Italy! What can one say about Italy. One of the most wonderful experiences ever! Time and time again!
Every city and town and province offers something truly unique. Whatever experience you might be seeking, Italy has it, waiting just for you! From the Italian Alps with their impeccable skiing, to the ‘boot’ and everything in between.
The fantastic canals of ‘Casanova’s Venice’ to the “La Dolce Vita” Set in Rome in the 1950s where Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) covers the more sensational side of the news; movie stars, religious visions, and the decadent aristocracy. The film shows seven days and nights in the life of the reporter. Marcello is living with Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), a woman who loves him and wants a traditional marriage, but she is possessive and shows little ability to understand his unarticulated search for value and meaning in his life. He has encounters with other women – Maddalena (Anouk Aimée), a beautiful, wealthy, and jaded friend/lover, and Anita Ekberg as an American movie star named Sylvia. Marcello also briefly meets an unspoiled and charming girl working at a beachside restaurant.
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Under the Tuscan Sun
Frances Mayes (Diane Lane) is a San Francisco writer whose seemingly perfect life has just taken an unexpected detour.
She finds out at a party that she’s hosting, from a writer to whom she had given a bad review of his book, that her husband has been cheating on her.
Her recent divorce has left her depressed and with terminal writer’s block, and her best friend Patti (Sandra Oh), a lesbian who is expecting a child, is beginning to think Frances might never recover.
Patti convinces her to take an Italian vacation, to Tuscany, but it’s on a gay tour (Patti and her partner Grace (Kate Walsh) had booked it for themselves, but changed plans after Patti became pregnant). At first she refuses, but then after being in her new, gloomy apartment, she decides that it is a good idea to get away for a little while after all.
In Tuscany, while stopping in a small town she sees a notice about a villa for sale, in San Casciano dei Bagni. Then while the passengers are back on the tour bus, the bus has to stop to let a herd of sheep pass, and Frances realizes that they’ve stopped in front of the very villa that she had seen for sale, and she believes it’s a sign.
She asks the driver to stop and she gets off the bus. In a series of serendipitous events she becomes the owner of a lovely yet dilapidated villa in beautiful Tuscany. From this point her life begins anew with a variety of interesting characters and unusual but gentle souls.
She hires a crew of Polish immigrants to renovate the house. Over time, Frances also befriends her Italian neighbors and develops relationships with her Polish workers, the realtor who sold her the villa, and Katherine, an eccentric, aging actress. Later, she is visited by the now very pregnant Patti, whose partner Grace has left her.
Frances does meet a romantic interest, Marcello, but it does not last, and she is about to give up on happiness when two young lovers come to her for help. Eventually, she finds the fulfillment she was searching for in a wedding at the villa, where she also meets an American writer who is traveling in Tuscany. The movie ends with the possibility of a new love in her life.
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