Movie remake of the week
Sep. 11th, 2003 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiSo, thanks to the wonders of Tivo and IFC, I've been watching Ripley's Game. It's an amazing little movie, based on a Patricia Highsmith novel (she being one of the two people, along with Jim Thompson, who helped define the crime novel (as opposed to mystery novel) for me). John Malkovich is perfectly cast as an older Tom Ripley (the part that Matt Damon played a few years ago in The Talented Mr. Ripley, and that Dennis Hopper fucking ruined in Wim Wenders's vastly overrated The American Friend). He's better, frankly, playing a sociopath than he is playing the cliched psychopath. In this (unlike, say, In the Line of Fire), he has to show a lot of restraint, which makes the scenes where he cuts loose (including a brutal beating of a bodyguard at the beginning) absolutely riveting. The other members of the cast, including Dougray Scott, Ray Winstone, Lena Headey, and a number of Italian actors and actresses (the director, Liliana Cavani, is Italian) are also spot-on.
Mind you, you can't go wrong (unless you miscast and direct a character completely; see above) with a Highsmith work. Hitchcock did an amazing job with Strangers on a Train, of course, but most folks are unaware of the equally gripping <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/b00005y6yn/yendisjournal-20">The Cry of the Owl.
But what annoys me about this most recent Highsmith film is that it's not available. Anywhere. No DVD, no VHS, no Region 2 DVD, even. It's not like it's an older film. It's got a bankable star. Hell, it's kind of a "sequel" to a hit film from a few years ago. But no fucking home release.
All I can say is, thank goodness for Tivo and IFC. And go find some of Highsmith's novels. They're worth reading, every one of them.
Mind you, you can't go wrong (unless you miscast and direct a character completely; see above) with a Highsmith work. Hitchcock did an amazing job with Strangers on a Train, of course, but most folks are unaware of the equally gripping <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/b00005y6yn/yendisjournal-20">The Cry of the Owl.
But what annoys me about this most recent Highsmith film is that it's not available. Anywhere. No DVD, no VHS, no Region 2 DVD, even. It's not like it's an older film. It's got a bankable star. Hell, it's kind of a "sequel" to a hit film from a few years ago. But no fucking home release.
All I can say is, thank goodness for Tivo and IFC. And go find some of Highsmith's novels. They're worth reading, every one of them.
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Date: 2003-09-11 10:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-11 08:48 pm (UTC)