I like the Coen's, although "Fargo" was the most fully realized of their projects. I may be one of a dozen people in the US who liked "The Hudsucker Proxy". "Miller's Crossing" was brilliantly plotted and directed, although, like Chinese food, it left you hungry in an hour. "Barton Fink" was very powerful, and made an excellent point about the Left's romanticization of the Common Man (I can hear John Goodman bellowing "I'll give you the Common Man" as I type).
"Sullivan's Travels" was a good film, and rather sweet, in the end. However, I think that only one sequence was truly great, a car chase that was amazingly directed. Veronica Lake was, indeed, easy on the eye.
I remember Hanks in the tv show "Bosom Buddies". He had a quality even then, and my wife and I predicted he would go far. I am intrigued by "Castaway" too. I thought "You've Got Mail" was a rather tired recycling of "Sleepless in Seattle" and "When Harry Met Sally", Hanks subbing for Crystal, and I thought the stars were not truly engaged by the project. However, he has done fine work, as in "Big" and "Forrest Gump".
I believe that Tornatore also had a film several years ago named "Meditteraneo", about Italian soldiers on a Greek island, that was rather charming. Also, didn't he do "Everything is Fine", with Marcello Mastroanni playing a Sicilian father whose goes to visit his children, and all of them try to deceive him about what is happening in their lives?
Did you ever catch "Autumn Tale", by Eric Rohmer? It was a lovely film. One of the stars had, as a youngster, played the dark haired teenager in "Claire's Knee", and there she was in middle age playing a lonesome widow whom friends attempt to fix up. |
