paolo-severini-1 Reviews

Where Are You Going on Holiday? (1978)

One of the three episodes is a masterpiece

[8/10 · 13 June 2020]

It's difficult to judge this movie because it's composed by three episodes. Tognazzi's episode, "Sarò tutta per te", is good but not great, it has not aged well. The episode "Si buana" is definitely funny, but a bit of a repetition of slapstick comedic ideas already seen in other films of Paolo Villaggio. But Alberto Sordi's episode "Le vacanze intelligenti", is an absolute masterpiece of comedy which makes fun of the alleged sophistication of modern culture. It's fun and smart, acting is superb.

The Looming Tower (2018)

Good show, but not as great as the book

[8/10 · 1 April 2018]

When I read that there was a TV adaptation of Lawrence Wright's book I had great hopes. The result is not disappointing, the show is quite good, Jeff Daniels is perfect in his role and the story of John O'Neill is perfect for a movie. But the writers decided to focus only on the final part of the book, which details the internal wars between CIA and FBI which allowed the 9/11 plans to proceed unchallenged. The first part of the book, which describes the history of bin Laden and al Qaeda, starting from the ideology of Qutb, would have been much more interesting to understand what is going on in the world today. But I understand that story would be perhaps more suitable for a documentary than for a TV show, but it's a story that Wright wrote beautifully at that will deserve to be put on screen someday.