The Salt of Life (DVD), Zeitgeist Films, Comedy

In his warm and witty follow-up to the 2010 hit Mid-August Lunch, writer-director-actor Gianni Di Gregorio has created another sparkling comedy with a dash of bittersweet. In the Salt of Life, Gianni plays a middle-aged retiree who has become invisible to all the women of Rome, regardless of age or relation. He contends with a demanding mother (played by Lunch's great nonagenarian Valeria de Franciscis); a patronizing wife; a slacker daughter; and a wild party-girl neighbor who uses him; as a dog walker. Watching his codger friends snare beautiful young girlfriends on the sun-kissed cobblestones of Trastevere, Gianni tries his polite, utterly gracious best to generate some kind of extracurricular love life-with both hilarious and poignant results.