Dopo mezzanotte

After Midnight (9 out of 10)

Give me the Italian love of cinema and love of love over the French any day of the week, well, maybe 6 out of 7.

Here we have a movie about movies shot on digital video with a genre plot and some postmodern reflexivism thrown in. In the hands of a certain French New Wave director whose name I refuse to type, who in fact has used all of these devices himself, these tactics would be used at times to alienate, to smirk, to nudge-nudge-wink-wink, and to create narrative distance or irony. Ferrario uses them for all their worth, but with a consistently joyful embrace of both his characters and his audience. It's as if all 95 minutes of Band of Outsiders were running through the Louvre and dancing the Madison.

Any movie that keeps a smile fixed on my face from start to finish deserves a superior mark, even if it doesn't have the depth or reach of other movies I rank as highly.