When word spreads that an anonymous Sardinian has laid claim to none other but the moon, the entire planet Earth shivers. Secret services across the globe are sent into a frenzy trying to find the man in question.
An unlikely bleach blonde secret agent, Sardinian born paratrooper Kevin Pirelli (Jacopo Cullin), is blackmailed into fulfilling such a vital mission. However, Kevin needs to undertake a strict training regime to become a ‘proper’ Sardinian, fully versed in all its quirky traditions and mannerisms, before he’s ready to leave mainland behind to cross the Tyrrhenian Sea. And that’s when he’s paired up with terrifying expat Badore (Benito Ugo) and undertakes a series of improbable challenges to prove that he’s got what it takes to blend with the locals and complete the mission.
The movie, presented in London at the Cinema Made in Italyfestival, was accurately described by its programmer Adrian Wootton as a ‘zany Sardinian set slapstick comedy, a sort of Italian Johnny English as an inept spy trying to infiltrate a traditional community”.
And that’s precisely whatThe Man Who Bought The Moonis, a surreal, absurdist journey aiming to push the boundaries of comedic drama while handing out a succession of breathtaking sceneries.
Toying with stereotypes, caricatures and exaggerations of all sorts, the result is a deliciously arty and far fetched slapstick. Not your average comedy, Paolo Zucca’s The Man Who Bought The Moonturns into an unexpectedly touching narrative with a visually spectacular ending.
He is an Italian actor and director known internationally for The Referee (L’arbitro), which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2013.
Jacopo Cullin now stars in The Man Who Bought The Moon directed by Paolo Zucca, a “zany Sardinian set slapstick comedy, a sort of Italian Johnny English as an inept spy tries to infiltrate a traditional Community” – Adrian Wootton, Programmer – Cinema Made in Italy.
We managed to catch up with him in London as part of the Cinema Made in Italy 2019 at the Ciné Lumière to find out how he prepared for this role, his unusual approach to learn to speak with a Milanese accent and why he couldn’t understand a word from the other two lead characters…
This is the story of a young couple trying to overcome personal trauma and haunting memories. Lauren (Christina Ricci) and Russell (Brendan Fletcher) move out of their city home to find peace in a high security, luxury building in the countryside. Lauren struggles with her mental health and hopes that the fresh start will help her overcome her demons.
However, nothing is quite as it seems as Lauren appears to experience disturbing sounds coming from various speakers around the building and flash imagery from her TV. Lauren senses something is not quite right around her and struggles to understand who to trust, until she encounters Vernon (John Cusack), an unlikely, shady ally that comes to the rescue through a conspiracy theory chatroom.
Distorted, written by Arne Olsen and directed by Rob W King, is a psychological thriller trying to blur the line between what is real and what is in our heads. We follow Lauren’s struggles to handle her bipolar disorder and overcome depression sparked by a recent tragedy whose details slowly unfold during the movie.
Paranoia, cyber conspiracy, technophobia, subliminal mass manipulation and brainwashing are the ingredients of this film where Christina Ricci’s performance seems to be the only memorable element.
Overall, I feel this fairly predictable thriller fails to truly deliver a gripping experience, its pace too slow at the beginning and too rushed at the end.
Tasha Robson (Freya Parks) is a strong willed teenage girl living in South Shields near Newcastle, growing up in a chaotic household shared with three siblings and their attractive young mother.
When the mother’s violent partner comes home from prison, Tasha’s attempts to keep him away backfire, erupting in a fight that reveal he is not her biological father. As Tasha finds out her actual dad, only known as the Viking, hails from Norway, the teenager runs away from home in a quest to find him.
Bliss is Rita Osei’s first feature film and had its world premiere at the 2016 Edinburgh International Film Festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRo3sGRXZJw
Right from the onset, I wanted to fall in love with this movie and all the ingredients appeared to be there at first; unparalleled beautiful landscapes, dramatic colouring, touching musical moments, and of course, the initial storyline. Who can’t feel for a young girl looking for her real father, especially when her papa is meant to be a Viking? I had high expectations, no doubt.
But then, not only some of the dialogue is so cliché and delivered so stiffly it often ends up being unintentionally comical, Bliss!’ plot features so many ridiculous storylines, some embarrassing delivery and so many dramatic events it could easily fill a ten part Netflix series. Certainly not a blissful experience.
I can see it appealing to a teenage audience who can probably overlook the lack of drama around a key character dying accidentally or when a child is born with barely any fuss.
As a middle-aged woman, however, I can’t help but to feel alienated by what could have been an amazing film.
If somehow you’ve managed to get through the late 90s and early 2000s without watching an episode of the TV series Sex and The City, this movie may help you catch up.
The iconic show featured four single women in their thirties and their hilarious and at times uncomfortably graphic conversations about sex and relationships. Aired first in 1998, it was revolutionary as it normalized sex talks amongst women on TV and the lives of main character sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), along with man-eater Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), good girl Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and love cynic Miranda Hobbs (Cynthia Nixon) became a cultural landmark for females across the globe.
Love in Manhattan, as Carrie put it in that first episode, was characterized by the age of un-innocence, where no one had breakfast at Tiffany’s or affairs to remember. Instead, they had breakfast at 7am and affairs they tried to forget as quickly as possible. Carrie reassured us that self-protection and closing the deal were paramount, as Cupid had flown the co-op.
The TV show was a representation of the 90s, that golden decade of Girl Power where women took what they wanted, “what they really, really want”, as the Spice Girls were chanting at the time. Or, as journalist Cosmo Landesman put it recently, “it was a fun-fuelled feminism for the mainstream; a materialistic and hedonistic celebration of female assertiveness, ambition and self-reliance. Girl Power was Thatcherism in sexy underwear”.
Fast forward ten years, and things couldn’t have been more different; 2008 was the year when the world shivered from a global financial crisis likened to the Great Depression of the 30s. Gordon Brown was the UK’s prime minister and, across the pond, Barack Obama was a mere presidential hopeful, which would eventually see him become the first ever black president later that year. Newcomer Adele’s debut album was topping the charts singing about heartache and relationships and Amy Winehouse was still alive.
Match.com and the likes were carving multi-million pound businesses out of lonely hearts desperate to find the one. The fear of facing these depressing times alone pushed some men and women to think that perhaps it was time to settle for second best, rather than face this doomed future alone – or at least that’s what psychotherapist and writer Lori Gottlieb believed when she published her essay “Marry him! The case for settling for Mr Good Enough”, later turned into a book and mercifully criticised left right and centre, calling her pathetic, desperate and sad. And yet, it felt as though Gottlieb’s theory had tapped into a sore spot for women in their 30s and 40s.
Neither Tinder nor Bumble had yet been invented and it felt as though women had lost their confidence, waving goodbye to Carrie Bradshaw to embrace Bridget Jones.
And that’s when Sex and the City: The Movie was premiered in the UK. Despite a bag of mixed reviews, hordes of fans embraced it just as much as the TV series, as it became a commercial success, grossing over $415 million worldwide.
Sex And The City
The highly anticipated film literally picked up where it left things off at the end of the series with its happy ending for all the characters. Carrie in the movie finally marries her wealthy, older man who had seemed so unattainable throughout the 94 episodes of the TV series. Or so we are led to believe. But, when it comes to Sex and The City, things are never quite as straight forward as that.
The blockbuster opens with Carrie Bradshaw happily skipping through New York and down memory lane featuring flashbacks from the TV series recapping the previous ten years. We ooohs and aahs as we reminisce on how Charlotte the romantic always looking for the one ended up marrying a not so perfect husband with issues in the bedroom before settling with her divorce lawyer and adopting a baby. We then see Miranda the ever so sceptic lawyer who got pregnant after a one night stand with a bar tender and, after a tumultuous personal journey, realises that she was in love with him all along and ends up walking down the aisle. And Samantha had finally curbed her insatiable sexual appetite and her wild antics when she, too, finds ever lasting love.
Twists and turns, though, are round the corner and we see all our heroines face a two and a half hours roller coaster of a journey. Carrie and co. come face to face with the dark side of betrayal, peppered with hilarious one liners, great performances and a wardrobe to die for.
Sex and The City: The Movie may feel fairly out of date in today’s world yet reassuringly familiar and comforting. Definitely worth watching back, or watching it if you’ve never see it before; put feminism aside and feel free to bask in love and labels.
