Rating: 
Summary: If you loved Cinema Paradiso
Review: For those diehard Cinema Paradiso fans, you can not miss this film. While not as wonderful as CP, it still has the magic and delight. Excellent soundtrack. Fantastic acting. Tornatore is a maestro.
Rating:
Summary: If you loved Cinema Paradiso
Review: For those diehard Cinema Paradiso fans, you can not miss this film. While not as wonderful as CP, it still has the magic and delight. Excellent soundtrack. Fantastic acting. Tornatore is a maestro.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Film
Review: I first saw this film in my highschool Italian class and It is excellent. The story is touching and the characters' pain so real at times you can almost feel it. I would definately recommend this film. If you are a fan of good movies see it.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Film
Review: I first saw this film in my highschool Italian class and It is excellent. The story is touching and the characters' pain so real at times you can almost feel it. I would definately recommend this film. If you are a fan of good movies see it.
Rating: 
Summary: did we even see the whole movie?
Review: I LOVE tornatore, I liked this film. i think anyone who loves seeing italy and italian culture should add a star too. that being said, i wonder, how much of this film did we see? the box does, as a reviewer pointed out, feature a ruby-lipped woman that just does not sell this movie for what it is. but what gets me, is there are three pictures on the back, and two of them arent in the film!
i know that every copy other than the italian original and the korean version of "Malena" (highly reccommended for tornatore fans) were shortened by 11 minutes by miramax.. perhaps there was too much sex in the film for american censure; perhaps now there's not emough character development in the movie to completely fall in love with it. the other reviewers hit the nail on the head about the sobering effect of witnessing people expose their lives for the chance at fame, but either way, before the cutting room floor or after, there's something missing from the main character of this film. if any of you know where it is please tell me.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointing, dispassionate follow-up, not a total loss
Review: I picked up this movie for the same reason as most of you. It was directed by the man who brought us Cinema Paradiso. That film is probably one of a kind, never have I seen a filn that showed film-making as the art it truly is, and the profound effect it has on it's viewers. But if anyone could produce a film that was equal to Cinema Paradiso I was sure it would be the director himself. Sadly, this is not the case. I am well aware that the intent of the star maker was to present "the flip-side of "Cinema Paradiso." For the most part it did that well. But why do it at all? How can a man who once so elequently illustrated the power of film, and the incredible impact it has on the life of the audience turn around and make a film that is so detached and dispassionate? Not only is Turnatore detached and dispassionate but he serves up not a satire, which would have been perfectly acceptable but rather a biting indictment of the medium that we thought he so loved. Perhaps the indictment is not of film-making, but of the over-commercialization of the art-form. The way that film-making can turn into more of a business than an art-form. Maybe Turnatore is trying to show the evil magnetism of the prospect of fame. And how those promises of fame can corrupt both those who seek it and the movies themselves. Turnatore effectively shows us that sometimes the very thing that drew the little boy to the bright lights of the Cinema Paradiso can lead others to their downfall. I guess that is something I just can't bear to hear, especially not from the creator of Cinema Paradiso......
Rating:
Summary: Most misleading cover box ever?
Review: In general, I'll sum up the "The Star Maker" by reiterating what other reviewers have stated here: if you rented this movie because it was the director's follow-up to the incredible Cinema Paradiso, you've set yourself up for a huge disappointment.But my big complaint has to do with the misleading cover box art (i.e., alluring woman with eyes peering out over sunglasses, ruby red lips, etc.). This has NOTHING to do with the movie. Such a character never appears. This image is about as far from the actual content of the film as you can get. I've lodged similar complaints about "Brassed Off" and "East is East," both described by insipid marketers as "wacky comedies." Each is a great movie in its own right, but neither is a wacky comedy by any stretch. My question is: are the people that design these boxes for the American market just flat-out dumb, or are they simply completely cynical about the intelligence of the American audience?
Rating:
Summary: Most misleading cover box ever?
Review: In general, I'll sum up the "The Star Maker" by reiterating what other reviewers have stated here: if you rented this movie because it was the director's follow-up to the incredible Cinema Paradiso, you've set yourself up for a huge disappointment. But my big complaint has to do with the misleading cover box art (i.e., alluring woman with eyes peering out over sunglasses, ruby red lips, etc.). This has NOTHING to do with the movie. Such a character never appears. This image is about as far from the actual content of the film as you can get. I've lodged similar complaints about "Brassed Off" and "East is East," both described by insipid marketers as "wacky comedies." Each is a great movie in its own right, but neither is a wacky comedy by any stretch. My question is: are the people that design these boxes for the American market just flat-out dumb, or are they simply completely cynical about the intelligence of the American audience?
Rating:
Summary: Sobering portrait of 1940s Sicily
Review: It didn't surprise me that few Americans appreciated this film. Unless you know something about Sicily or have traveled there, you might not appreciate the full scope of this film, which is understandable -- but still, it is a fantastic and highly original movie that stands easily on its own merits. Set in the late 1940s or early 1950s, the story revolves around Morelli, a conman from Rome who steals a truck, camera, and discarded film from the movie company he works for and drives down to Sicily. Posing as "Dr. Morelli", the conman (played by Sergio Castellitto) convinces whole towns of ordinary Sicilians that he is really a talent agent scouting out new genius in the poverty-stricken island of he south. He could have stepped out of the dream world of the circus. Charging 1,500 lire for a chance to pose before his camera and take a stab at making it as an actor, Morelli offers these Sicilians a chance of fame and fortune in the glitzy world of Rome and America that also means an opportunity to escape the impoverishment of their homeland. In incredible scene after incredible scene (made even better by a phenomenally good screenplay), Morelli gets these Sicilians to open up. Although they aren't actually being filmed (they don't realize that the film Morelli is using is junk), they think this may be their chance to break into acting, so they spill out their inner worries and life stories as though they were talking in front of a psychiatrist. What results is not only a panoramic and extremely original portrayal of the Sicilian people (including the mafia, bandits, an old Spanish Republican, a 112-year-old Garibaldino, a harassed homosexual, and a beautiful but naive teenage girl whom Morelli falls in love with). It is also a blisteringly sharp attack on the causes of backwardness in Sicily (which still exists today), as well as the sneering attitude of many northern Italians toward the South. While he initially took them to be just "idiotic rednecks" ripe to be ripped off, Morelli slowly discovers the Sicilians' humanity without this film being in any way a quaint or "cutesy" portrayal of how a man discovered the natives in "quaint, sun-baked Italian villages". "The Star Maker" is full of humor as well as tragedy. As the great Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia wrote, humor is a staple of life in Sicily as in few other places -- it has to be in order for survival to go on. Moreover, unlike the stereotypical Hollywood portrayals of Sicily in "The Godfather" movies, "The Star Maker" has a very profound social message. As the girl, Beata, says at the end of the film, "I like movies with a happy ending, where lovers kiss in each other's arms". Unfortunately, in Sicily, a happy ending just would not tell the entire story. I was flabbergasted and sobered by this film. I was even more flabbergasted by its lame critical reception in the United States and by reviewers at Amazon.com. If moviegoers in this country go on thinking that "Legally Blonde" is the supreme height of cinematic achievement, I really think we're going to go totally brain-dead. Five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Sobering portrait of 1940s Sicily
Review: It didn't surprise me that few Americans appreciated this film. Unless you know something about Sicily or have traveled there, you might not appreciate the full scope of this film, which is understandable -- but still, it is a fantastic and highly original movie that stands easily on its own merits. Set in the late 1940s or early 1950s, the story revolves around Morelli, a conman from Rome who steals a truck, camera, and discarded film from the movie company he works for and drives down to Sicily. Posing as "Dr. Morelli", the conman (played by Sergio Castellitto) convinces whole towns of ordinary Sicilians that he is really a talent agent scouting out new genius in the poverty-stricken island of he south. He could have stepped out of the dream world of the circus. Charging 1,500 lire for a chance to pose before his camera and take a stab at making it as an actor, Morelli offers these Sicilians a chance of fame and fortune in the glitzy world of Rome and America that also means an opportunity to escape the impoverishment of their homeland. In incredible scene after incredible scene (made even better by a phenomenally good screenplay), Morelli gets these Sicilians to open up. Although they aren't actually being filmed (they don't realize that the film Morelli is using is junk), they think this may be their chance to break into acting, so they spill out their inner worries and life stories as though they were talking in front of a psychiatrist. What results is not only a panoramic and extremely original portrayal of the Sicilian people (including the mafia, bandits, an old Spanish Republican, a 112-year-old Garibaldino, a harassed homosexual, and a beautiful but naive teenage girl whom Morelli falls in love with). It is also a blisteringly sharp attack on the causes of backwardness in Sicily (which still exists today), as well as the sneering attitude of many northern Italians toward the South. While he initially took them to be just "idiotic rednecks" ripe to be ripped off, Morelli slowly discovers the Sicilians' humanity without this film being in any way a quaint or "cutesy" portrayal of how a man discovered the natives in "quaint, sun-baked Italian villages". "The Star Maker" is full of humor as well as tragedy. As the great Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia wrote, humor is a staple of life in Sicily as in few other places -- it has to be in order for survival to go on. Moreover, unlike the stereotypical Hollywood portrayals of Sicily in "The Godfather" movies, "The Star Maker" has a very profound social message. As the girl, Beata, says at the end of the film, "I like movies with a happy ending, where lovers kiss in each other's arms". Unfortunately, in Sicily, a happy ending just would not tell the entire story. I was flabbergasted and sobered by this film. I was even more flabbergasted by its lame critical reception in the United States and by reviewers at Amazon.com. If moviegoers in this country go on thinking that "Legally Blonde" is the supreme height of cinematic achievement, I really think we're going to go totally brain-dead. Five stars.
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