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The Best of Rome:
MOVIES IN ENGLISH
(Programming subject to change)

Week of Friday, February 3 - Thursday, February 9, 2012

Nuovo Olimpia
Via in Lucina 16 (off Via del Corso) tel 06 686 1068
Two screens

The Iron Lady
A portrait of Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep), the former Prime Minister of The United Kingdom, told through a kaleidoscope of vignettes of Thatcher at her present age, as the Iron Lady, and as she rose through the ranks from the young daughter of the local mayor to Parliament to 10 Downing Street. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia), with Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher. Critics were unreserved in their praise for Streep, but had serious reservations about the film. In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle wrote, "Streep's performance is so true and so uncannily accurate, so full and so complete in its understanding, that she is fascinating every second she is onscreen." And in the Boston Globe, Wesley Morris wrote, "Everything Streep does here is a seismic act of theater. If she so much as tilts her head, the earth tilts with it. She doesn't simply overwhelm this thin historic biography - and the other actors around her - she detonates it." But in the New York Times, A.O. Scott wrote, "You are left with the impression of an old woman who can't quite remember who she used to be and of a movie that is not so sure either." And in The New Yorker, David Denby called the film "an oddly unsettling compound of glorification and malice that whirls around and winds up nowhere."
4:15, 6:20, 8:25, 10:30
trailer

Shame
Reviews were mixed for this pyshcological directed by Steve McQueen. Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a New Yorker who shuns intimacy with women but feeds his desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his wayward younger sister (Carey Mulligan) moves into his apartment stirring memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's insular life spirals out of control. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern opined: "Much of the film is banal or pretentious, or both -- vacuous vignettes about emptiness. Occasionally, though, those vignettes burst into life and burn with consuming fire." In Time magazine, RIchard Corliss was more positive, writing "In a movie era remarkable for its reluctance to dramatize erotic intimacy, Shame merits praise for the dark energy of its sexual encounters." In the New York Times, A.O. Scott wondered "How can visual pleasure communicate existential misery? It is a real and interesting challenge, and if Shame falls short of meeting it, the seriousness of its effort is hard to deny." And in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers wrote "Michael Fassbender delivers a bold and brilliantly immersive performance as a sex addict in Shame. He is so raw and riveting you won't be able to take your eyes off him. The thing is, you may want to. Shame, as written and directed by the British  conceptual artist Steve McQueen – who teamed triumphantly with Fassbender in 2008's Irish drama Hunger — is thoroughly drained of eroticism. Despite the NC-rating and copious nude scenes, the movie chills you to the bone. As it should."
4:15, 6:20, 8:25, 10:30 pm
trailer

Also at the Nuovo Sacher, Via Ascianghi 1 (Trastevere at Porta Portese)
In the original Mondays and Tuesdays only, 4:15, 6:20, 8:25, 10:30 pm

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The Artist
This film is an anachronism, a silent film, so it's not actually in English, or in any other language, but it's so worth a mention here. Hollywood 1927. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a silent movie superstar. The advent of the talkies will sound the death knell for his career and see him fall into oblivion, but for young extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), it seems the sky's the limit. Dujardin won a best actor award at Cannes for his role, and reviews for this silent, black and white film have been over the moon. In the New York Times, A.O. Scott called it "not a work of film history but rather a generous, touching and slightly daffy expression of unbridled movie love." In The New Yorker, Anthony Lane called it "less like an arch conceit and more like the needle-sharp recollection of a dream." In Rolling Stone Peter Travers wrote that it "encapsulates everything we go to movies for: action, laughs, tears and a chance to get lost in another world." And in the Washington Post, Ann Hornaday wrote that it "glitters and gleams with utterly of-the-moment wit and romantic zest."
trailer

Eden, via Cola di Rienzo 74/76, Prati; 4, 6:10 8:20 10:30
Greenwich, Via G. Bodoni 59, Testaccio; 3:30, 5:15, 7:05, 8:50, 10:30 pm

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Filmstudio
Via degli Orti d’Alibert 1/c, Trastevere tel 334 178 0632
Sometimes shows films with English subtitles.
www.filmstudioroma.com

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The Casa del Cinema is located in a villa on the grounds of the Borghese Gardens. Inside you'll find projection rooms, a library, a cafe, and a 2,500 DVD library with 24 Toshiba laptops available for viewing movies in private cubicles. The auditorium shows both new and vintage films, sometimes in English. It's possible to purchase an "Amici Casa del Cinema" card, which gets you into the screenings and gives you preferred treatment when reserving space to view DVD's. To get there, enter the Borghese Gardens at the top of Via Veneto (Piazzale del Brasile) and proceed to Largo Marcello Mastroianni. For info call 06 423601.
www.casadelcinema.it

In Rome Now Travel Guide: Rome, Italy, Movies in English