The first thing we did back in Milan was to have a long lunch by the Giardini Pubblici with Albert S., a Nigerian Aristocrat who relocated from England to Italy in the mid-90s. After lunch he suggested we see a movie. When we got to the theater, Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby was the only English-language film playing, a full year after its American release no less, but Albert couldn’t have been more thrilled. His only time in the states was a semester at Talladega College, and he has only fond memories, as is evidenced by his sizable contributions to the school’s collection of Angolan artifacts. So there was no stopping him from marching right up to the booth and ordering tre biglietti, per favore. Read our full reviews after the jump!

Cliff: What happened over the course of the next two hours, I can’t say. The film hardly made an ounce of sense. It was like a very long joke that the actors were making up as they went along, and one got the distinct feeling that no scene was ever rehearsed more than once. The humor was not in the jokes, then, but in the sheer implausibility that what was happening on screen was, in fact, happening. We emerged from the theater as from a dream. It was a pleasure to see the cobblestones and the old folks drinking coffee and the models and the men chasing after them dressed in black, all just where we had left them.