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Movies / Upcoming / Amarcord
Amarcord

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Amarcord (1974)

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Reviews Counted:36

Fresh:35

Rotten:1

Average Rating:8.5/10

Runtime: 2 hrs 7 mins

Genre: Foreign Films

US Box Office: $0

Synopsis: Federico Fellini's AMARCORD, an acclaimed semiautobiographical episodic drama, examines life in a small Adriatic village just before Mussolini's reign in the 1930s. As the weather changes and... Federico Fellini's AMARCORD, an acclaimed semiautobiographical episodic drama, examines life in a small Adriatic village just before Mussolini's reign in the 1930s. As the weather changes and spring arrives, the village holds a festival in which it burns a symbolic bonfire and celebrates new life. This gathering in the central square is the first of many others throughout the film. Each time the community assembles, its colorful members show themselves in full force, boasting their bizarre, disjointed personalities--and pure mischief is the result. Several of the village ladies wear their eyebrows penciled on in high, provocative arches, a style that seethes sex and drama, coaxing the camera to follow them. The film takes on a circusy, chaotic tone, making it difficult to see a clear plot structure; AMARCORD instead breaks up into several memorably surreal sequences, a few of which follow a young man named Titta (Bruno Zanin) who wanders in and out of the animated provincial landscape, meeting assorted crazy characters and obsessing over sex. The beautiful clashes with the grotesque and politics and family matters blend together while sex is offset by violence in the inimitable style of Italy's late master of cinema, whose tour de force won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. [More]

Starring: Pupella Maggio, Magali Noel, Bruno Zanin, Josianne Tanzilli

Starring: Pupella Maggio, Magali Noel, Bruno Zanin, Josianne Tanzilli

Director: Federico Fellini

Director: Federico Fellini
Screenwriter: Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra
Composer: Nino Rota

[See More Credits]

Reviews for Amarcord

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
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Fellini is so bountiful with incident and observation that he makes most other film makers seem stingy.

Full Review Source: TIME Magazine | comment Comment
04/27/09
Jay Cocks
Jay Cocks
TIME Magazine

Bloated, overblown and essentially empty, Fellini's last hit movie skims over the surface of the lives it depicts, substituting manufactured sentiment for genuine feeling or understanding.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
04/27/09
Jamie Russell
Jamie Russell
Channel 4 Film

Amarcord will make you howl with laughter and then choke back a tear. And all the while you’ll be building your own memories of this landmark movie.

Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | comment Comment
04/23/09
Robert W. Butler
Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star

Watching the movie feels like flipping through a cartoon sketchbook of Fellini's vivid remembrances and formative experiences.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Weekly | comment Comment
04/14/09
Sean Burns
Sean Burns
Philadelphia Weekly

I'm not sure how Amarcord played in the '70s, but now it feels like an affectionate parody of Italian movie conventions.

Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | comment Comment
03/27/09
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Federico Fellini's films beg to be seen on a movie screen. Their panoramic, overstuffed frames and larger-than-life characters overflow the boundaries of home theater; their exuberant, generous humor is best enjoyed in a packed auditorium.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
03/27/09
Colin Covert
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Amarcord is Fellini's scrapbook of memories culled from his own life and it is completely engaging and delightful.

Full Review Source: KPBS.org | comment Comment
03/17/09
Beth Accomando
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org

Orthodox Fellini lovers will give primacy to La Strada or La Dolce Vita, but Amarcord has its fans, and it's easy to see why.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
03/13/09
Philip Kennicott
Philip Kennicott
Washington Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's one of the noted Italian directors more vibrant films that captures him at his most playful and incisive.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
03/01/09
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

He [Director Fellini] leaves us with the hope that the human comedy just may be able to survive everything.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
02/13/09
Kevin Thomas
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

What's so surprising about this film is just how loose and effortlessly enjoyable it is, despite all its ideas and images. It's one of the director's very best.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
01/16/09
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

This Fellini opus is his most accessible to mass audiences since La Dolce Vita.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
12/03/08
Variety Staff
Variety Staff
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Uneven, loosely structured, and at times pretty vulgar as well as sentimental, but with some touching and lovely episodes.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
12/03/08
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader

This collection of vignettes loosely based on the director’s adolescence in Rimini feels as if its creator is vividly recalling every fleeting sensation of his early life.

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
12/03/08
David Fear
David Fear
Time Out New York

What positions the film among Fellini's greatest are its punctuation points of mysterious beauty.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
12/03/08
Lance Goldenberg
Lance Goldenberg
Village Voice

Makes me feel like a boy everytime I see it.

comment Comment
07/27/07
Cole Smithey
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

A memorable last chapter to Fellini's nostalgic screen reminiscences that began in 1953 with I Vitelloni.

Full Review Source: Boulder Weekly | comment Comment
09/13/06
Thomas Delapa
Thomas Delapa
Boulder Weekly

Amarcord, easily one of Fellini's masterpieces, is at once a personal memory film and a more detached social scrutinization of Italian society, specifically the political isolation and cultural provincialism that helped Fascism rise to power.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
09/06/06
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

A vulgar, crassly funny, tender, always affectionate nostalgia trip, Fellini style.

Full Review Source: Cinema Writer | comment Comment
08/18/06
Jay Antani
Jay Antani
Cinema Writer

Fellini at his ripest and loudest recreates a fantasy-vision of his home town during the fascist period.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Time Out
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
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