Tag Archive: Donald Sutherland


THE BEST OFFER : A ONE MAN ACT

Filed under: Italy, Modern Art, Movies — Leave a comment
February 4, 2013

THE BEST OFFER (La migliore offerta) directed by Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy, 2013)

The current wiki succinctly provides viewers with the bare bones of the plot of this movie by describing it as the story of “a loveless elderly man [who] intersects with an astute young man and a mysterious woman in a central European setting”.

The elderly man in question is named Virgil Oldman (‘old man’ – geddit?) and the unspecified city is probably Florence. This setting must make the fact that everyone speaks English in the original a bit weird although is less odd in the version dubbed into Italian that I saw.

Oldman is played with panache by Geoffrey Rush. He is an eccentric and mega-wealthy art dealer /auctioneer and a lifelong collector of women, albeit those safety contained on canvas and depicted by the world’s greatest portrait painters. Flesh and blood females are more of an issue and he’s not really a people person at all.

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TAKING THE GROSS OUT PLEDGE

Filed under: Humour, Movies — Leave a comment
November 28, 2012

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE  directed by John Landis (USA, 1978)

John Belushi

Bluto don’t need no education.

Gross-out is a movie genre where tastelessness, political incorrectness and bad personal hygiene are worn as badges of honour.

In other words, adding to society’s ethical and cultural wellbeing is not high on the list of priorities so adjectives like  ‘sick’ or ‘depraved’ are taken as compliments.

National Lampoon’s Animal House can justifiably lay claim to launching the genre on an unsuspecting world.

John Belushi is regarded as gross-out royalty both for his role as John ‘Bluto’ Blutarsky and for the fact that playing the part of a drunken degenerate seems to have closely resembled his off-screen lifestyle. To prove this point definitively he died of a drug overdose just four years later at the age of 33. Continue reading →

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HUNGER GAMES MOVIE HITS THE TARGET

Filed under: Books, Gender, Movies, Television — Leave a comment
August 20, 2012

THE HUNGER GAMES directed by Gary Ross (USA, 2012)

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Evergreen

Katniss Evergreen takes aim.

As far as ‘young adult’ fantasy fiction is concerned, you only have to look at what a pig’s ear was made of the adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s Northern Lights for The Golden Compass to know that there’s never any guarantee that a great book will make a great movie.

So Suzanne Collins is probably pinching herself over the fact that director Gary Ross has brought her vision to the big screen with such style and assurance. Continue reading →

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