March 20th, 2007
The ‘real’ Departed and The Yellow House
If you’re insane enough not to be following Life on Mars on BBC1 tonight at 9pm, watch More 4 at the same time. Or if you’re perfectly rational and religiously following LoM at 9, switch over to More4+1 at 10pm. Why? So you can watch Infernal Affairs, the film which Marty Scorsese remade - not quite as well and still won an Oscar for - as The Departed.
Speaking of the lovely John Simm, he stars as Vincent Van Gogh alongside another fine actor, John Lynch (as Paul Gauguin) in The Yellow House on Channel 4 this Thursday at 9pm. Over on the C4 site, there are interviews with both actors.
Links:
The Yellow House
March 20th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Have to agree The Departed is over rated. Watched Children of Men again last night. Beats the living daylights out of everything released last year for vision, political resonance and brutal realism - even if it did pilfer from The Battle of Algiers.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
It just left me disappointed and I was really annoyed by the ending.
Did CoM pilfer from TBOA? Tell me more…
March 21st, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Absolutely. The verite style; handheld camera, stark title cards, use of recorded sound with minimal overdubs or ADR. Even structurally the use of the prologue as a ’shock’ scene before the title. Fair enough the ending may be a bit neat but it tries to maintain some sort of emotional balance. Watch the two as a double bill, fascinating altogether. Oh and it also has the longest tracking shot in cinema (to date).
March 21st, 2007 at 1:44 pm
‘It’ being Children of Men
March 23rd, 2007 at 9:43 am
The whole ‘Political resonance’ aspect of Children of Men really bored me, from the scenes of torture at the detainee camp being made to look exactly like Abu Gharib and the Muslims marching and chanting Allah Achba. It seems like every film these days has to reflect what’s going on with the “war”. OK, I get it, it’s terrible what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and we have to examine ourselves because, like, under certain circumstances the same things could happen here (or in Britain where the film is set) so we have to be cautious and stuff…..
Political posturing aside though I thought Children of Men was a stunning film.
And for the record I prefered The Departed to Infernal Affairs. IA was too po-faced and took itself way too seriously.