edited by Jonathan Doyle

Mafioso (The Criterion Collection, 3.18.2008) Nino Badalamenti is a supervisor in a car manufacturing plant who hasn't taken a vacation in over two years. On his way out the door to visit his beloved childhood hometown of Sicily -- with his blonde wife and daughters -- Nino is handed a package by his boss and asked to deliver it to a powerful and influential Sicilian gangster named Don Vincenzo. Once in Sicily, Nino has a hoot seeing friends and family, but his wife has trouble fitting in and is unfairly dismissed as a snob by Nino's family. Even more worrisome, Nino finds himself entangled in an intricate web of secret mafioso dealings and is eventually sent on an unexpectedly... elaborate errand. (continued)

Upcoming

July 2

Hancock

July 3

The Whackness

July 4

Diminished Capacity

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson

Holding Trevor

Kabluey

We are Together

July 9

Full Battle Rattle

July 11

A Man Named Pearl

August

Eight Miles High

Garden Party

Harold

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Meet Dave

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

The Stone Angel

July 18

A Very British Gangster

Before I Forget

The Dark Knight

The Doorman

Felon

Lou Reed's Berlin

Transsiberian

July 22

Two Tickets to Paradise

July 23

Boy A

Clint Eastwood has just thrown

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Clint Eastwood has just thrown a heavyweight punch in the Oscar race, and the after-effects will be felt all the way until Feb. 27. His boxing movie Million Dollar Baby (Warner Bros., 12.17, limited) had its first-anywhere showing at a very-limited-attendance screening last Friday night on the Warner Bros. lot, and then at a press-infiltrated Academy screening last night (Monday, 11.22) at the Director's Guild. I've spoken to people who attended both, and they're all seriously impressed or floored. (I was at the DGA screening also, and I fully concur.) Baby is a major art film... easily in the same realm as Clint's Unforgiven, and, in the view of at least one major critic who attended the DGA screening, his best ever. Trust me, it's a multi-Oscar nominee -- Best Picture, Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actor (Eastwood), Best Actress (Hilary Swank). This means, of course, that Swank is once again duelling with Annette Bening -- they last faced each other in the '99 race when Swank's Boys Don't Cry performance beat Bening's in American Beauty.

I missed the Variety item<< previous | next >>Sticks and Stones There's a

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 23, 2004 at 11:32 AM