Saturday Three Line Movie Review

The Trip to Italy
dir. Michael Winterbottom


Two handsome in the way that I like middle-aged men go on a culinary tour of Italy, retracing the steps of the Romantic poets, namely Lord Byron, keeping up a steady stream of witty banter and driving along the requisite Italian roads with breathtaking views of the Mediterranean . They do brilliant improvisations of famous actors while bemoaning their own advancing age, receive the exquisite offerings of food brought to them in perfect Italian restaurants, converse with their families back home and people they meet on the road, conveying in a charming and poignant, utterly original way what longing means -- even what it means to be human. I floated out of the movie to strains of Italian opera and am now officially completely smitten by Steve Coogan.











Other Three Line Movie Reviews


Get On Up
Begin Again
Chef
The Immigrant
Cesar Chavez
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Gloria
Labor Day 
Philomena

August: Osage County

Her

American Hustle

Saturday Three-Line Movie Review

Stephen Frears' beautiful movie Philomena has great open spaces where more is unsaid than said, and the story of the quiet determination and strength of Philomena, an Irish woman looking for the son that was stolen from her as a girl, is at once a testament to living with faith and grappling with overwhelming tragedy. The story is a true one, and it's a harrowing depiction of the cruelness of the Catholic Church, without being a diatribe against it, of the centuries-old suppression of sexuality and of the conflict between dogma and faith. The movie is also hilarious and perfectly charming, beautifully shot, and Dame Judi Dench is a goddess with Steve Coogan her unlikely yet perfect foil.

Other 3-line movie reviews:

August: Osage County

Her

American Hustle