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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 13, 2024 13:57:01 GMT
After watching the first episodes I bought the novel. I was quite surprised how much I liked it Why the surprise? It is, after all, an acknowledged classic. Other recommended Highsmith titles include THOSE WHO WALK AWAY and THE TREMOR OF FORGERY.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 13, 2024 15:31:27 GMT
After watching the first episodes I bought the novel. I was quite surprised how much I liked it Why the surprise? It is, after all, an acknowledged classic. Other recommended Highsmith titles include THOSE WHO WALK AWAY and THE TREMOR OF FORGERY. In my younger days I have to confess I couldn't really appreciate this kind of crime fiction. Too highbrow literature. And a lot of acclaimed classics didn't age well. I was more into Ed McBain, Robert B. Parker, Mickey Spillane and other hard boiled and pulpish stuff. I prefered Ted Allbeury to John Le Carre (and mostly still do). Most of this has changed.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 13, 2024 17:14:54 GMT
Why the surprise? It is, after all, an acknowledged classic. Other recommended Highsmith titles include THOSE WHO WALK AWAY and THE TREMOR OF FORGERY. In my younger days I have to confess I couldn't really appreciate this kind of crime fiction. Too highbrow literature. And a lot of acclaimed classics didn't age well. I was more into Ed McBain, Robert B. Parker, Mickey Spillane and other hard boiled and pulpish stuff. I prefered Ted Allbeury to John Le Carre (and mostly still do). Most of this has changed. "Highbrow" or not, Highsmith is very entertaining. Come to think of it, I suppose THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY does have a "highbrow" element to it, as it is clearly inspired by Henry James's THE AMBASSADORS.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 15, 2024 16:14:51 GMT
In the tradition of Robert Aickman:
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Post by jamesdoig on Apr 15, 2024 21:46:02 GMT
Ripley – directed by Steven Zaillian, 2024. Just started watching this and it's brilliantly done - captures just the right atmosphere.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 16, 2024 8:17:08 GMT
In the tradition of Robert Aickman: I don't know what was scarier: the three people in a world without any other people or the kid which will never know what a real book is.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 29, 2024 14:13:31 GMT
The Last Voyage of the Demeter – directed by André Øvredal, 2023
Some Dracula movies put this chapter of the Stoker novel already on the screen, for instance it is one of the most memorable set pieces of Murnau's Nosferatu.
The plot is well known (at least for everyone who read Stoker or Wikipedia). Dracula takes a ship to England, eats the crew, the ship will be beached in Whitby, all crewmen are dead, including the captain. End of story. Now André Øvredal's movie does a lot of things right, and the embellishments are okay, even if they need some strong suspension of disbelief at times.
So we get a movie which at least tries and has some nice photography. Even the 'must be shoehorned in at all costs female' role manages to make kind of sense. The ship looks great, its nicely claustrophobic, and the crew is not entirely made of red shirts. Dracula is again a nosferatu, just an emaciated corpse with wings, and his hypnotic powers must be great for Lucy (or Harker) to fall for him, but never mind.
Still the movie doesn't work very well. A few suspensefully done scenes, especially in the last act, can't lift this above a drawn out monster hunt on the high seas, as we got just a hissing, snarling Dracula ripping throats out, not the old warlord playing mind games with his victims. The script doesn't rise above a too linear told tale which makes this a bit boring at 119 minutes.
As much as I hated the Gatiss/Moffat version of this particular Dracula part a few years ago, one has to make amends insofar that they tried to take the canon and do something new with it. This movie consciously doesn't. So Dracula takes a ship to England, eats the crew, the ship will be beached in Whitby, all crewmen are dead including the captain (well, except the created for the movie hero). End of story and another box office failure.
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