This'll be my most random entry to date I think. I've no idea why I'm starting to write this at a quarter to one in the morning when I plan on getting up at 8.30am to watch the Australian Open final (yes, amazingly my interest is still there even though my beloved Danka lost a few days ago). Anyway, I just finished watching the pilot of The Closer - I've no idea if it's a repeat or if we've only just got it now but I've liked Kyra Sedgwick ever since Singles and I can see why she gets nominated for everything every year in tv-land in America.
This wasn't the only bit of "proper" tv I watched today, lovefilm sent me the BBC's 70s version of Anna Karenina and I had no idea it was going to be 10 50 minute episodes - maybe this is finally a version I can truly admire (I know there's no chance at all I'll ever find the Russian 60s Tatiana Samojlova film). Nicola Pagett seems very interesting (obviously, I would have preferred someone like Charlotte Rampling but one never knows what kind of place she was in at the time) and the two men are cast well. Not too sure about Kitty but I'm willing to change my mind. Only saw 1 episode but looks very good.
What wasn't very good was Hong Kong's submission for this year's foreign language oscar - Johhny To's Exiled. I deliberately missed this when it was released and I was very smart to do so because it's just not a good film. Anthony Wong (from The Painted Veil, Infernal Affairs) is the only member of the cast to emerge with any credit. Simon Yam (who was the only good thing about To's Election) has had everything interesting about him as an actor stripped away by his 2D character.
This film is all attempted style and no substance whatsoever. The cinematography is a hackneyed Chris Doyle rip-off (it's as if To wanted to do an action film like Wong Kar-Wai but neglected to watch As Tears Go By to see how Wong used to do it), the plot virtually non-existant (it's basically lots of shoot-outs every 10-15 minutes strung together flimsily), even less characterisation making it impossible to care about the people in said shootouts (so he's not been watching Leone then), it's just a really limp, lazy effort.
Even limper and even more mad a choice to send to the oscars for foreign language was Cronos, which I suppose we should all now watch because Pan's Labyrinth made a lot of money. It's atrocious. Such poor acting (Ron Perlman may rival Orlando Bloom for being the most incompetently wooden actor I've ever seen), the screenplay is just horrific, the characterisation utterly risible, it's just awful.
Getting back and saving it though is the Sophia Loren/Marcello Mastroianni/Vittorio De Sica film, Sunflower. I've been unfortunate to be born in a country where these people's collaberations are extremely difficult to get hold of but lovefilm had this (and A Special Day, which along with Wong's segment of Eros remains the only thing I've ever attempted to watch without subtitles - I even found this year's Polish entry Katyn, which I've been looking forward to for months because it's Wajda and looked quite baity, but haven't watched it because there are no subtitles and I can't find any to download) so I rented it.
It starts off rather slowly, the basic storyline is Marcello is missing on the Russian Front and Sophia is trying to find him. The limp part of the film is the flashback to how they were but when Loren gets to Russia the acting all round (and consequently, the film as a whole) really picks up. By the end, this simple situation the characters find themselves in is an acting goldmine. Loren in particular nails her role and goes above and beyond (she doesn't have the broadest range of any actress I've seen, but what she can do she's just magnificent at) and it truly makes the film, which started off decidedly averagely (except for that gorgeous Henry Mancini score) but ends up being really quite good. The dvd quality is sub par and it does hurt the visuals (which look like they were very nice), but it's more than worth tolerating.
Anyway, got to be up in about 7 hours for Djokovic/Tsonga, best thing about it is I couldn't give a toss who wins, so I'm just hoping for a great contest to crown the first new man to win a grand slam in over three and a half years.
Wow. I loved Exiled and totally raved about it. Yours is the first negative review I've happen to come across. I welcome your contrariness, I just happen to disagree. I really enjoyed the style, the acting, the characters. I thought the actors were working with archetypical (two-dimensional, sure, or maybe one), epic characters who carried the movie with their eyes and faces, not their dialogue. Simon took his role and ran with it. I loved it. Lazy? It only seemed languid and gorgeous to me. I love Christopher Doyle and Wong Kar-Wai, and my not seeing a connection between To's style on Exiled and Wong's work may have to do with the fact that As Tears Go By is one of his only films I haven't seen. Thanks for posting your thoughts.
IK