1787: The Year The Smithville Inn and The U.S. was Built. Incredibly, the historic towne of Smithville actually predates the first President of the United States, George Washington taking office, by two years.
Cruella (Photo: Disney), Chris Rock in
Spiral: From The Book Of Saw (Photo: Lionsgate), Angelina Jolie in
Those Who Wish Me Dead (Photo: Warner Bros.), Emily Blunt in
A Quiet Place Part II (Photo: Paramount), and Dave Bautista in
Army Of The Dead (Photo: Netflix)
Graphic: Natalie Peeples
May is usually the month that kicks off the summer movie season. For obvious reasons, that wasn’t the case last year, and it’s not quite the case this year either the blockbusters don’t start arriving in earnest until June, which Hollywood is banking on as basically the earliest time they can unleash their prospective hits and still draw a vaccinated crowd. But more and more movies
anthony: we re dining at palazzo margherita not the ancestral home of generations of coppolas but might well have been the one time manor house of those who lorded over them while they worked in the fields. mr. coppola: during the mussolini time, every town had a podestà, the official of the fascist party. and this family was the podestà. the ladies here were so, you know, snobby we are low-class italians. they were more high-class italians. anthony: it took years, and a lot of money, converting the once grand, but decaying mansion into a boutique hotel. anthony: you know, when you bought this place, was there a sense of vengeance? mr. coppola: i, you know, by then, the godfather had come out 40 years ago. anthony: no, no. i mean, look, it s not about the film. historical correction. mr. coppola: there s a
your grandfather was boning the help here? was it the mr. coppola: you ve heard that story my grandfather, they called him zumpa balcone. he was girl crazy. and he would go up on the roof and go down to where the maid was, palmetta, and conduct this affair. and so when i found this place, years later, there was in fact a roof leading to a housemaids and i fantasized that perhaps that was where it happened. dov e where s the, we re going to have to have more food. prende the segonda. this is a dish, we called it cotenne. how do you call it? aiter: cotenna. mr. coppola: yeah, this is like basically my father said. anthony: pig skin. mr. coppola: this is the football. anthony: wait a minute. you had this at your dinner table as a young man? as a kid? mr. coppola: yeah, a little kid. anthony: wow. mr. coppola: i hated it. anthony: of course. mr. coppola: but now i don t. anthony: so good.
mr. coppola: and i had an extremely handsome brother, and i looked like an elf. so i kind of didn t get the attention from the mother that my brother did. i had very big lips as a child, and she always used to say that i should have plastic surgery. but when you see my daughter, sophia, she s got my lips. anthony: yeah. mr. coppola: but they look good on her. anthony: up in the mountains, you find tiny medieval era villages like bernalda, seat of the paternal family roots of this man, francis ford coppola. mr. coppola: welcome, benvenuto. anthony: thank you. anthony: one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. you have deep roots here. mr. coppola: my grandfather always told the stories of bernalda, bernalda bella. and oddly enough he never had gone back once he left as an american immigrant. but it became mythical to me. the story is that the family originally came from lecce, and someone got their sister pregnant and they killed her.