Reviews

"The Experiment" is a kind of movie you won't forget easily. It is an amazing spiral of fear, horror and anguish.

A taxi driver decides to be an human guinea-pig for a strange experiment. Twenty men. Two groups. Guards vs. thieves. The prize is money. Every man will have money.

After two days something gets wrong. The taxi driver, who is a reporter too, wants to face the guards. So he provokes the guards: they can't use violence against the prisoners...

After more days the situation becomes more extreme. The guards want to impose their dominion on the prisoners. And now the situation is out of control...

The script isn't really original, but it's been developed in a satisfaction way. The direction is dynamic. If the Americans do movies like Germans, we'll have more interesting products.

"Piano 17" is the last movie written and directed by Antonio and Marco Manetti (a.k.a. Manetti Bros.), two very promising directors of Italian cinema.

They shot it with only 65,000 € (about 82,000 $) but the result is unquestionable.

The protagonist of the movie are four robbers who try to rob a bank, but during the robbery, a security guard shoots at one of the robbers: it's Matteo Mancini. They've lose the money they'd robbed. Now they have to put a bomb in an office; so Matteo's brother takes the elevator and goes up towards the 17th floor. With him there are also an unprejudiced secretary and a clumsy employee. When the elevator is going to reach the floor it stops. Now they're trapped in the elevator and they can't go out. But the worse thing is that the bomb is going to blow up. They've only one hour and half to go out. Mancini tries to inform Pittana and Borgia (his parties), but especially Pittana seems he doesn't want to save his friend.

The ending is quite predictable, but the rest of the movie is very good. There are also some flashbacks that explain what have happened before.

Good actors, good direction, good screenplay.

Stefano is a young restorer who goes to a small village to restore a fresco, painted by a strange painter Buono Legnani, called "the agony painter": in fact he liked to portray dying people. Somebody calls Stefano saying him to go away from that village. He isn't afraid of this person and goes on to restore the fresco. He falls in love of a young teacher. Who's scaring him? Why? This movie, written by Pupi Avati and his brother and directed by Pupi Avati, is low-budget. It has very simple special effects, but they're very effective. This movie is very terrifying, painful and frightful!

VOTE: 9

Finally Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo has come back in Italy and they've written a very good comedy. I think this movie is the third in my chart (first "Three men and a leg", second "Ask me if I'm happy") because with their funny lines they make me laugh a lot. Aldo's character is simply comic: the taxi driver who knows all about Wagner, Magenta and others people, but who doesn't know where are this streets. How can you forget his visions? Giovanni's character is funny, too, especially his adversity against Giacomo. My favourite Giovanni's line is when he asks Giacomo which is his favourite movie and he says "Lars Von Trier" in a strange way. Giacomo's character is the most quiet and he falls in love with Giovanni's wife, Claudia. Claudia (played by Paola Cortellesi who plays a small role in "Ask me if I'm happy - she's Aldo's girlfriend) thinks that Giovanni betrays her. For the first time they aren't directors and let Venier directs a very funny movie.

Perhaps the next Christmas we'll see the sixth movie with Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo. I hope.