La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) - B

I'm no Fellini aficionado, but this is an awful lot like 8 1/2, isn't it, with the same rambling quasi-narrative that goes off the meta-deep end in the last half hour? It's less compelling, I think -- possibly because I saw it second, but also because the Fellini/Mastroianni lover protagonist just isn't as interesting as the other movie's filmmaker/solipsist. Mastroianni weirdly goes the lovable puppy dog route, standing around looking all pouty and forlorn as he takes stock of his broken dreams, his pointless career, his empty womanizing, and the artifice that surrounds him. Some of the vignettes are pretty brilliant (I love the circus that develops around the rural Virgin Mary sighting), others just seem like showing off (the weird dungeon sequence is absurdly overstuffed); too many end on the same glibly ironic note, with Marcello calling or otherwise reconnecting with another of his women. The three hours feel more like two, and I'll keep watching Fellini, but 8 1/2 made me hope for something a bit stronger.