Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella dies at 54

Directed "The English Patient" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

RIP.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hcWljhx-_W_aVyJ31Jjr06QC_dKwD8VG03188

 

RIP.
But, gawd, did I hate The English Patient.

 

You philistine.

 

I guess Heaven needed a director of overlong, pretentious Oscar-Grab movies.

:'( :'( :'(

Seriously, RIP.

 

One thing that bothered me: the guy has serioius facial burns, right? But his beautiful Fiennesian nose stays intact when everybody knows that the cartilege in the nose is the first thing that burns.
Another thing that bothered me: the rest of the boring-ass movie.

 

We need to get you a gig reviewing movies.

 

I always regarded the "Kristin Scott Thomas gets out of the bathtub in all her glory" scene as meant to wake the audience.

Didn't work.

 

Never saw the English Patient.
The Seinfeld episode on it kept me away.
The Talented Mr. Ripley was a ginormous waste of time though.

 

That was another thing.
(Gawd, I hated this film)
Even THAT wasn't enough to pique my interest, or interest my pique, for that matter.
This is on its way to being the least complimentary RIP thread in the history of the board, isn't it?

 

Probably so.

Minghella doesn't even have "The Client" to hang his hat on. Just English Patient (a Best Picture in an era that also saw Titanic and Shakespeare in Love take home the statuette), Talented Mr. Ripley, and Cold MOuntain, a film derided by many as "J. Crew Mountain" for its characters' attire as they sought Oscars.

 

He was a very pleasant person.

 

FB, did you read the book?

As a novelist Ondaatje is an acquired taste. I enjoyed The English Patient the least of all his books.

My favorite is his '82 memoir, Running in the Family about his totally and utterly dysfunctional childhood growing up in what was then Ceylon.

"In the Skin of A Lion" is my next favourite.