Umberto D -- does anyone care anymore?

In this age of films written and produced for the 15-24 juvenile video-game crowd, does anyone care about Vittoria de Sica anymore?

Has anyone HEARD OF Vittoria de Sica lately, or ever, really? Perhaps that's the real question.

For the record -- De Sica was honored with four Academy Awards: two Special Awards (when there was no "Best Foreign Film" category yet), for Shoeshine in 1947, and The Bicycle Thief in 1949; and Best Foreign Film Awards for Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow in 1964, and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis in 1971.

Martin Scorcese said: "As powerful as The Bicycle Thief was, for me, De Sica and Zavattini's greatest achievement together was Umberto D... a great movie about a hero of everyday life. That was De Sica's precious gift to his father. And to us."

It's about old age, loneliness, lack of communication, what happens when life passes you by...

But it's also about LIFE with its zany energy. It's about love and hope. Ever presence pulse of Grace Eternal. The last scene is worth all the rest of it.

Umberto Ferrari (played by Carlo Battisti, a University of Florence professor of linguistics in real life) is a retired man who is kicked out of his one-room rental by his landlady who is his opposite -- young, juicy, sexy, conniving, scheming, ruthless, given to appearances, a social climber, party animal, and a poor tenant's worst nightmare.

Umberto doesn't know where to go and what to do... He is penniless. But there are things that he still cares deeply about.

He has a little dog, Flick, the sweetest cutest little dog you'll ever see.

And a maid, Maria, who was 15 and a non-professional actor at the time the film was shot. A simple country girl with a round peasant face as wide open as a wheat field.

Those are the few things in life that keep gentle, considerate but desperate and weak Umberto going until, that is, he decides to commit suicide together with his dog.

De Sica dedicated this film to his own father and considered it as his best.

How many Umberto D's has the Economic Disaster of 2008 created? And when will their films be made? And will the market reward such efforts or just move on to the next video game?