I found this movie, the third of a series, a bit underdone...let down by De Niro and saved by Verdone and Scamarcio. If there's one thing I can't stand it's that so called "great" actors like De Niro are not able to even learn a few words in Italian. Yes he's supposed to be American (even though he's a professor haha) but in real life as in the movie, his lack of the language ability just adds to my low expectations of him. This overrated actor almost killed the movie.

I eagerly waited for this movie to come out as I knew about De Niro's part in it, and I was not disappointed with the results. The Ages Of Love or Manuale D'Amour is a movie that shows picturesque passages of Italy thus letting the audience mix with the story in a still, yet amusive plot that is prompt of sweet, credible and comic relationships. It is a film which contains interesting stories and shows De Niro's versatility proving again the actor's will and ability to transform himself into different characters while showing a new side of the actor, that I myself, having seen most of his works, have never seen before. Perfect for a calm afternoon if you're willing to relax and have a good time.

Are Italians really like this? :-)

I have just finished watching these 3 romantic comedy ... sort of ... stories in Italian with Norwegian subtitles.

A young lawyer is sent out to buy a family estate for a corporation and runs into a beautiful and wild girl who shakes his engagement and world. He tells the family not to take the money and reconciles with his fiancée.

An established Italian news anchorman is vexatiously seduced by a voluptuous woman who turns out to be a psychopathic stalker who apparently lets him impregnate her. His wife and daughter find out and walk out on him, while his seductress is institutionalized but lets him have the videotape she made of their sex sessions, apparently loving him. He is reassigned to Africa and leaves her there, and we later see him being Danteanly brutalized in his destination by thugs.

Giving us older guys hope, De Niro plays a heart transplant Italian American history prof whose lecherous landlord quickly becomes re-estranged from his voluptuously beautiful daughter (Monica Belucci no less),when he is scandalized to discover she has been a strip teaser and pole dancer in Paris ... and our prof gives her shelter. (Is there any male on Planet Earth who *wouldn't* give Monica Belucci shelter?) Mercifully, some of De Niro's soliloquies are in English.

The film does not reflect well on Italian men, who are portrayed as being neurotically weak - lots of extraneous gesturing - and run by their women ... except for De Niro, of course.

Some of the scenes are funny ... some are HOT with beautiful Italian women in various stages of undress ... and it amused me but not enough to watch it again anytime soon.

The film's climax is triumphant with Monica Belucci and De Niro having faith in themselves, each other, and life to have a baby boy regardless of obstacles - and I am very glad Monica has herself had two daughters: beautiful and intelligent women should indeed be reproduced. If she has a sister or niece who needs shelter, I am at her service.

But without Monica Belucci, I would not have rated the film as high as a 6. Even then, I wish she had proudly and shamelessly displayed more of her heart-stopping beauty, and the appreciation of such healthy feminine beauty is a national trait to the credit of all Italians ... and some of the rest of us.

Lou Coatney