Bread and Tulips

For me I am not sure as to what I can say about this movie, it confounds me. I enjoyed this movie thoroughly, but I in retrospect can't help but feel like its a hallmark movie, and that makes me feel...dirty. The struggle in the movie appears mild at best,being limited mostly to a series of bizarre flashbacks and an amateur detective. And there is cotton candy happy ending, the movie is cavity causing sweet yet I enjoyed it in its entirety. I think that I like the originality not of the plot on a whole but of the charters, Fermo the anarchistic florist, the fat plumber/amateur detective. Of course Rosalba is an interesting character, a middle-aged house wife that on a spur of the moment decides to head to Venice and ends up taking residence there. And my favorite character Fernando, the waiter that offers the main character, Rosalba, a place to stay and becomes the love interest of the story. I'm particularly found of the this character, he was at the start of the film depressed and suicidal, both of which change during the film, but I feel his speech patterns are perhaps the most endearing part of his nature, he talked with this strange mix of poet and philosopher. And while the blooming of Rosalba into her own person is the main focus the film tries to achieve, however for me the characters that surround her are what stuck with me. However her nightmare sequences were interesting with there surreal feel and bizarre color palates. But I still can't seem to make heads or tails of those scenes and I am not a dumb man. In my earlier reviews I was able to compare those films to other movies I had scene before, yet for some reason this movie defies any of my prior experiences, its an odd mix of quirky characters and yet sappy and cliche story. Its almost like I was hit sideways by warm and fluffy, or a surgical strike force made of cotton candy. I felt pleased... and I didn't know why.

Caterina in the Big City

I was fond of Caterina in the Big City, however there were portions of this movie that were difficult to sit through because you felt embarrassed just as an observer. The class discussion had mentioned the scene with Giancarlo making a foole of himself on tv (hell yeah I spelled fool with an e, thats just how I roll), which was bad but for me the most embarrassing was when he was trying to "hang" with Margherita and either didn't get or ignored the awkwardness that this caused for Caterina. God that scene was painful on so many levels, besides the awkward sensation from lack of trying to rid yourself of your parents and still be respectful, but the embarrassment of have your parent trying really hard to relate to you, especially painful as a young teen. For me this movie was also an odd mix of political message and coming of age movie, the best way my brain could resolve this concept was to think of it as Mean
girls meets Fox News. I can't think of a mainstream American film with nearly as political a message without being a documentary, the only thing I can come up with off the top of my head is The American President and in that movie politics work more as an oposing force to the romance between Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. I will say that I feel this movie wrapped up nicely, it wasn't the relistic which usually bugs me but they were able to somehow justify it and make it work. It wasn't quite a hallmark ending in the amount of cornball present but it was just corny enough to be a happy ending, and I think the thing that kept it from being completely cheesy was that instead of changing and reconciling their problems through some miracle fix, they all ended up doing what was best for themselves, Giancarlo's ending being the most amusing.