This evening I finished watching the original movie version of "The Talented Mr. Ripley."
This is the Matt Damon version released in 1999.
I have seen this movie before and liked it. Why did I watch it again? Interesting question.
First of all, I have a difficult time finding a decent movie on my Netflix subscription which I now pay $25 a month for.
Maybe I'm too jaded or just have seen too many movies in my lifetime that they all seem the same to me now. One thing is for sure, the quality of many of today's movies is very poor.
I saw the most recent version of "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and it was good but I was put off by a woman playing "Freddie", the character that Phillip Seymour Hoffman was so perfect in the original version.
I normally don't watch movies during the week, only on the weekends. And always at night, never in the daytime.
But I'm so exhausted watching the non-stop coverage of the latest Trump chaos on TV that I just wanted a release. An escape from the hellscape that is currently enveloping America. Just today I saw on my NextDoor app that ICE was in Lewes and Rehoboth Beach today. Yes, Trump's Gestapo has even invaded our peaceful communities here on the east coast of the Delmarva peninsula.
So while I was scrolling through the movie selections on my Netflix app, I was wishing for the original "The Talented Mr. Ripley." Bill helped me out again as he often does from the Afterlife and this movie popped right up on my thirteen year old 65 inch Aquos Sharp screen TV in my bedroom. I selected that icon and start to watching the movie last night. It's a long movie. While I remember the general story I found much to my surprise, I didn't remember many of the specific scenes. So this was like a whole new movie to me.
What a delight! Good actors! Great script. Wonderful scenes of Italy. Superb script writing. Perhaps the only downside was that this movie was a Miramax (Harvey Weinstein) production. Only Harvey is sitting in prison now, after all his sexual abuse of young actresses came to light during the "Me Too" witch-hunts.
Why don't they make movies like this anymore?
I know the answer: MONEY.
The producers of today's movies throw in some sex scenes and graphic violence and that's the majority of today's movies. Not for me.
Oh, there is the occasional good movie today. They're hard to fine though.
2 comments:
Ron, have you read any of Patricia Highsmith's novels - which includes five 'Ripley' books? I don't remember if you're as keen reader as I am but I 'discovered' her about 50 years ago and, now that I've read most of her 22 novels and some of her short stories, she's definitely one of my very favourite writers, her Ripleys being right up there with her best. Probably her best known is her first novel 'Strangers on a Train' thanks mainly to Hitchcock's memorable film, even though with some most unfortunate changes to her story.
However the more recent 'Carol' in 2015 via Woody Allen (before all the unedifying controversy) is one of my top favourites, earning a well,-deserved Oscar for Cate Blanchett - and it was her only directly 'gay' novel, Highsmith herself being Lesbian - though this work doesn't quite have the twists and turns she's best known for. But her novels in book form I do strongly recommend.
Ray,
Thanks for the recommendation of Patricia Highsmith. I didn't know she also wrote "Strangers On A Train." I saw that movie and liked it very much. I think the last fiction I read was "Robinson Crusoe" and that was when I was ten years old and in third grade. I like that book tremendously but I don't read fiction. I like fiction in movies and TV shows but not books. Ii like autobiographies and history (current usually) books. Of courses a lot of those books are "fiction" too but pure fiction like mysteries, I prefer to see the movie. There are too many good biographies and real life to read in books. Of course I'm reading one of the many books on Trump now, Jonathan Karl's book "Retribution." I don't go for the heavy reading like Spo prefers, makes my head hurt. James Joyce is a good example. Just a regular, easy to read narrative. I read for pleasure, not to impress. I even tried to read "The Prisoner" by Kafka once. Forget it. I'm not trying to impress anybody let alone myself by what I read. I only read for information. I watch movies and TV show for pleasure.
Ron
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