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From: barmar@think (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: THE ICICLE THIEF
Summary: r.a.m.r. #00834
Keywords: author=Margolin
Message-ID: <1990Nov9.135017.21994@cbnewsj.att.com>
Date: 9 Nov 90 13:50:17 GMT
Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Reply-To: barmar@think (Barry Margolin)
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 36
Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com


			       THE ICICLE THIEF
		       A film review by Barry Margolin
			Copyright 1990 Barry Margolin

     Over the weekend I saw the Italian film THE ICICLE THIEF.  I'm
surprised that I haven't seen any mention of it on the net (unless it
was all during my vacation a couple of weeks ago).  I'm cross-posting to
rec.arts.tv because TV is part of the subject matter of the movie.

     THE ICICLE THIEF is a wonderful satire and spoof.  It's a satire of
the butchering that is done to films in order to show them on TV, using
the "film within a film" technique and turning it inside-out.  The inner
film is a drama about a family after WWII, in turmoil because the father
can't find work.  The outer film is about activities at the TV studio
broadcasting the film, preceded by a review and interview with the
director (the outer director, playing himself); part of the outer film
also takes place in the living room of a family watching the movie (a
must-see for Lego lovers -- could someone tell me what the kid built).

     Since the movie is being shown on a commercial TV station, it is
periodically interrupted by commercials.  Things get strange, though,
when one of the children in the inner movie starts humming one of the
jingles and an actress from one of the commercials shows up in the
movie.  After this, things get *very* weird, but I won't say any more
since I promised only minor spoilers.

     This is definitely one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long
time.  The subtitling was done very well, I hardly ever had trouble
reading the dialogue.

--
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar