Reviews

If you're familiar with Guy Ritchie's movies you know what you're getting yourself into. His stories are about eccentric British gangsters who use convolute language, violence and a lot of swearing. That sums up most of this series, inclusive of cool characters, fast editing, atrocious soundtrack and occasional visual tricks.

The saving grace are the interpreters of main characters Eddie (the Duke) and Susie (the Boss' daughter), who have believable chemistry, luckily without any sentimental strings attached. Ray Winstone as the Bobby the Boss is also good, albeit playing it too cool.

The Duke's family lives in a beautiful estate - slightly too grand and with way too much staff - and Eddie's mum is straight out of Lady Chatterley's lover, inclusive of liaison with gamekeeper Geoff and illegitimate offspring, even if both mum and daughter totally irrelevant to the plot, but someone must have told Ritchie a feminist touch was needed, so the daughter is single, pregnant and proudly parading her belly. What's got to do with the plot? Whatever...

Eddie's brother is the idiotic Freddy, I guess a parody of the useless, addict, degenerate aristocrat, but a very annoying character. On the criminal side, the annoying counterpart is Jimmy, a silly pothead who in real life would be terminated ASAP, but in the show he is the "comic relief" (Hint: he's not funny, just annoying as hell). However, the rest of criminals all seem more or less caricatures, starting from the demented Scouses to the suave but tax-evading Johnston, the spillover from Breaking Bad. The show includes the inevitable boxing scenes, gambling, car chases (green Lamborghini, nonetheless!) and Eastern European gangs. However, the criminal world seems to be more fun than aristocratic parties.

One glaring mistake: the Belgian character is a Flemish named de Groot but he speaks French! Ritchie's team should research better, since Belgians are very sensitive to this type of things and even I not being Belgian but having lived there several years, noticed the incongruity of a Flemish character who speaks French. That would NEVER happen.

On the whole it's entertaining enough even if very predictable with each episode creating a previously unforeseen problem to be solved and the introduction of a truckload of characters.

The film follows Boccacccio's journey from Florence to Ravenna to offer a monetary compensation to Dante's daughter. Dante had been exiled and could never return to Florence, dying in Ravenna after a long series of journeys across northern Italy. His daughter had followed him to Ravenna, to become a nun in a local convent, never wanting to go back to Florence because of the ill-treatment of her father.

Boccaccio, played by Castellitto, was already elderly and not in good health. During his own journey he meets and talks to people who knew Dante and we follow Dante's history as a series of flashbacks.

The problem is that the past and the present look exactly the same, the recollection of Dante's life jumps all over the place and the story never really takes off.

On the good side, the costumes and settings are suitable threadbare, living conditions are shown to be poor and kind of brutal. There are a couple of emotional scenes, but for others the setting is too artificial, made to look like some Giotto's paintings. On the minus side, I did not like the soundtrack at all and some scenes with Beatrice are just weird, inclusive of the creepy wooden doll.

The unfortunate last episode of a series that started with a bang and ended with a whimper. From mega cool video games, dehydrated bodies going back to life with a jump in the pool, and morally ambiguous Chinese scientists to a bunch of lovelorn ethnically correct failures.

The San-Ti are omnipotent and yet they send a pathetic white male sniper to kill Saul. Clearly, the guy was going to fail, because the show established that all white males are disposable, inept, or just plain bad. So why not send infallible Tatiana? She's a girl, she can do anything better. Or use the female Sophone, she is a supergirl and can kill people in various sophisticated ways. But no... they try with a stupid car accident and a sniper, kind of primitive and bound to fail.

The "Let's save Saul" plot took almost the whole episode, compounded by the trite clichè of the "reluctant hero". They give Saul a job he doesn't want and refuses, even if everybody knows he will end up doing it. Mega waste of time.

Will's brain is lost in space (or is it?) causing deep sorrow to Jin, who after having ignored him for all her life was now hoping for a resurrection.

Given that the target audience for this is young males (most SF fans are males, anyway) there is also a useless scene with nano-girl boss Auggie standing on her moral high ground and pouting about giving clean water to the poor in South America. Thumbs up Auggie!

I enjoyed only the final scene, with Clarence my favorite character, but I still wonder why the San-Ti didn't plan a better operation to wipe out everybody from planet Earth. Not that I would help them, but watching a show like this makes me feel hopeless about the future of the human race.

One of the few remaining but disposable white males in the show is going to depart our sorrowful planet - metaphorically and literally. Will, or just the best part of him, is sent to the sky (literally), after having spent 19.5 million to buy a star for Jin, because he was madly in love with her even if they have zero chemistry, but after all they're physicians...

After a lengthy, soppy goodbye scene the show is finally ethnically cleansed from the embarrassing presence of the remaining British white male.

Elsewhere, nano-girl boss Auggie decides to flaunt her moral standard by metaphorically mounting on her high horse and riding away in the sunset. Probably her ego wasn't pampered enough, as a mere member of the Staircase Project. Probably they should have kissed her B side more.

Finally, Tatiana the ruthless killer-girl boss is resurrected for a mission to eliminate the now useless Dr. Ye. Not that I am sad about Ye's demise, even if I share her point of view about humanity, but this makes one wonder why the omnipotent girl boss Sophone needs to move her agents around the world to eliminate a useless and powerless old woman. Would you bother so much to squash a bug that's crawling out of your garden?

A tale of greed and deception with a sprinkle of morality, Arbitrage is the story of Miller (an amazing Gere) a powerful businessman caught in what is probably the worst week of his life.

Allegedly a happily married man and a successful businessman, Miller is neither. His marriage is on the rocks, he has a young, French mistress and his business is on the brink of bankruptcy, for which he must find a buyer before it's too late.

As if this is not enough, more disaster strikes, in the shape of a car crash caused by Miller, which is likely to jeopardize his last hope of saving his money and his reputation. Enters Tim Roth as a detective too determined to find the truth and Miller must face a tough moral dilemma.

Definitely one of Gere's best which unfortunately got no rewards as it happens for too many great actors.

I did not read the SF novel(s) on which this series is based, which however shouldn't be a requisite, therefore my review is only about the show.

The first episodes have the annoying non-linear structure so fashionable nowadays and used for every new show. The audience is thrown in the middle of a story and a series of flashbacks tells how it started. Chronologically, the plot begins in China in 1966, during the Cultural Revolution and the main character is a young female scientist, Ye Wenji sent to a remote part of the country to pay for her cultural sins. Good start and good acting.

Given her experience, the Ye character develops an understandable hatred for the human race at large, and thanks to her contact with billionaire Mike Evans, the two develop an "assistance plan" for an alien invasion. The clever twist of the plot is that it will take the aliens some 400 years to reach Planet Earth. Will the humans discover the plan and be able to do something to prevent it? So far, so brilliant and not a spoiler, since the alien part is revealed fairly soon in the series. What was worth 10 stars drops miserably with the development in present-day England (is that England?) where mostly non-English people and girl bosses take over.

Two mysterious investigators (Wade and Clarence) contact a group of "5 brilliant young scientists" to work with them. While Benedict Wong is quite good as the sour and unintentionally funny "investigator" Clarence and probably my favorite character, the "Scientists 5" are miscast, the elephant in the room being Eiza Gonzáles as a "nanoscientist" ... or whatever.

One would think she is too busy putting on makeup, going to the hairdresser, and pouting to be able to do any nanoscience, and her "crime" is compounded by the other young females (Tatiana, the Sophon, and Jin Cheng). These girl bosses take over the show with their arrogant, snotty attitudes, while the male characters are mostly disposable wimps. The plot dilutes into love stories, power struggles, and attitude displays while the aliens sail along in their spaceship.

An acquaintance told me this series was "good" so I decided to try it, even if it did not seem interesting. I watched the first 4 episodes and I am not interested in seeing the rest, because based on what I saw and the little I read about this "true story", I did not find it compelling.

I don't know how much is "true" but even if "everything" is, I found the main character Donny a narcissistic weakling, ready to do anything to become famous, by his admission. Since his act wasn't funny, he resorted to telling the story of his appalling decision-making and turning himself into an anti-hero/victim of "circumstances" that he himself created.

As far as production values, they're mediocre at best, derivative from the visual feast that was Transporting, and the plot is a series of blunders and pseudo-psychologic twisted web of explanations from a guy who encouraged a stalker and caused his own misfortunes, yet managed to gather way too many - suspiciously too many - glowing reviews about a series that is average at best, but actually sub-rate.

However, Donny got what he wanted, he's a celebrity. Kudos to Donny the hollow hero of our miserable times.

This movie about Marie Antoinette's "glory years" is loosely based on Antonia Fraser's biography and doesn't dwell on the final, miserable period of the queen's life.

The poster promoting the film gives hits of punk and post-punk atmospheres (that pink banner suggesting the Sex Pistols' God Save Queen single cover, etc....) but most of the audience seems to have missed the connection.

The plot shows how the young queen was a pawn in a political marriage, thrown into a court that was a web of deception and corruption, and left to cope with her limited resources. It did not help her that her husband Louis, future XVI, was not much interested in sex and left her sleeping in a cold bed for seven years.

Left to her own device and frustration, Marie "overcompensated" with the company of her friends, gambling and shopping. Not crimes "per se", but advertised as such to the peasants of France. Even her choice of spending time in the splendid Trianon's bucolic peace was criticized by the aristocrats, because she was neglecting the etiquette and by the peasants, as a sign of mocking extravagance. Whatever, Marie did, was wrong and it was easy as always to point out "lasciviousness" as her main wickedness. Like most women, sex was a cause for degrading libels, even if her one and only alleged lover was Count Fersen. When Marie gained some maturity thanks to maternity, it was already too late to save her reputation.

The settings, costumes, and for me even the choice of music underline the decadent opulence of the last days of the Ancien Régime, making for a magnificent experience. A lushness for the senses, with a melancholic ending, sparing the audience the worst part.

Tracey Ullman stars and shines in this comedy as Frenchy, the wise wife of the small-time crook Ray (Allen). Frenchy manages to create a profitable business while her husband and his associates develop a stupid plan to rob a bank.

The film's first part deals rather briskly with Ray's failed plan and his rags-to-riches fast climb, while the remaining two-thirds deal with the "problems" linked with having too much too fast.

The main one is being accepted in high society which is important for Frenchy and not at all for Ray, who just wants to retire to Florida. What follows is a breakup, quickly mended by the sudden loss of their money, perhaps a bit too fast, just as their ascent, but required by the plot.

There are many funny moments and witty dialogues and the result is a pleasant movie. My only remark is that the "crooks" and their illegal endeavor are a small part of the plot, while the main plot is about Ray and Frenchy, therefore a different title would have been better.

The plot is a loose series of events that happens to Joe (the child narrator - a version of Allen himself) and his family, inclusive of parents, aunts and grandparents, intertwined with the story of Sally a loose girl who "makes it" in the show business (the weakest part of the plot, also because I don't like Mia Farrow).

From a description of his neighbourhood to a list of everybody's favourite radio programme, Joe gives an insight of life in the 40s in Rockaway and tell of his fascination with New York and the Radio City Music Hall, the best place in the world.

If one can be nostalgic of a time and place one did not even experience, this would be it for me. Just like the narrator, I find the period he describes charming and fascinating. Obviously, the soundtrack is top, one of the best in any Allen's film. The lack of a structured plot helps appreciate the film even more as a nostalgic trip to a past that by definition is always better than the present.

Betty is a doormat of a woman, married to Del, a guy who mistreat her and cheats on her to which she reacts by watching a soap opera, because she's in love with "Doctor David".

Enter two very unlikely hitmen Charlie and Wesley, (Freeman and Rock) looking for a McGuffin (drugs... how original) that Del stole (how? Why? Whatever..) and to make Del talk they torture and then kill him, while Betty is in the back room watching her soap on TV, but distracted just enough to witness the murder.

Charlie and Wesley are the poor person version of Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction. They swear a lot and have "philosophical conversations" but are not funny AT ALL, Rock being the main culprit.

Betty in a "fugue state", whatever that may be, drives to California to meet Dr. David, thinking to be a nurse previously engaged to David.

Some appreciated Zellweger in the role but I found her over the top cloying and playing deranged rather than confused. After a final confrontation, Betty is told by Charlie that "This is not the 40s" and she does not need a man, so she goes on living a happy single life and travels to Rome. Disjointed, badly acted and silly.

Whoever watched this based on the poster image and hoping for strong sexual content must have been very disappointed. I watched it out of curiosity and I was also disappointed, but mostly bored.

Gyllenhall plays Lee, a disturbed woman who "cuts herself", therefore a masochist, who gets her first job for lawyer Mr. Grey, an equally disturbed person more on the sadist side, but not too much, just sadistic enough for a mainstream movie.

The story drags on for what seems ages, while Lee develops a liking for her mistreatment at the hands of her boss (mostly spanking) and then she realizes she "loves" Grey. Whatever... to each, their own.

There are only two main characters in this boring plot, with minimal supporting roles (Lee's parents and unfortunate boyfriend) and most of the action takes place in Grey's claustrophobic, sinister office that looks like a set from Twin Peaks, just like the mildly weird, abundantly snooze-inducing plot.

The beautiful Ormond at the start of her career plays recently divorced Rachel, a dentist still very much upset by her breakup. When she starts working in a prison twice a week, Rachel becomes attracted to inmate Philip. Reading some other reviews, seems like Tim Roth is considered a chick magnet. I find him a good character actor, usually playing cool criminals (or undercover cops) and here he does a good job, albeit in his trademark, detached, almost sleepwalking way.

The "romance" between Rachel and Philip soon turns torrid, since he's allowed out once a week. The two have sex in a restaurant's toilet (charming), exchange glances in prison and have some awkward phone calls.

The elephant in the room is the crime Philip committed. For unknown reasons, Rachel seems not to care at first and doesn't ask Philip only to dig out the truth that he killed his wife. This could be the turning point for a character study, one way or the other, although with a wife killer I see only one way to go, but unfortunately the script takes another direction.

Maybe the inception of a criminal sub-plot was considered necessary to give some punch to what might have been considered a "love story", even if there is little love and a lot of angry sex. However, it derails the plot towards a stupid ending.

Also, it's hard to believe that somebody as attractive as Ormond could not find a suitor outside the prison. The plot would have been more believable with a less attractive female in the lead.

A great spy story with minimal plot. The "Needle" is a German master spy comfortably nested in British society who gets accidentally discovered by his landlady in 1940, forcing him to disclose his game temporarily.

In the meantime David and Lucy get married and are ecstatically happy but unfortunately victims of a car crash. Fast forward 4 years later, on the eve of D-Day, when the Needle is doing some spying to find out whether the Allied invasion will take place at Calais or Normandy.

Having discovered the truth, the Needle must deliver precious photos to Hitler himself, but find himself stranded on Stormy Island, where David and Lucy live with their son. Their marriage is under a lot of strain and David mistreats Lucy, who feels lonely and hasn't had sex in years. This last detail for once is not irrelevant, because it leads to a believable, immediate, burning passion for the mysterious stranger.

A deadly game develops in which the participants look hurt, doubtful, and exhausted, not perennially strong and steely determined as in modern movies.

Allen's early movies are supposed to be the "funny ones", but to me they're mostly a series of sketches loosely held together by a flimsy plot.

In this case, the plot is more solid than other early comedies, being the parody of Russian literature and most of the times it works. The first half of the movie is quite funny, with lots of memorable lines.

Boris, the Allen character, is a coward forced to fight against Napoleon's invasion of Russia, while he would prefer to spend his time with the beloved Sonja (Keaton) who's in love with his brother Ivan.

Once Boris manages to marry Sonja, the two have a turbulent marriage and then decide to kill Napoleon. This part of the plot goes downhill with lots of Allen's monologues and plenty of sexual innuendoes (with death, the stuff of most of Allen's jokes, but still...)

The ending is mildly funny, and luckily the movie is quite short. For me not a classic, but still watchable once.

This simple plot follows the last, fictionalized, days of movie director Whale, spent in his comfortable albeit stuffy abode in the company of housekeeper Hanna and gardener Clay.

Whale directed some successful movies such as "Frankenstein" in the 30s but was forgotten by the end of the 50s. He was also gay, but for me his sexual orientation is irrelevant, since the theme of the movie is old age and the feeling of being irrelevant, which may hit everybody regardless of sex.

McKellen was good in his role and I liked the movie very much the first time I saw it. The second time I thought that Whale asking the reporter to strip during the interview would be considered sexual harassment. Can you imagine an heterosexual director asking a female reporter to strip to get answers?

But because of double - even triple - standards, Whale is presented as a mildly lecherous eccentric old man, meaning no harm.

However, Whale's relationship with the straight Clay works relatively well and Fraser gives the performance of a lifetime, even if the film didn't age well.

Although released in 1990, "Bad Influence" has a distinctive 80s feeling, with rampant yuppies, expensive gadgets and two leading men from the era, the softie Michael (Spader) and the hard Alex (Lowe).

Between the end of the 80s and the mid 90s, Spader was in a string of movies playing more or less the same character of lovable, bespectacled, posh loser, before turning into the evil, bald Red Reddington of The Blacklist fame

Here Spader is still lovable, albeit wimpish. His Michael is a corporate yuppie who lives in a posh apartment, reluctantly engaged to what looks like a boring rich girl. Enters Alex (AKA Tony, Franco, etc...) and Michael discovers that life can be more exciting than trading bonds.

After a series of drunk evenings spent with Alex in the company of a seductive brunette, robbing night stores and assaulting colleagues, Michael's life turn into a nightmare when Alex shows his true colors and kills the brunette in Michal's apartment.

The story is well told and quite suspenseful, Lowe makes for a believable psycho despite - or thanks to - his good looks and Michael proves to be more than a tame pretty face.

A few years before the crumbling of the Soviet empire, inspector Renko ( Hurt) is charged with solving a triple murder. Renko is straight as an arrow and a honest man and he suspects KBG involvement from the start, given the fact that the three bodies found in Gorky Park miss their faces.

This gory detail provides an interesting development with the reconstruction of the victims' faces from the bone structure. In the meantime, Renko discovers that one of the victims was an American which confirms his suspicions about the KBG.

A girlfriend of one of the victims, the brother of the dead American and a shady American businessman are all involved in the intricate plot, based on a literary source. My favorite scene is at the end when Renko gives freedom to some furry creatures. Both symbolic and humane.

The plot is interesting only on paper since it should explore a father/daughter relationship. Peter, a divorced music teacher tries to reconnect with hotshot daughter Ines, who works for a financial corporation in Bucharest. Unfortunately, Peter is an uncouth, non-lovable weirdo. Following his beloved dog's death, Peter invites himself to Bucharest and teaches Ines how to live by playing practical jokes and pestering her business associates with childish pranks, like wearing false teeth.

The false teeth gag goes on and on and it's not funny. It's allegedly based on the director's father who used to do it, so the audience must live through her memories because they are important to her, while irrelevant to me.

What's worse, Peter behaves like an intellectually challenged person and seems unable to string together a sensible sentence, while continuing his silly antics. Not that Ines fares much better though a series of cringeworthy situations that could have been edited out without any consequences. The movie drags on and on. I watched it hoping it would improve but it got worse with every useless scene stretched endlessly.

Forget about "comedy". While drama is international, humor is more difficult to "translate" and doesn't necessarily work the same way worldwide. I read that this is typical "German humor" and it must be, because it did not work for me.

Although much-hyped I have no clue what the hype was about. Maybe it's due to the current trend of worshipping any "female-written and directed" movie. Anything with a woman at the helm must be praised, regardless of mediocrity. I never heard of director Maren Ade and based on this, I am not interested in any other overlong and unfunny production of hers.

The main point of this episode seems to be showing how pathetic and easily deceived Italians are. The biggest culprit being obviously Inspector Ravini. Not only he doesn't bother to get a photo of an allegedly missing person (Ripley), but he goes to Ripley's house, doesn't recognise him thanks to a ridiculous wig and moustaches and - worst of all - tells Ripley all details about an ongoing investigation.

Those are abysmally low investigative standards. Since when the police is at liberty to discuss a case with a person of interest? Not only that but Italian newspapers and magazines publish articles about Ripley and Greenleaf without a single photo of either... again, how believable is that? A big feature appears on a weekly magazine without a portrait of the missing guy when Marge could have provided tons? Yes, Italian are stupid and duped by smart Americans.

Being Italian myself I should be insulted, but I just found this last episode dragging on and being kind of OTT stupid. Even if Highsmith novel was good, sometimes a plot works only on paper but not so much when confronted with real details.

A frothy comedy about David and Georgia, a bitter couple of divorcees who want to prevent their daughter Lily from marrying Gede, a Balinese guy she knew for a month. Romance dictates that Lily has the right to "follow her heart" even if reason suggests that she will end up exactly as David tells Gede - bored after a few years, looking for something else in her life and leaving Gede on the island, taking away the child (or children) they had in the meantime.

The fact that the happy couple will reside in Bali doesn't guarantee eternal happiness, but temporary contentment. However, the main plot of the movie is David and Georgia's bickering, never very funny but entertaining as far as Clooney and Roberts are two megastars who know how to entertain their public.

On a side note, Ms. Roberts' wardrobe was awful. She wore tight black leggings to a tropical island, guaranteed to make you sweat like hell and a series of dreadful, shapeless, overalls. She looked like a garage mechanic ready to fix a car. Why not give her some fitted T-shirts and shorts or a breezy dress?

Lucio the cat is my favorite character, mysterious yet consistent. Ripley is described as "elusive" but he seems to be merely stumbling around during his Italian travelogue, always leaving an address so as to be easily found by Marge and the police. How "elusive" is that?

Being Italian I found Naples, Rome, and Palermo to look exactly the same, cobbled shady side streets, crumbling buildings, rotting staircases. Only Venice looks like Venice at last. The photography is gorgeous at times, I agree about that

However, I have doubts about the investigation. Inspector Ravini is supposed to look for a missing Tom Ripley and he doesn't even bother to check what this mystery man should look like. No article in the newspapers asking "Have you seen this man"? Also, his "interrogation" with Marge was way too hostile, just to suit the purpose of the narrative.

Maybe the point was to prove how stupid and misogynist Italians are, which I should resent but I don't, because the Italian cast is saved by the magnificent Lucio.

During the Great Depression Cecilia lives with a modest income in a New Jersey dump, with a lazy, violent husband. Her sole solace is going to the movies, where she can forget her troubles and live in a fantasy for a couple of hours.

One particularly dreary day, the fantasy comes true, when Tom Baxter, a secondary character in a Hollywood comedy, "sees" her through the screen and comes alive to spend time with her.

It's an interesting idea that could have been developed in several ways. Allen decided to go for a "realistic" approach, having the actor who plays Tom Baxter go to New Jersey to convince his character to go back to the movie, to avoid legal troubles in case Tom should misbehave.

This mix of sweet fantasy and stark realism doesn't work well for me, just as Cecilia's final decision, given her dreadful situation and her attempts to escape reality. They showed her jumping into a fictional world of plenty, so that should have worked for her. Also, I never liked Mia Farrow as an actress and here she gives the usual "sweet victim" performance, therefore I never felt for her, except annoyance at her acceptance of being treated as a doormat.

At the end we see the "Check to check" dance sequence in "Top Hat" and I'd prefer any time to watch that movie rather than this one. Why not go for fantasy 100% rather than halfway and then back?

The first of Highsmith's novels about psycho Tom Ripley, re-interpreted in a series of sterile, icy vignettes filmed in gorgeous black and white.

Probably to save money on the settings, only corners of the locations mentioned are shown (NY, Atrani, Naples, can't see a thing in San Remo, etc...) Since I'm Italian, I found the Italian locations particularly disappointing. The series was shot in cold weather and seeing Dickie and Marge alone on the beach and then bathing in the sea was weird. I never saw an Italian beach (or village) so deserted, not even in winter. It looked like only three people lived in Atrani and Naples was not much better (never seen the city so clean and orderly).

As mentioned by others, Andrew Scott is too old to play Ripley, described as a 25 yo in the novel, nor has he the charisma of a psycho, but mostly looks sneery and frozen-faced. Johnny Flynn seems too young to be moving into Tom's circle, and Dakota Fanning doesn't seem to have much of a range, except sulking. Freddy, the elephant in the room - let's say it mercifully - is "miscast", a far cry from the malignant but hearty presence of Hoffman in the Minghella movie. However, it's an excellent example of nepotism.

Each episode seems crystallized in minimum, emotionless dialogue, from the dreary NY opening to the cold meeting of Tom and Dickie. One wonders why Dickie would invite Tom to stay with him when their relationship boils down to concise, almost surgical sentences about nothing. The "investigative" sessions are a joke, even given low investigative standards. The episode of the boat is conveniently forgotten; no appeal such as "Have you seen this man?" is made in newspapers about the allegedly "missing" Ripley and the Italian authorities never contact the American Embassy to get info about the people involved.

All episodes are like Dickie paintings, limp and lifeless, mediocre attempts to produce feelings only an original could evoke, be it film noir, Hitchcock, or the more recent "Talented Mr. Ripley".