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Mark Scott's avatar

Great

Alexander Kaplan's avatar

I always thought the Coen Brother's version was unfairly maligned--not a perfect movie, but a decent, highly affected, screwball comedy. I had no idea it was a remake of a British film, American swine that I am: I'll add it to my list of films to see.

Alexander Fayne's avatar

Good thing I didn’t write about that one, then… I’m afraid I didn’t like it at all. But yes, you must see this one - one of my favourite black comedies, and with two of my favourite actors (Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers) as well!

Victoria Stoilova's avatar

Ealing Studios - thanks to your conversation with Alexander Kaplan I also learned about the Ealing Studios…

Which island has the drabbest weather - Britain or Japan? Truffaut’s quote … Truffaut was very much in mode here - this book is titled “Truffaut The Last interview” - contains filmography plus two interviews with Shegihiko Hasumi and Kōichi Yamada (one in Tokyo of the three of them and interviews in France with each of them)…

https://www.heibonsha.co.jp/smp/book/b182394.html

Alexander Fayne's avatar

Thank you for reading as ever! I'm glad that you've now found Ealing Studios and that I have two new Japanese names to look up - whatever problems this platform has, I do learn about new things all the time!

Victoria Stoilova's avatar

Shigehiko Hasumi - it’s quite the name (he was among every thing else the person responsible in a way of introducing Yasujirō Ozu to the Western audience plus creating around his lectures and seminars at Rikkyō University the so-called Rikkyō University New Wave of Japanese cinema (Rikkyo New Wave) - Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Aoyama Shinji, Suo Masayuki among the names of prominent directors direct students of him. Yeah - he was also President of the University of Tokyo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigehiko_Hasumi

Kevin Patrick McCann's avatar

Actually I thought it was very funny & I don't agree that British cinema is bad...or maybe I meant it's not always been bad & it's really only shite now when it's made by privately educated class ridden morons who produce terrible scripts - Richard Curtis being a prime example. I enjoyed the remake of The Ladykillers - the Cohen brothers have made some excellent films - & it made me revisit Poe as hearing him read in a Southern accent gave his work a musicality I never knew he had.

Alexander Fayne's avatar

No, I don’t think British cinema is bad either, but it’s often (unfairly) spoken of as inferior. This is absolutely one of my favourites, and Richard Curtis’s films… aren’t. (But I maintain he’s a terrific sketch and sitcom writer.)