he’s scared. He keeps saying he’s not able to write good articles, but Lisa keeps pushing him and involving him in her investigation.

At night, while helping a blind guy called Dieci Decimi, he hears gunshots, and a guy comes stumbling towards him, saying weird things he doesn’t understand the meaning of, and then dies. Criminals arrive on cars and beat him up and take him away, sure that the guy told him something important and even gave him something. Michele tells them everything he remembers but he has nothing. He manages to escape but then he is caught again while with Lisa , so they take her away to force him to give them what they think he has. Michele tries to free her, but in the end she is the one to help both of them out of there.

Troisi plays himself, actor Troisi who has been invited to this Festival, but then he gets threatened by the maniac who has already killed once, James Senese who had ignored his warning.

No matter how much security guards they promise him, he refuses to take part in this festival anymore. Lisa suggests saying that, but then surprising everyone at the end. He gets killed.

Eventually Lisa meets Michele in his ‘study’, and finds out the truth, that it was Michele who killed them because he can’t stand all their talk about changing Napoli, which is perfect the way it always was. The police arrive to arrest him.

Michele - Lello Arena

Massimo Troisi as himself.

Scusate il ritardo - 1983

Interesting film, but I don't like the main character at all, he's spoiled, idle, totally self-absorbed, not really caring about anything else. I don't dislike him either, because he's not a bad guy, in his own way he does care for his loved ones, but it's really hard to stand him. He should treasure the friends he's got.

Vincenzo lives with his mother and his sister’s family. He has no job but doesn’t really want to find one. His sister buys the food, his mother takes care of his clothes. He only helps a little around the house when he is asked, but still complains that they asked him instead of his brother Alfredo, when he’s home. Vincenzo is also jealous of his brother, because he made a career for himself as a comedian. He has a friend, Tonino, who keeps crying because his girlfriend of three years left him for someone else, but Vincenzo is rather annoyed by all his whining. He listens because Tonino insists he needs to talk, but is not very understanding, and even tells him that maybe it was his fault because he was too attentive, oppressive, and maybe ugly too.

When he meets Anna, a friend of his sister, he likes her immediately, and they start going out with friends, but they quickly become a couple. Anna had a relationship who ended badly, and she’s looking for some tenderness.

Vincenzo has the keys to the apartment above his own, belonging to an old professor (we see Vincenzo bringing him his meal, entering with his key), and he takes Anna there when he knows the professor is out, so they can make love (without asking the old man's permission, btw).

When Anna tells him she loves him, he says he’s glad, and with a little prompting he admits ‘me too’. 

He never tells her anything nice, never starts anything; he shows a total lack of empathy when a crying Tonino speaks of killing himself. When Tonino speaks of getting it over with, that one day as a lion is better than a hundred as a sheep, Vincenzo tells him to live 50 years as a teddy bear, not really believing he would do it, and as a way to shut him up (fai 50 giorni da orsacchiotto)

Vincenzo never stays long in bed after love, he always gets up to make coffee or to listen to the radio or whatever, and when she speaks to him about her doubts he is sort of annoyed.

Eventually she leaves him, convinced he would not even care.

Tonino is not sad anymore, he finally found another girl that he likes, and he tries to console Vincenzo but Vincenzo is rather… he says that their situations are completely different, because it was clear why Tonino had been dumped, because he was ugly and sent her an ugly picture of himself, while there is no known reason why Anna left him. Even adds that Tonino’s situation was better because there was the other guy, the Swedish guy, so he knew there was a reason, she left him for that Swedish guy, and he at least knew that he was the second person in the world she liked best…

Tonino is a good, understanding friend and speaks to Anna to tell her that Vincenzo feels awful and they should talk, and so she goes to him to tell him she had even thought of going back to her job in Perugia, and he asks her not to go, to stay with him. 

The end.

Vincenzo - Massimo Troisi

Anna - Giuliana De Sio

Tonino - Lello Arena

The film was written and directed by Troisi.

Ricomincio da tre - 1981

Restored. A film written and directed by Troisi. Music by Pino Daniele.

Well, it’s a film with Troisi so you know how it is, melancholic music, slow scenes, sentences that never get finished, …

Gaetano leaves his friends and everything behind when he moves to Firenze to stay with his aunt Antonia. He says that this time he will leave for real, he’s tired, he says he wants to start back , start from 3, not from scratch (or zero, as we say) but from three, because some things are good and he wants to keep them. He has a family, he has friends, he even has a job.

He has no plan, we see him hitchhiking and being given a ride by a man who wants to kill himself, so instead it’s Gaetano who drives him to the mental hospital. He meets Marta there, and he likes her. He sees her again, and asks him about the guy, so they talk about suicides.

He finds out his aunt, who he was staying with, has a relationship with a professor, so he leaves her house and stays in Frank’s apartment. Frank is American, not exactly a preacher but he goes to talk to people, something like that.

Marta tells him he acts like he wants to win her over, and he denies it, she wonders if he likes her, and he jumps up and tells her no, or yes, but like a sister…

Hs friend Lello comes to visit from Napoli. After hours of looking for a hotel, Gaetano would like to go out with Marta, but Lello has an accident so he goes to see him at the hospital (hospital… nobody around, a kind nun in white, everybody comfortably in their bed… nothing like the hospital I’ve seen…)

Marta talks to Gaetano about his shyness and always being hesitant, then she offers him to spend the night, since it’s already 2am. She is the one to take the initiative, since he wouldn’t have been able to , she blames his lack of self-confidence. Gaetano moves in with her.

Everybody, upon hearing that he’s from Napoli, asks him if he’s an immigrant; this annoys him a bit, because he says he had a job before, he simply decided he wanted to travel…

Gaetano always keeps his real thoughts to himself, just like he never confessed that he really liked her, he pretends he’s not jealous at all, and when she tells him she slept with someone else, he doesn’t say anything, pretends like he’s not jealous and doesn’t care, but he does. She insists she loves him, though, and when she thinks she’s pregnant, she says she’s not 100% sure who the father is, but she wants to have the baby with Gaetano because she loves him. 

At first he’s rather upset by this, but they talk and he has a bit of time to think, and then he surprises her by talking about names, and she smiles when he suggests Ugo like his father, and then Ciro if she doesn’t like the other one. This means that he’s decided he loves her too and wants to raise the child with her.

Gaetano - Massimo Troisi

“Lello” Raffaele - Lello Arena

Marta - Fiorenza Marchegiani

Frankie - Vincent Gentile

Robertino - Renato Scarpa

Mental patient - Marco Messeri

Suicidal car driver - Michele Mirabella

The Truman show - 1998

It starts introducing us to this new world, this new reality, where everyone watches this show, the Truman show, where everyone is an actor but Truman himself, he isn’t an actor. Instead of “phony emotions” and “special effects”, they have ‘genuine life’, because ‘nothing is fake about Truman himself’.

In the opening credits of their show he is listed as Truman Burbank playing himself.

He’s been living that life for 10909 days. 

Then something fall out of the sky, and he only has to start driving his car that already the radio is making up an excuse for it. 

He dreams of leaving that place, of going to Fiji, have an adventure, but They of course don’t want him to. Also, he’s terribly afraid of the sea since the day when he went sailing with his father and the man drowned during a storm.

He is married to Meryl, but he was once in love with another girl, Lauren, but the producer took her out of the show because they wanted him to marry Meryl so they shoved her on him - that actress was more important to them, clearly. 

When he asked her out, she told him she couldn’t talk with him, then went out with him right away because any delay and she wouldn’t be allowed, she knew that, and when a man comes to take her away saying he’s her father, she yells she’s actually Sylvia and they’re all lying to him, they’re all pretending, but the man says they’ll go away to Fiji…

Then his mother ‘got sick’ so he had to stay and couldn’t try to leave and find her…

Then one night he finds that it rains only on him and nowhere else, but after a few moments someone up there puts it right and rain pours down.

Then he sees a man on the street, and they stop to look at each other and it is his dad (that actor) and immediately people came to carry him away while others stopped Truman from following him.

Then the radio starts malfunctioning and he hears the production talking about him, where he is driving, and about extras…

He runs into a building and inside the elevator he sees some people that shouldn’t be there, in what was definitely not an elevator.

Buses and cars stop for him before they hit him.

He talks to his best friend Marlon about it, and about wanting to go away, and immediately the tv talks of the joy of staying home, and his mom shows him family pictures…

People talk like in a commercial (because they’re actually doing commercials for the show). 

To cover up the elevator incident, Meryl tells him there was a terrible accident there, so he runs to the hospital where she works as a nurse, and they almost cut off an actor’s leg before someone takes Truman away.

When he wants to suddenly buy a plane ticket to Fiji, they tell him there’s nothing available. He takes a bus to Chicago then, and it’s full of extras and an actor playing the driver who burns the engine and everyone gets off. 

He stops to look at the road and sees that people go round in a loop. So he decides to drive away right away with Meryl, and he finds the road blocked by cars, but less than a minute later it is free, he has her take the wheel to go over the bridge despite his fear, then a sign says there’s the forest on fire and then they say there’s a leak at the nuclear plant, and this one he almost believes , but then the man replies calling him by his first name, so he suspects something again and runs, but there’s too many and they catch him and bring him back home. Meryl keeps acting weird (making commercials in the middle of their conversation), and when he wonders what’s going on, she screams that he’s crazy and ‘they’ must do something… so they send his best friend to have a good talk with him, that we can hear word for word comes from the producer himself.

To give him something hoping it’d be enough, they give him back his father while up there they film it all and add the music, all live of course.

Even his birth was filmed, his whole life was filmed. And everybody knew it, because he was “the first child to have been legally adopted by a corporation”, and everything that appears on the show is on sale, from the products to the clothes, even the houses.

Sylvia makes a phone call while the producer Christof is being interviewed and she talks to them having no right to make his life a mockery and to keep him prisoner, but he says that he gave him a normal life in a world as it should be, and that “if he was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there’s no way we could prevent him”. He sees nothing wrong in this, and announces that there will be changes, because Meryl will leave Truman and there will be a new romantic interest for him…

People even watch him sleep…

Truman seems back to normal, doing the same things he always did, and they introduce Vivian who will work with him.

This, however, is all a plan to make them think that everything’s ok, so at night he puts something to make them think he’s sleeping and then he sneaks out. The whole island starts looking for him, and Kristof is forced to make the ‘sun’ appear to better search for him, even if it should be the middle of the night still.

Then Christof thinks of looking at sea, and they finally find him, sailing. They go back online, and Christof orders to create a storm around his boat to scare him and make him turn around, complete with loud thunders, but he doesn’t give up. He falls in the water then gets back up in the water, and Truman yells at them that they’ll have to kill him… Christof adds more wind, big waves, and everybody watches while he almost drowns, and finally Christof orders to stop it.

Truman keeps sailing, and eventually the boat eats a wall that represented the sky and the clouds, and Truman hits it and cries, and then he starts walking until he finds some stairs.

Christof speaks to him, telling him the truth, and trying to convince him to stay because the world he created is better than the real one.

But Truman has had enough and he goes out. Sylvia is watching along with lots of people worldwide. They all cheer for him, and we see Sylvia running out of the house.

Truman Burbank - Jim Carrey

Meryl - Laura Linney

Lauren/Sylvia - Natascha McElhone

Truman’s mother - Holland Taylor

Lawrence - Peter Krause

Christof - Ed Harris

Control room director - Paul Giamatti

Man in bathtub - Terry Camilleri

This is one of the best films ever, it’s funny, it’s touching, it’s disturbing, it’s socially relevant, and the newness of it is just as important now as it was in 1998, even more I’d say, much more now, given the world we live in. The acting was great, both Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank and Ed Harris as Christof were perfect, both great.

Truman’s life has been broadcasted all over the world without him knowing it; from the moment he was born his life has been a tv show. He has been legally adopted by the broadcasting channel, and put in a fake world where everything is fake, and all the people around him are actors. His parents, his friends, they were all playing a part. When he fell in love with ‘Lauren’, real name Sylvia, they took her away because they wanted to pair him with the leading actress, known to him as Meryl. 

Around the world lots and lots of people kept watching the show, never once wondering if that was a right thing to do to a person, and even at the end, when you see them all cheering for him that he conquered his fears and freed himself from that fake world, you’re left with a bitter taste in your mouth, because they act and speak and look like they love him and care for him, and yet they never said anything, never did anything to help him, they just kept watching, and buying Truman-show merchandise. They didn’t ‘really’ care about him.

Casper - 1995

A nice movie, I like it. I liked it then and I like it now, for what it is. Meaning it’s a kids movie, yes, but it’s very nice, and Christina Ricci was good and cute, and the ghosts were made well enough that they’re nice even after all these years.

In a way I think it’s a bit underestimated …

When a rich man dies, he leaves all his money to various animal charities, and to his insufferable daughter Carrigan he leaves the old haunted house.

She goes there, but sees small ghost Casper who feels so lonely and dreams of having a friend, but the other ghosts of the house scare everyone away.

Carrigan tries with exorcism, with the Ghostbuster :lol: and even tries a demolitions team, but the ghosts drive the workers away.

Casper watches tv and hears about Dr James Harvey, a shrink for ghosts, and he travels through the electric cables to Carrigan to show her the news so that she’d hire him. 

Carrigan does hire Harvey, so he comes to stay in the house with his teenage daughter Kat. Apparently he has done this before, convince some ghost to move on, and yet the first time he sees Casper he yells, then the other three ghosts arrive, and they’re a real menace, so he has to fight them and vacuum them. They’re Casper’s uncles and treated him almost as badly as they do everyone else.

Once over the first initial shock, Kat talks with Casper and they like each other, then she shouts at the three uncles that mistreated Casper. Dad instead wants to have the three ghosts in therapy. 

When Kat’s new classmates hear where she lives, they want to do the halloween ball at her house.

The rich girl Amber has her friend/boyfriend ask Kat to the ball, and Casper is a bit jealous, he’d like to go with her, and he flies her to a lighthouse to talk about their past. He remembers nothing about his past, so Kat finds his old stuff back so that he remembers everything, of how he got sick and died but stayed here so his father wouldn’t be alone, and also his father inventing things and his invention called Lazarus to bring him back to life. Casper enters the machine, but Carrigan takes away the phial that should make it work. She plans to kill her friend Dibs, so that as a ghost he might walk through walls and search for the treasure hidden in that house, so that later she might bring him back to life… of course he does not like the idea at all, and she’s the one that ends up dead in her attempt to kill him, and she does come back as a ghost

Dr Harvey has become fond of the three ghosts, but he gets drunk one night and kind of falls to his death. 

She finds the treasure (that will later be revealed as a ball signed by a baseball player) but her friend has no intention of bringing her back, so she kills him. Kat and Casper trick Carrigan into admitting that she has no unfinished business anymore, and when she does she can’t stay a ghost anymore and moves on the afterlife.

Casper enters the machine, but then Kat’s father comes back as a ghost, having fun with the three ghosts and not really remembering her. She makes him remember and cries, and so Casper uses the machine for him. It does work, and Kat’s father comes back to her. 

All her classmates came and the party started even if she was not yet present, being otherwise busy. 

Amber and friend wanted to scare everyone dressed as one big ghost, but instead are scared to bits by the three uncles and run away.

Kat’s mother Amelia comes to Casper as an angel and makes him corporeal for one evening until 10pm since he is only 12, so he can go to the party and dance with Kat. They dance floating on air, and when she realises who he is, she hugs him tight. 

Amelia comes to say goodbye to James, telling him she has no unfinished business and she’ll always watch over them.

10pm comes way too early (did they dance just once?) then Casper kisses her and turns back into a ghost mid-kiss (she has become used to how chillingly cold he is). All the others scream and flee after seeing the ghost, but Kat keeps having fun with her four ghosts and her dad.

Special effects by the Industrial Light and Magic. It was really good, it is nice to watch even now.

Kat - Christina Ricci

James - Bill Pullman

Carrigan - Cathy Moriarty

Dibs - Eric Idle

Casper (voice) - Malachi Pearson

Casper on screen - Devon Sawa

An adorable cameo by Dan Ackroyd as a ghostbuster who runs away after his encounter with these ghosts and tells them Who ya gonna call? Someone else…

Also really small cameos by Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson, when James face changes because the three ghosts have entered him - there’s also a third face but I didn’t recognise him.