steven zaillian

A Damn Fine Espresso: July 2024

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Summer is a good time to catch up on films and series – in this case, the Netflix series Ripley, created by Steven Zaillian and released last spring. The Talented Mr. Ripley has been adapted before, most famously as Plein Soleil (AKA Purple Noon, by René Clément and starring a deliciously evil Alain Delon) and under its original title in 1999 (by Anthony Minghella, with Matt Damon as a more soulful murderer) – so what is the purpose of another adaptation? Join Sam and Matt as they ponder this question. What does Zaillian’s Ripley bring to the discussion, compared to the films by Clément and Minghella? What is the effect on the story of casting Andrew Scott as a Ripley a dozen years older than the earlier versions? What are the unique qualities of Netflix’s Tom Ripley? And is this version a more faithful adaptation of Highsmith’s story and character?

For more on Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and the various film adaptations of his adventures, make sure to check out these posts and podcasts:

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: See Venice and die. Or kill.

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Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Getting into a series, a franchise, a fictional world: it requires time – and, yes, even energy. And sometimes it’s better to decide early on that it’s not worth it, as Mege writes in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees. Though sometimes, just sometimes, we have the choice between a long series of book and a series of film’s that isn’t quite as long.

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That Old, Familiar Tune

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Is this what some people feel like when they watch a Quentin Tarantino film? There I was, watching the penultimate episode of The Night Of, HBO’s 2016 prestige crime/prison/courtroom drama. (Beware spoilers for The Night Of, but also for The Man Who Wasn’t There.) In its final, expertly staged scenes, the is-he-or-isn’t-he-innocent protagonist Naz becomes a willing accessory to a swift, bloody jailhouse murder. As the scene begins, violins start playing a melancholy tune – one that I immediately knew: the makers of The Night Of had taken a page out of the Coen Brothers’ songbook, using a theme written by composer Carter Burwell for The Man Who Wasn’t There to colour a scene of ruthless brutality.

The Man Who Wasn't There

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