2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Steineded How sad is this?

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Hunter Lanier "Avanti!" had me scared for a while. It presents itself as a "fish out of water" comedy, and, dare I say it, flounders. But, as the film advances, it grabs a zipper from the back of its neck and reveals itself to be a black, romantic-comedy--and a decent one, at that.The film stars Jack Lemmon as a boorish American businessman, forced to visit Italy--a country where everyone's got a cousin for every job-- to pick up and return his recently deceased father. Not to give anything away, he meets a young woman with a self-prescribed weight- problem- -I don't see it--who may or may not have some relation to his father's death. The two proceed to develop a connection, in a curiously charming fashion. Billy Wilder is, to me, the greatest screenwriter of them all, writing not only some of the greatest comedies of all time ("Some Like it Hot," "One, Two, Three"), but also the greatest dramas ("Ace in the Hole," "Sunset Boulevard"). If Shakespeare had been born some 400 years later, he would be a Wilder fan, or maybe even Wilder himself. It's crime against humanity that Wilder never adapted to the screen "Much Ado About Nothing.""Avanti!" fails to reach the heights of Wilder's career, but it still contains moderate doses of that tigerish Wilder wit, which usually comes in fast-food supersized portions, making this film seem a bit cruel. While there are witticisms abound, hardly any of them land, and they feel like valiant efforts which should have been scrunched up and tossed.Juliet Mills is absorbing as Pamela Piggot, a relatively optimistic woman with the self-esteem of a teenage girl with leprosy. It's a wonder she never found her place in the business. Lemmon is as fun to watch as ever, though he's not given much to work with, dialogue- wise, character-wise or otherwise-wise (Wilder reference).A lame comedy that gets blacker, more romantic and generally better as it goes on, "Avanti!" is a side-step in the career of an all-time great already past his prime. Nonetheless, it's still charming, and more conceptually funny than actually funny.

mark.waltz This Billy Wilder black comedy has nothing to do with any of the talents that brought international audiences Divorce, Marriage or Ghosts, but this is definitely Italian style with a taste of both Yankee Doodle Dandy and Pip, pip cheerio. Jack Lemmon managed a Golden Globe but not an Oscar nomination for his flustered businessman who heads to exotic and romantic Italy where he must claim the body of his father who was killed in a car accident. Secrets of what his father was up to connects him with a beautiful British lady (Juliette Mills) who is described as supposedly fat but is anything but. Blackmail, American diplomats interfering and even murder are the order of the day, with the presence of a mustache clad maid whom I thought at first was a man in drag.This film gets off on the right foot with a scene on an airplane where Lemmon and some anonymous old man switch clothes for some reason, and forgetting to swap passports. Later, Lemmon keeps encountering Mills who is seeking him out, and thinking that she is nuts, tries to shrug her off. As the secrets of his father's activities are slowly revealed, resulting in the meeting with an opportunistic Italian family with extortion on their mind.At an amazingly fast two and a half hours, this is a hidden treasure, very successful at the time, but overlooked among director Billy Wilder's many gems. Wilder regular Jack Lemmon is very funny as the frustrated international tourist, fortunately lacking the obnoxiousness of his mid- westerner visiting New York on "The Out of Towners". Mills is charming and confident in one of her few films, and has nice chemistry with Lemmon. also hysterically funny is stage veteran Clive Revill as the flamboyant hotel proprietor who has a word of wisdom for every situation and a crack for everything he can't advise on. Edward Andrews makes a late entry as the American diplomat who is a "friend" of Lemmon's family, summoned from France to Italy by Lemmon's unseen wife.With a practically perfect screenplay by Wilder and longtime partner I.A.L. Diamond, this is a beautiful looking travelogue with a fun story and many humorous situations. It may seem at first glance to be a bit too long, but once you get settled into the plot line, you won't even notice.

fedor8 1972. Back in the day when romantic comedies were made in such a way that both sexes could watch them, not just women. Nowadays, when you read "romantic comedy" in relation to the latest formulaic piece of celluloid crap that Hollywood is desperately trying to hype, you can expect garbage; some lame-brained, unfunny mess with Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz mugging like eager-to-please amateurs - should the casting be at its very worst. (Or the amazing non-talents of an Ashton Kutcher and an annoying personality of a La Lopez. The list goes on and on.)A! works because Jack Lemmon isn't a former Mickey-Mouse-Club amateur with a squeaky girly voice, and Juliet Mills isn't a perpetually giggling non-beauty with the body shape of an overgrown pencil. Mills is shapely, curvaceous, charismatic, sexy and pretty, and Lemmon is funny and interesting. There is actual chemistry between them, the story is fun, the gags work, and there is no crude, lewd, low-brow, cheap-ass, teenage approach to sex that we get to see in comedies of recent years, in which having sex is always referred to as "f**king" or "screwing", the F word being a poor substitute for a total lack of inspiration and humour.The only drawback to A! is its length. At well over two hours it does violate somewhat the unwritten rule about comedies and horror films not exceeding 90 minutes. Trust Billy Wilder, that senile old Commie, to have actually made a mention of the Sacco & Vanzetti case. No doubt Billy considered those murdering anarchists as totally innocent. (God forbid a Marxist ever gets punished for anything, even genocide.) Later on, he has an Italian local give the right-arm Nazi salute to the Republican Ambassador. Billy, Billy, Billy, what are we to do with you? Must you include your unsubtle political propaganda even in a harmless little romantic comedy?But if you thought Billy's delusion ended with his extremist politics, think again. He thought that he had injected too much humour into what was meant to be a drama! He stated that they had intended to make a movie more like "The Apartment" (i.e. they wanted it to stink so it could win Oscars). Good thing they "failed", because not only does that vastly overrated movie stink, but I can't imagine how the hell A! could have possibly worked as a drama.The two Wilder movies do have something in common though (apart from Lemmon): both tend to ridiculously idealize women who latch on to (older) married men. Mills's mother was even said to have hidden her poor financial situation from Lemmon's father (the millionaire) because she "loved him", hence that she never received any gifts or financial aid from him. That is so over-the-top stupid that it's almost funny on its own.

yamxt600 I have to admit that I am usually more into movies like Fight Club or Lord of the Rings and so I watched Avanti only because there was really nothing else on TV and I was too lazy to put in a DVD.And then something magic happened: I got totally sucked into this movie, up to the point that I had tears in my eyes in the final scene.Jack Lemmon has always been a great actor, but in this movie he's absolutely awesome. Juliet Mills is beautiful, charming and Clive Revill as omnipresent hotel director with dozens of relatives is simply hilarious.And the story... Well, if you didn't believe in love before, then Billy Wilder shows you that it really does exist - and that it does not matter who you are and where you come from. Only the moment counts.Don't make the mistake to ignore this jewel just because it might be a bit older or because you think romantic comedies are just for girls. This movie has everything cinema is about and I thank Billy Wilder for creating it.