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Ray Liotta has a reason to celebrate this holiday season! On Monday, the 66-year-old actor revealed that he asked his now-fiancée, Jacy Nittolo, to marry him — and she said yes! "Christmas wishes do come true," Liotta wrote on Instagram alongside a photograph of the two in front of a Christmas tree. "I asked the love of my life to marry me, and tha...

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There’s really no understating the stardom of actor-turned-director Clint Eastwood beginning in the mid-’60s. After a tenure on the long-running TV series Rawhide and a few notable Hollywood movies, it took a stint in Italy to turn him into a megastar. Three films under director Sergio Leone changed his career forever; the films he made in the wake...

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With a new “Pinocchio,” Roberto Benigni is again making history. He was the first non-English speaking male actor to win an Oscar for his Italian masterpiece “Life Is Beautiful” (‘97), which also won Benigni a second Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Back in 2002 Benigni directed and played the wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy in...

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Some people make a life in film; others lead lives worthy of a film. Lucia Mauro is one of those rare individuals to whom both sides of the cinematic coin apply. Mauro was an established Chicago-area writer when she made her first foray into moviemaking with a 2007 screenplay. It led her to a major crossroads professionally and personally, for as t...

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The Life Ahead, a new Italian film which features an awards-contending performance by the legendary Sophia Loren, will be feted with the Capri, Hollywood — The International Film Festival's Humanitarian Award, the fest announced Tuesday. The fest's 25th — and first virtual — edition will run from Dec. 26 through Jan. 2. Loren, 86, had not appeared...

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Rosi shot “Notturno” over three years along the rattled borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon in his signature observational — but also empathetic — style. The impressionistic doc captures people who have long been contending with the ravages of war and terror, most recently inicted by ISIS. After launching from the Venice Film Festival, “N...

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Let's just get this out of the way, shall we: this 1983 farce is the original cinepanettone or 'cinematic Christmas cake', the name given to a particular genre of Italian Christmas comedy that's every bit as sugary, festive and familiar as a loaf of panettone.  They're less Hallmark romcom, more Carry On lm, with visual gags, double entendres and q...

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It's not much discussed today, but the 1980s was a lesser golden age for American romantic comedies. There's a strong case to be made that Norman Jewison's Moonstruck (1987)—featuring an effortlessly charming star turn from Cher, an early glimpse at Nicolas Cage's idiosyncratic wiles, and pitch-perfect backup from Danny Aiello, Olympia Dukakis, Vin...

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Italy is home to some of the world's oldest and most spectacular Christmas traditions that have illuminated and enriched the Italian festive season for centuries. It also has some more unexpected modern-day traditions and none is more intriguing than the annual screening of Trading Places on Italian television on Christmas Eve. Year after year, by...

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Gigi Proietti had always joked about the date of his birth: he was born the Day of the Dead, November the 2nd 1940. It seems so strange to say, in some way tragicomic, that November the 2nd was also the date of his death (2020). Gigi was indeed one of the most acclaimed Italian actors and comedians, plus he was an incredible voice actor, director,...

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