November 23, 1995
Web posted at: 12:45 a.m. EST
From Senior Entertainment Correspondent Bill Tush
HOLLYWOOD, California (CNN) -- 'Tis the season for holiday movies. And this year, Al Pacino is joining in the mad rush of holiday films. The Oscar-winning actor stars in "Two Bits," a movie where the entire story takes place in one day.
The film is about a 12-year-old boy whose trying to raise "two bits" to go to the movies. It takes place during the depression, when coming up with quarter could be a monumental task. But the main thread of this tale is not about money, it's about a boy named Gennaro and his relationship with his dying grandfather.
Pacino plays the grandfather. He says the script appealed to him because his own grandfather was one of the most influential people in his life.
"My grandfather ... raised me," says Pacino, "So I felt a kind of warmth toward the character." (315K AIFF sound or 315K WAV sound)
Pacino wasn't the only one that felt a special kinship to the film. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, who plays Gennaro's widowed mother, imagined her own family in this story as well. Mastrantonio says "Two Bits" is a story about hoping against hope, and never believing in failure.
"I don't know what it takes to get out of the family mode," she says. "First I am his sister, then I'm his daughter. I don't know what it takes to actually be the romantic figure in his life ... Perhaps I have to be blonde. It could happen." (230K AIFF sound or 230K WAV sound)
While Mastrantonio is a screen veteran, Jerry Barone is just making his screen debut. The young actor beat out 750 other contenders for the role of Gennaro, and the chance to star opposite a Hollywood legend.
If you want to catch "Two Bits," it might be hard to find among the all the holiday movies. The film is only playing in selected theaters, but a wider release is planned for the near future.
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