Sad and shocking news - one of Britain's leading film directors, Oscar-winning Anthony Minghella - has died suddenly at the age of 54. Minghella's best work was arguably in the 90s, and in The English Patient he managed to create a film of enduring exoticism and romance to rival the epics of David Lean. His Talented Mr. Ripley was icy and glamorous, and is still so ambiguous and unsettling it has yet to be fully measured and appreciated; it provided an early launch pad for Jude Law (who was never better than in this movie), and showcased Venice wonderfully. This is a tragic loss for Western cinema - it was expected, and hoped, that at some point the writer-director would create yet another masterpiece. As it is, we have a few very fine films from the man.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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