Right, some of these are from quite a while ago but I just haven't been watching enough to clump them all together. I'll start with the Argentina season that was on Film Four a couple of weeks ago. I saw El Aura, then missed the Lucrecia Martel film La Ciénaga because my tape ran out halfway through, I taped La Antena (which I've already seen multiple times but wanted another copy of it anyway, it is the best thing I've seen since 2004) and haven't got round to watching another one, which I can't remember the name of. Anyway El Aura was an interesting film by the late Fabián Bielinsky, reteaming him with the ubiquitous Ricardo Darín. It's about an epileptic taxidermist who has fantasies about committing the perfect heist and is presented with such an opportunity following a hunting trip in the woods. Very nicely shot, well acted and clever enough to keep your interest even if certain things are a bit obvious and it does drag a touch.
I've seen every film version of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers from the 50s and 70s ones to the Abel Ferrara one and Robert Rodriquez's The Faculty and I saw the latest one, The Invasion (starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig) on Sky last week. If you fancy watching Kidman run around in a grey sweater then this is the film for you because that's the basic plot. I guess I should hate this but I didn't, it had its weak aspects (particularly Jeremy Northam in the least interesting performance I've ever seen him give) but the basic story is good enough to pull the film through. Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel tried to take his name off this after it was extensively re-written and re-shot and I can't blame him for that, if it's not his vision, it's not his vision. As it stands it's far from a good film but equally I feel not a bad one (certainly not as bad as Ferrara's Body Snatchers). Worth watching if it's on tv and you're bored but nothing more than that.
I caught Mary, Queen of Scots, which I'd wanted to see for a while because of Vanessa Redgrave's oscar nomination. It was on tv even though I've not been able to get it through online rental and also had Glenda Jackson doing Queen Elizabeth before she gave her definitive performance in the seminal Elizabeth R. It's quite the disappointment all round really. Jackson is very good and Rednose is fine but there's just nothing to drag this out of the ordinary. The drama is too simplistic (due to the definitive nature of how they're interpreting the history) and I just think the dramatic potential has been shown elsewhere and it wasn't anywhere near reached here. Went on way too long for what it was.
So as I mentioned on the previous post I've been enjoying Kenneth Branagh in Wallander and last night in the third film/episode (One Step Behind) he surpassed himself again. Anyway, BBC Four had showed a couple of Swedish Wallanders, starring Krister Henriksson (the lover in Faithless and husband in Reconstruction) and I missed them but the were (and as of today the second one still is) online on the BBC's iPlayer so I caught them there. The first one was called Before the Frost and was released simultaneously on tv and in cinemas in Sweden. It's based on the last novel (which tells the story from the point of view of Wallander's daughter) and served as the starting point for a dozen more original stories as the Swedes have already adapted all the novels for tv films starring the brilliant Rolf Lassgård (from After the Wedding).
I really enjoyed it, especially the lead performance from Johanna Sällström, who heartbreakingly it turns out committed suicide almost 2 years ago now. The second one (which, strangely, was the 6th of the 13 episodes broadcast between early 2005 and late 2006) wasn't as good and was basically a bog-standard psycho toying personally with the policeman chasing him thriller we've seen a thousand times before. BBC Four also is showing a couple of "episodes" (they, like the Wallanders, are feature length and self-sustained) of Inspector Montalbano, which is based on an Italian series of books. I liked the first one (second one's tonight), it's funnier than Wallander but the plots and characters aren't as good. I'll still check out the next one though.
Which leaves me with a couple more to talk about, both based on celebrated 19th century English authors. Also thanks to the iPlayer I caught up with Little Dorrit. Overall I enjoyed it but not as much as Bleak House, Matthew Macfadyen was fine in the lead but Claire Foy destroyed him in the acting stakes. Eddie Marsan was very fun and Tom Courtenay was excellent but Andy Serkis ... well he was so unrelentingly hammy I may as well convert to Judaism because I think it may have put me off pork for life. Usual hack Dickens aspects of the story but it was a more smoothly executed piece of television, just had neither the cast nor source material to rival Bleak House.
Given Sally Hawkins' raping of all the American critics awards at the moment for Happy-Go-Lucky I checked out the BBC's 1990s version of her best performance, that in Jane Austen's Persuasion. It was a good adaptation, well done and was cast well, I just think it falls a bit short of the new ITV version in every area. Ciaran Hinds was fine but wasn't enough of a git for my liking and Amanda Root was very good but didn't have Hawkins' vulnerability or overt insecurity. The end also, such a high point in the new version was much more low key here and given the ambiguous nature of how it is written in the book you do have a lot of licence to do what you like with it. So it's on youtube and is well worth checking out if you're a fan of Austen, but if you only want to watch one, go with the Hawkins version.