Title: Pupi Avati's THE HIDEOUT (IL NASCONDIGLIO)
Sheldon Warnock - November 3, 2007 05:36 PM (GMT)
The official website for Pupi Avati's The Hideout (Il nascondiglio) is online, and on that site are two trailers, a 'making of' video (in both long and short versions), and a stills gallery for the movie. 01 Distribution s.r.l. is scheduled to release the movie theatrically in Italy on November 16th.
The screenplay for The Hideout was written by Avati. The movie stars Laura Morante, Rita Tushingham, Burt Young, Treat Williams, Yvonne Brulatour Sciò, Peter Soderberg, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Angela Pagano, Sydne Rome, Angela Goodwin, Chiara Tortorella, Tom Röttger-Morgan, and Marina Ninchi.
The Hideout official website
01 Distribution: The Hideout
David White - November 5, 2007 03:49 AM (GMT)
This looks fantastic. I really wish more of Avati's films were available with English subtitles. I'm still waiting for ARCANE ENCHANTER to come out. It's an amazing film and I'm dying to see a proper release. Avati's horror film output easily rivals Argento's. If he actually made horror films more often, I really think he'd overshadow Argento.
D.
D.
Matthew Buzzell - November 10, 2007 11:20 AM (GMT)
While there are precious few Avati films available on DVD with English subtitles, there appear to be quite a few that have been recently released on DVD.
http://www.dvd.it
http://www.dvd.it
James Cheney - November 10, 2007 05:18 PM (GMT)
I highly recommend his 1986 REGALO DI NATALE (Christmas Present), which is available on region 2 with English subs. Find it here or as an import via Amazon. (It's 10 euros plus tons of shipping from dvd.it, 27 bucks from the American source: you do the math and factor in the relative shipping times.)
I'm of very mixed feelings about Avati (he's something of a dilettante movie buff, dabbling in this and that and beset by a gruesome streak of rank sentimentality amidst the horrors) but on this one occasion he really integrated his wayward genre impulses into a minor classic, and one of the best Xmas-themed films ever. It's a ghost story the way Dickens' Christmas Carol or Capra's version was in its emotional tenor (a review of a lifetime's worth of regrets and failures, a final chance), but the heaviness of heart is immured like that tell-tale one of Poe's, thumping away ominously but muffled in the background of a terrifically entertaining 'spaghetti-poker' film, four old friends reunited in a haunted house on Xmas eve, conspiring to pull off a marathon card playing scam and redeem their potential as a team and fill their empty bank accounts via a rich sucker. Ah, but who's conspiring against whom and which one is really the sucker, and what's the true nature of vindication and redemption? All these questions are probed from every angle but without calling attention to themselves. The ensemble playing of great character actors (including George Eastman in his best part), the devious plotting, the inspired dialogue are what keep one hooked.
I'm of very mixed feelings about Avati (he's something of a dilettante movie buff, dabbling in this and that and beset by a gruesome streak of rank sentimentality amidst the horrors) but on this one occasion he really integrated his wayward genre impulses into a minor classic, and one of the best Xmas-themed films ever. It's a ghost story the way Dickens' Christmas Carol or Capra's version was in its emotional tenor (a review of a lifetime's worth of regrets and failures, a final chance), but the heaviness of heart is immured like that tell-tale one of Poe's, thumping away ominously but muffled in the background of a terrifically entertaining 'spaghetti-poker' film, four old friends reunited in a haunted house on Xmas eve, conspiring to pull off a marathon card playing scam and redeem their potential as a team and fill their empty bank accounts via a rich sucker. Ah, but who's conspiring against whom and which one is really the sucker, and what's the true nature of vindication and redemption? All these questions are probed from every angle but without calling attention to themselves. The ensemble playing of great character actors (including George Eastman in his best part), the devious plotting, the inspired dialogue are what keep one hooked.