ore Cascio wanders dangerously into the over-precocious endearment zone (Village Voice critic Georgia Brown recently suggested wringing his neck; I suggest forcing him to watch Swedish movies). Actor Leopoldo Trieste, who plays the ecclesiastical, cross-eyed movie snipper who indicates to projectionist Noiret where to cut by ringing a small bell, suggests an exaggerated combination of Mel Brooks and Sid Caesar.
             Noiret, as the fuzzy old mentor who quotes canned wisdom from John Wayne movies, teaches young Salvatore how to thread the projector and then learns to live with a tragic physical affliction, is quite delightful, however, and Marco Leonardi, as the adolescent Salvatore, has the most affecting turn of the three Salvatores, especially in his dreamy-eyed pursuit of rich daughter Elena (a striking Agnese Nano).
             But it's the overall, dreamy effect, along with your willingness to switch off your sentimentality detector, that makes the otherwise ludicrous believable, such as the time Alfredo assuages the unruly mob crowded out of the Paradiso by reflecting the film onto the white wall of a house in the square so everyone can see the movie. Or when during a sweltering summer night, the skies suddenly open with pouring rain and Elena appears out of nowhere to give Salvatore one of those scintillating kisses the townspeople have had to do without for years.
             There are films as lovely, but none lovelier than "Cinema Paradiso," a folkloric salute to the medium itself, flickering with yesterday's innocence and lingering on the mind like bubbles in wine. Born of director Giuseppe Tornatore's childhood memories, this is a magic lantern in a Sicilian boy's hand, its warm light shed on the riches of
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