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gianlucarossibello
Reviews
Shooting Silvio (2006)
Very nice
In order to make his film about an imaginary assassination attempt on Silvio Berlusconi when he was still in power (i.e., today...) by a young man fed up with the indifference and apathy of the people around him who do not understand that one must take action, somehow manifest one's estrangement and antagonism to this Italy in double-breasted suits, corporate smiles, and underhanded scheming, Berardo Carboni failed to take advantage of the canonical mechanism of production and distribution of a film in Italy: Fear on the part of those who should/could have subsidized him of repercussions and censorship, given the subject matter? The fact of the matter is that Carboni finds himself organizing a series of producing parties, parties with concerts, DJ sessions and the sale of gadgets, the proceeds of which are completely used for the expenses of making the film. Eventually, thanks to this 'alternative way to cinema,' Shooting Silvio comes out, and nowadays, between festivals and Cineclubs, it is quite easy to manage to see it around Italy. And it is right to see it: above all to defend, reward and support this 'transversal' way of making films in Italy. But also because Shooting Silvio is a good film, beyond its urgency of 'denunciation': Carboni applies to the miniDV, with which he shoots, a whole series of lenses proper to 35mm cinema, and this earns his digital work a whole 'classical composure,' of well constructed shots with an appreciable aesthetic sense, in this black and white with color details that mixes the ever-present cult snippets of Berlusconi's TV appearances with montages of the characters walking around Rome on vespas (them in b/w, the Rome flowing behind their backs in color) while the soundtrack features the now legendary "Mamma Roma, Addio" by poet Remo Remotti (also an actor in the film). Between the grotesque double role of an amused Alessandro Haber, and the appearance of Marco Travaglio as himself who tells the usual anecdote of the Mafia stable boy, the film drags it out a bit but lights up in the last resounding twenty minutes, in color: Kurtz, the young protagonist, infiltrates a convention - real! - of Forza Italia, with his camcorder turned on to film everything, rabid fans and invaded politicians; he kidnaps Berlusconi, in a cartoonish fragment with which Carboni inventively emerges from the 'awkwardness' of the 'action sequence'; finally, the two are in conversation, in a car: the boy, his face painted in the colors of the Italian flag, points an old shotgun at the Honorable, who has his face covered by a rubber mask depicting the very character of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. A beautiful 'suspenseful' sequence that is by far the best moment of Shooting Silvio.
Youtopia (2018)
Awesome
The film features Matilda De Angelis (most will know her as the femme fatale from The Undoing) who plays a young woman that becomes a camgirl for some much needed extra cash, mainly to keep her mother from losing their flat, due to big debt.
Now, you might be saying that we've seen this type of scenario before. But I surely haven't seen another movie where the daughter tries to convince her conservative and reluctant mother to also become a camgirl - and with the mother eventually agreeing.
So then you have a mother and daughter doing the cam thing separately within their own bedrooms, while the wheelchair-bound grandma sits alone in the living room, unaware of the current developments.
Then there's the old pervy pharmacy owner that fancies getting it on with sex workers on the side, which, presumably, his wife chooses to ignore in favour of a 'stable' marriage.
Until their new employee at the pharmacy introduces the old man to the anonymous pleasures of the dark web, which leads to him trawling the net for something new and exciting - which comes in the form of a young girl that puts her virginity up for sale.