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| When the moon hits your eye Like a big pizza pie, that's amore When the world seems to shine Like you've had too much wine, that's amore |
Dir. Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
Starring: Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Spring begins compellingly enough. Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a young chef in a local California watering hole who has been tending to his mother's palliative home care whilst she slowly dies of cancer. Once she passes, the only child (his Dad pre-deceased Mom) is not only consumed with grief, but loneliness to boot. Armed with a backpack and small inheritance, he hops on the first outbound plane which takes him to Rome. He eventually makes his way to a small burgh within the watchful burble and huffing/puffing of the volcanic Mt. Vesuvius.
Lava, however, is not the only thing roiling in these parts.
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| Bells will ring ting-a-ling-a-ling Ting-a-ling-a-ling and you'll sing, "Vita bella" Hearts will play tippy-tippy-tay Tippy-tippy-tay like a gay tarantella |
But, no matter. We get to enjoy a fair bit of boinking (including some nice flashes o' flesh) and for all those romantics out there, there's a whole whack o' Before Sunrise-like lovey-dovey-wanderings around the gorgeous terrain.
Evan, however, doesn't get to see what we see. These delights include Louise biting the head off a cat, developing pus-oozing sores and eventually a leisurely sojourn with her pet bunny rabbits leads to a cave wherein she doffs her clothes and scarfs back her cute, furry Leporidae - a kind of Night of the Lepus in reverse.
Yup, something's not quite right in Vesuvius County. Hell is going to break loose.
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| Will their hearts become one? Will she eat him well done? That's Amore! |
"Whatever!" I thought as I kept suffering through this insufferably twee 110 minutes of love. Not once do we feel any real threat to our leading man and those she does kill (aside from cute fur balls) are scumbags anyway, but the only real stakes are whether or not these two will find normal love together.
Someone watching this, I suppose, could care, but not this fella.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** (Film), ***½ (DVD/Blu-Ray)
Spring is now playing theatrically via Raven Banner and will be released June 2, 2015 on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital via Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada, then on August 11, 2015 on the same formats via Anchor Bay in the USA. Fans of the film will appreciate over three hours of added value bonus materials including Audio commentary with writer-producer-editor-director Justin Benson and producer-editor-cinematographer-director Aaron Moorhead, the feature-length "The Making of Spring", Deleted scenes, SFX case studies, Proof of Concept short, Alternate ending, The Talented Mr. Evan (Featurette), Angelo: The Worst Farmer (Featurette), Wankster Girlfriend Monologue (Featurette) and Evan Ti Odio (Featurette)
