Things I’ll do for a Blog Post!

Back in February I wrote a post about movies that were filmed in Abruzzo.

Among the movies listed were the following:

• The Name Of The Rose
• Ladyhawke
• My Name Is Trinity
• Trinity Is Still My Name
• Pane e Tulipani

Apart from these I mentioned The American (2010) starring George Clooney which is still to be released and Fontamara (1977).

Also a reader kindly commented and recommended The Fox and The Child (2007).

So with no thought to my own safety I set about watching as many of these movies as I good get my hands on. Since The American isn’t released yet, and I couldn’t find a copy of Fontamara that left six movies to watch.

I’d seen The Name Of The Rose and Ladyhawke (when I was a kid) and liked them both (or so I thought). When I wrote the previous post I thought I’d seen My Name Is Trinity and Trinity Is Still My Name but it turned out I hadn’t. I was confusing them with other westerns. How I could possibly have confused Trinity (Terence Hill) and Bambino (Bud Spencer) with any other characters or actors I’ll never know.

Anyway over a few weeks I watched these movies and I now have a pecking order of which ones I liked best and which, in my opinion, were the turkeys.

Before I go there this is the current IMDB rating (out of 10) for these movies:

• The Name Of The Rose: 7.8
• Ladyhawke: 6.7
• My Name Is Trinity: 7.2
• Trinity Is Still My Name: 7.0
• Pane e Tulipani: 7.3

They all get relatively high user ratings (certainly above average) with Ladyhawke holding up the rear and The Name Of The Rose winning out.

So I bought the popcorn, turned on the TV and kicked off my atempt at creating an Abruzzo related movies seen by me league table. I assessed them out of 5 on these criteria:

Abruzzo: Do you see much of the Abruzzo region?

Re-run: Would I watch the movie again?

Fun: Well, was it fun?

Acting: Was there any to be seen?

Plot: Did it make any sense at all?

Based on this totally personal and not very scientific approach here are the results:

What surprises me is how accurately it reflects which movie I liked the most and which I was most disappointed with.

The clear winner was Pane e Tulipani even though it really didn’t showcase much of Abruzzo. The biggest disappointment was The Name Of The Rose. I really cannot see why I liked it the first time I saw it. I wondered if I’d seen it on a date and my judgement was clouded but I don’t think that was the case.

The two Trinity movies are in joint 2nd position mainly because they don’t take themselves seriously, they give a good feel for Campo Imperatore and they’re just good fun.

I hope to have a copy of The Fox and The Child in the next few weeks and I’ll take a look at it then. Sammy described it as “sad but beautiful” in her comment back in February so I’ll have the Kleenex at the ready.

Based on the table above The American doesn’t have to do too much to top the Abruzzo related movies seen by me league table. It just has to showcase Abruzzo, have a plot, perhaps not take itself too seriously and with a bit of luck that Clooney fellow will act a little.

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