Argento Retro Finito!
Seeing
The Card Player again last night reminded me that while it isn't exactly bad, it's not very good. The only scene where the Dario we know and love actually rears his head is the home invasion sequence, but the rest is sadly a bit blah: it doesn't feel like Argento really wants to be there. I don't know much about the background to it (there's a commentary by Alan Jones which I haven't played yet) but it just looks like a low-key CSI. (Not helped either by the police commissioner being a dead ringer for David Soul.)
And finally, and on a positive note: I really think
Do You Like Hitchcock? is underrated. It's nowhere near Tenebrae, Opera or Deep Red, granted, but it's a fun, generally light-hearted pastiche thriller. Oddly, though, it doesn't feel like a pastiche of Hitchcock so much as a pastiche of a dePalma pastiche of Hitchcock (if that makes any sense) - and the score by BdP's onetime regular composer Pino Donaggio seems to conjure up Brian's Hitch movies rather than Alfred's own. (In-jokes: spot the poster for The Card Player in the video shop, along with a copy of Scarlet Diva...)
Still, it's been a really fun ride but it's over now (although I could top it off tomorrow with the Argento cut of Dawn of the Dead and the Eye For Horror doc....). Am I clinically insane? You decide.
Ain't doing it again in a hurry, that's for sure.