‘Nostalgia’ Film Review: Mario Martone’s Thin Story Bolstered by Star Pierfrancesco Favino

Mario Falcone has shared an unseen snap of him and his bride Becky walking down the aisle together after the couple were married on Friday, 3 June. The former The Only Way Is Essex star, 34, and Becky, 33, tied the knot in the beautiful Italian town of Sorrento. The dad of one has been giving his 1.1 million followers a glimpse inside their stunning ceremony and on Monday released an unseen picture of the couple and their son Parker Jax, three, surrounded by their nearest and dearest.

Mario Falcone is gearing up to wed Becky Miesener this week after the couple were forced to postpone their wedding plans twice.To kick off the long awaited wedding celebrations the couple threw a lavish party for their nearest and dearest in the stunning surroundings of Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Despite Mario announcing he had a health scare just a week before the couple’s jetted off to Italy ahead of their big day, he showed no signs of letting an illness keep him down.Taking to social media to document the evening, Mario, 34, showed off what he and Becky, 33, wore for their “white party”.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentVeteran Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio returned to Cannes this year with “Exterior Night,” a limited TV series about the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists that, prior to playing on pubcaster RAI, is now on release in two installments via Lucky Red in Italian cinemas where it’s doing quite well.Bellocchio, who previously recounted Moro’s still-mysterious abduction in the 2005 film “Goodmorning, Night” from the viewpoint of one of his captors, is taking a different narrative approach in this series consisting  of six one-hour episodes that reconstruct the 55 days of Moro’s imprisonment from different points of view, including that of his family, his fellow high-echelon Christian Democrat politicians, and the ailing Pope Paul VI, played by Toni Servillo. He spoke to Variety about what drove him to revisit Italy’s deepest recent collective trauma and why he thinks the crucial issue of whether the Italian government should have negotiated with the Red Brigades to try and save Moro remains an open question.

As a procedural drama centrally interested in the radicalization of a young Muslim boy in Belgium, Adil & Bilall’s “Rebel” pulsates with terrible inevitability. Falling behind at school, with an adored older brother already having made the trip to Syria and a trafficker whispering in his ear, it’s less a question of if Nassim (Amir El Arbi, another tremendous kid actor for Cannes ’22 to tick off) is going to find himself on the Jihadist frontline, but when.

Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) are more than just friends and not at all lovers. At only 13 years of age, they’re too young for that – and what’s more, their bond transcends simple labels. First seen running through the lush meadows of rural Belgium, the duo share a complicity that is as natural and abundant as the late summer harvest.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticSPOILER ALERT: The penultimate paragraph of this review contains spoilers.Few of us are fortunate enough to have a friendship as intimate and effortless as the one shared by 13-year-old Belgian boys Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) in “Close.” That connection, and the responsibility that comes with it, is at the heart of Lukas Dhont’s sophomore feature, so subtle and sensitive in the first half, so devastatingly false from its tragic twist on. This beautifully evocative film, which hails from an openly queer director, offers as pure a portrait of innocent, innocuous same-sex affection as we’ve ever encountered on film.

Unlike most films and series set in Naples, “Nostalgia” really does show us the city like we’ve never seen it before: from the melancholy perspective of someone who left forty years ago. Italian director Mario Martone makes the astute and powerful decision not to make this immediately obvious, opening the film with a stunning sequence showing a man (Pierfrancesco Favino) silently arrive in and explore the city at night.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBerlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has closed further deals for Jan Gassmann’s “99 Moons” in Italy (Teodora Film), France (La Vingt-Cinquième Heure) and Japan (AT Entertainment), following the film’s world premiere in the Cannes’ ACID sidebar.“99 Moons” follows the passionate and turbulent relationship of Bigna and Frank, two people from different worlds who become entwined in an erotic love story. With raw and intimate cinematography (Yunus Roy Imer, “Systemcrasher”), the film takes an unflinching look at the magnetism and power games of sexual attraction.

Was Kris Jenner‘s dress for Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker‘s wedding inspired by Moira Rose? One fan compared the famous momager’s feathered Dolce & Gabbana gown to a look seen on Schitt’s Creek — and the resemblance is uncanny!

Former TOWIE star Mario Falcone has revealed he’s suffering from an infection just a week before his wedding. Confessing he’s been taken ill just days before his big day to fiancée Becky Miesner, the 34-year-old took to his Instagram Stories to share a snap of himself wearing an oxygen mask and looking concerned. “When you have a head cold and chest infection the week before your wedding,” wrote the dad-of-one alongside the snap.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentProlific Italian film and stage director Mario Martone, who is a Venice aficionado, is back in competition in Cannes 27 years after his Elena Ferrante adaptation “L’amore molesto” (“Troubling Love”) launched in competition from the Croisette in 1995. And there is a close connection between these two films that delve deep into the entrails of Martone’s native Naples.In his well-received “Nostalgia”, praised by Variety as Martone’s “most rewarding film in years,” ace actor Pierfrancesco Favino plays the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back, he is caught up in memories of a distant life spent in his hometown, as his criminal youth slowly catches up with him.

Nostalgia has seldom looked grittier, or more treacherous, than it does in Mario Martone’s eponymous new film. The Italian director splashes his teaming, boisterous, unruly native city of Naples across the screen in fulsome fashion in telling the story of a man who left as a teenager but, some 40 years later, is drawn back into its sinister embrace.

Guy Lodge Film CriticHometowns forget us quickly when we leave them, even if some of the people left behind do not. Architecture, infrastructure and whole communities can change with scant warning or regard for our memories, or our bearings when we return.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Belgian brothers who have directed a series of films notable for quiet naturalism, are a prime example of how at the Cannes Film Festival, familiarity breeds not contempt but contentment.Year after year, Cannes puts the Dardennes’ films in the Main Competition; they’ve made nine features since “Rosetta” in 1999, and every one of them has vied for Cannes’ top honor, the Palme d’Or, with “Rosetta” and 2005’s “L’Enfant” winning and four others taking additional awards. The Dardennes now have a chance to make significant Cannes history by becoming the first directors to ever win the Palme for a third time.If they win for “Tori and Lokita,” which premiered in Cannes on Tuesday, they’ll also set a new record for the longest time elapsed between Cannes wins, with the 17-year gap since “L’Enfant” breaking the record of 14 years between Shohei Imamura’s wins for “The Ballad of Narayama” and The Eel.”But familiarity may also be working against the Dardennes at this point.

Måneskin stopped by the The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon yesterday (May 20) to deliver a performance of their new single ‘Supermodel’ – watch it below.The Italian Eurovision winners were without their usual bassist, Victoria De Angelis, due to illness, but instead of recruiting another musician to fill in, the band asked the show’s host Jimmy Fallon to strap up.Rocking a blonde wig, colourful eyeliner, and a red and black jacket, Fallon addressed the audience before the performance. “This is a true story,” he explained.