Happy New Year! Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Critique-o-polis. Today, we review the French-Italian film "Cinema Paradiso." Let me just start off by saying, if you haven't seen or heard of this movie, (ever), watch the trailer and decide for yourself if you want to watch it. Just watching the trailer makes me cry. Also, there are three different versions of this movie, so you don't necessarily have to watch the almost 3 hour version, although, that is the one that we watched.
The central plot in Cinema Paradiso revolves around Salvatore, nicknamed Toto, and his friend and mentor Alfredo. When the movie opens, we see an adult Salvatore living his fancy adult life in Rome when he receives a phone call from his mother telling him that Alfredo has died.
While Salvatore is starting to think about Alfredo and how he helped to shape Salvatore's life, the movie goes back into the past and we meet a young Salvatore in his tiny hometown in Italy. Salvatore is a frequent attendee at the local Cinema, but his real dream is to learn how to be a movie projectionist. This he has to beg to learn from Alfredo, who gives in, in return for a favor that Toto did for Alfredo.
The movies' string and wind heavy score was written by Ennio Morricone and his son, Andrea. The Love Theme in this movie is beautiful. The whole score is beautiful. It really helps carry the movie along.
Jay has also included a new honey based recipe in this episode. Please enjoy. I think it is one that we will try soon! Again, Happy New Year and Happy Listening.
