Luca Marinelli

Diabolik

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Diabolik in his mask

What sort of a supervillain has his secret lair in his girlfriend’s back garden? Why not his own turf? While we’re about it, why does Diabolik – the title of the film and the name of its antihero – lift so much of its plot from Fantomas, another European masked villain? If those are the sort of questions you’re asking while watching this film then it probably isn’t working for you. A stew, a pastiche, Diabolik is bits of Bond stirred together with a sliver of The Pink Panther and then spritzed with Italian glamour. We are not here for originality, but for cars and girls, mid-century modernism and split screens, hot women … Read more

The Eight Mountains

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Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli on top of a mountain

Slow cinema? Not quite, but there’s definitely an aspect of slow cinema in the exquisitely paced The Eight Mountains (Le Otto Montagne), an Italian-language boys-to-men journey through the decades. They meet as 12-year-olds, Pietro a blow-in from the city with his parents, Bruno the local lad and only kid left in this dying village, where his family still milks cows and does things the old way. Initial nervousness out of the way, the two boys become a fierce unit – patrolling the area, examining the many abandoned buildings, swimming in lakes, climbing the hills, the idyllic relationship, Pietro the effete city boy, Bruno the solid country toughie. And then, on the small adventure … Read more

Martin Eden

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Margherita and Martin dance

With a couple of the names changed perhaps because Lizzie and Ruth don’t roll easily enough off the Italian tongue, this is a fairly straightforward adaptation of Jack London’s novel Martin Eden, about a lowly sailor who falls for a high-born girl and decides to become a writer in order to win her heart. Here, Martin is played by Luca Marinelli, and the rich Ruth character, now called Elena, is played by Jessica Cressy. The Lizzie character, the poor girl who loves Martin for what he is rather than his social status, inherited or newly acquired, is now called Margherita and is played by Denise Sardisco. A Bildungsroman, a Künstlerroman, a novel of … Read more

The Old Guard

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The cast of The Old Guard in a group shot

Dark hair, dark shades, dark clothes, it’s Badass Charlize Theron who turns out for The Old Guard, a superhero adventure with a mournful air and an eye on a franchise. There are four distinct Therons – the actor (Monster, In the Valley of Elah), the babe (Gringo, The Devil’s Advocate), the snark (Young Adult, Tully) and the buttkicker (Aeon Flux, Atomic Blonde). She’s good at them all but it’s the last in that list that we get here. Though at 45 Charlize isn’t bouncing out of the helicopters the way she once did. But if Tom Cruise can do it… and he’s 13 years older. Theron plays androgynously named “Andy”, head of what looks … Read more