18/12/2009

Over Christmas, arthouse films don’t dare take on the holiday blockbusters, so the only film coming out next week will be Natale a Beverly Hills, the usual broad Christmas film by Neri Parenti. Journalist have not been able to see a press screening of the film, which will be distributed on 800 prints by FilmAuro.

January 5 will see the release of the “commedia all'italiana” Io, Loro e Lara [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile] (Warner Bros Italia), directed by Carlo Verdone and starring Laura Chiatti, Anna Bonaiuto and Marco Giallini.

Lasse Hallström’s Hachiko, starring Richard Gere, will be out December 30 (Lucky Red), the same day as Luc Besson’s second chapter in the saga on Arthur, Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Moviemax).

For more refined tastes, another French film out at the end of the year will be young filmmaker Mona Achache’s The Hedgehog [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Eagle Pictures), an adaptation of Muriel Barbery’s bestselling novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Another title hitting Italian screens on January 5 will be the sequel to hit horror film [Rec] [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
interview: Julio Fernández
film profile], by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. [Rec] 2 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Sony Pictures) begins where the first picture left off. But audiences will have to wait until January 8 for Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], an award winner at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

The other Christmas titles are all American: animated film Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (Sony Pictures) by Phil Lord and Chris Miller; the remake Brothers (01 Distribution), by Irish director Jim Sheridan; Mira Nair’s Amelia (20th Century Fox); and the UK/US co-production Sherlock Holmes (Warner Bros Italia) by Guy Ritchie.

(Translated from Italian)