Nine Good Teeth

At a time when televised professional football has not one but two notable examples of nudity in a single year (Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction and Nicolette Sheridan's Monday Night Football locker-room towel-dropping routine), one woman's admission that "I think I could have an orgasm" hardly warrants a blush. Except for the fact that the woman in question is filmmaker Alex Halpern's then 96-year-old grandmother "Nana" (Mary Mirabito Livornese Cavaliere), a Brooklyn-by-way-of-Stromboli Italian-American matriarch who has witnessed 11 decades (she turned 105 on September 8, 2004), outlived two husbands, and seen the births of scores of bambinos (Mary had nine surviving sisters). Nine Good Teeth (a reference to Nana's dental status) is an entertaining, larger-than-life "home movie," full of archival family photos and film clips of the sprawling Mirabito family's 20th-century misadventures (including Sicilian-style revenge, Mary's illicit affair with a man who would later become her second husband, late night visits from Jack Kerouac, and her notable contribution to the United Nations' "Common Good" project). Most powerful are the scenes depicting the strained relationship between Mary and her daughter Maria (Halpern's mother), especially when the latter--in a powerful, tearful admission--considers the terrible hole that will be left in her heart when her problematic mother is gone. A somewhat rambling, but consistently engaging love letter from a grandson, Nine Good Teeth bows on DVD with a director's commentary, deleted scenes, and a series of official "Nanaisms" (i.e., translated Sicilian sayings). Recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)