All Movie Guide

In this WW II tragicomedy, famed Italian funnyman Roberto Benigni (The Monster) portrays Guido, who moves during the '30s from the country to a Tuscan town, where he is entranced by schoolteacher Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni's real-life wife). Dora likes Guido, but she remains faithful to her pompous fiancé, so Guido has an uphill struggle. Meanwhile, anti-Semitic attitudes lead to attacks against Guido's Jewish uncle (Giustino Durano). Leaping ahead to five years later, during WW II, Guido and Dora are married and have a son Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). After they are imprisoned in a concentration camp, Guido goes to elaborate lengths to keep his son from understanding the truth of their situation. He tells the boy that they are competing with others to win an armored tank -- so everything from food shortages to tattoos is explained as necessary for participation in the contest. Bhob Stewart

All Movie Guide

A starry-eyed would-be star discovers just how far the notion that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" can go in this screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Chicago, originally directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. In the mid-'20s, Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) is a small-time chorus dancer married to a well-meaning dunderhead named Amos (John C. Reilly). Roxie is having an affair on the side with Fred Casley (Dominic West), a smooth talker who insists he can make her a star. However, Fred strings Roxie along a bit too far for his own good, and when she realizes that his promises are empty, she becomes enraged and murders Fred in cold blood. Roxie soon finds herself behind bars alongside Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a sexy vaudeville star who used to perform with her sister until Velma discovered that her sister had been sleeping with her husband. Velma shot them both dead, and, after scheming prison matron "Mama" Morton hooks Velma up with hotshot lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), Velma becomes the new Queen of the scandal sheets. Roxie is just shrewd enough to realize that her poor fortune could also bring her fame, so she convinces Amos to also hire Flynn. Soon Flynn is splashing Roxie's story -- or, more accurately, a highly melodramatic revision of Roxie's story -- all over the gutter press, and Roxy and Velma are soon battling neck-to-neck over who can win greater fame through the headlines. A project that had been moving from studio to studio since the musical opened on Broadway in 1973, Chicago also features guest appearances by Lucy Liu and Christine Baranski. Mark Deming

All Movie Guide

The life of an uncompromising, iconoclastic artist has never seemed as rote and inevitable as it does in Julie Taymor's Frida, an intermittently engaging but wholly ordinary biography that wouldn't be out of place premiering on a basic-cable channel. Ticking off the events in Kahlo's life like a grade-school filmstrip, Frida's screenplay -- credited to no less than four writers, not including the purported rewrites from Ed Norton -- is full of clumsy passage-of-time indicators and halting, expository dialogue. Luckily, the performers manage to bring it alive somewhat: Though notably lacking in the kind of mythic swagger Kahlo requires, Salma Hayek digs into her long-gestating "role of a lifetime" with vigor. Better yet is Alfred Molina's Diego Rivera, who threatens to swallow the movie whole (both figuratively and literally). To her credit, Taymor attempts to infuse Frida with the kind of broad, expressionistic strokes she lent 2000's Titus -- the movie is nothing if not lush. Cinematographer Rodrigo Pietra renders Mexico as a paradise of reds, blues, and greens, playing up the contrasts between Kahlo's homeland and the steely, blue-gray New York sequences. But however brilliant they often are, Taymor's directorial flourishes are just that, and Frida -- which by all accounts could've been as daring as Vincent and Theo or Before Night Falls -- never rises above standard bio-pic fare. Michael Hastings

Product Details

• UPC: 786936238617
• Source: MIRAMAX
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français, Italiano
• Subtitles: Español
• Time: 5:52:00
• Sales Rank: 69,333

This set contains DVDs which may be available separately:

• Chicago
• Life Is Beautiful
• Frida

Features:

DVD MENU