The Killing: US Trailer

While we're on The Killing, let's take a look at the trailer for the US remake which starts next week (thanks to the Medium Is Not Enough TV blog).



At first, it seems to be an essentially pointless shot by shot remake, with a Sarah Lund impersonator as Sarah Lund, complete with jumpers and ponytail, investigating an identical crime in Seattle, with nicely-chosen Nordic character names as a nod to the original. Even Theis and Pernille's kitchen is EXACTLY the same.

And then you see who they've cast as Morten. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I love America.

The Killing: WTF?

Coming to the end of The Killing is rather like being suddenly and unexpectedly dumped by a hitherto faultless boyfriend. Like: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ABOUT? WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO ME? I HAVE QUESTIONS! WHAT ABOUT THAT THING YOU SAID LAST WEEK? AND THAT THING YOU SAID THE WEEK BEFORE AND THE WEEK BEFORE AND THE WEEK BEFORE THAT? WAS IT ALL A FRAIL TISSUE OF LIES? DID NONE OF IT MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU? AND WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT WHOLE BUSINESS WITH THE COPENHAGEN MAYORAL ELECTION? (My relationships only, possibly.) THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!

To keep this review spoiler-free, I am continuing my diatribe in the comments. Join me.

Blog Playlist update

OK team, Spotify are being particularly uncooperative, playlist-wise. Apparently their supply of obscure foreign language hits of the 1980s is limited. (They do however have the French Canadian song from the point of view of a disappointed seal, so it's not all bad news.) So we're going to need some more suggestions of great foreign language songs to fill up this playlist. It's very good so far. Aside from the Mylene Farmer (fixes Helen with disapproving gaze).

International Women's Day

Chances are you've already seen this, but loving this video for International Women's Day:



1. You get to look at Daniel Craig.
2. You get to listen to Judi Dench's voice.
3. It's very short.
4. You get to hear why, alas, we still need an International Women's Day, and you don't crawl out the other end feeling patronised or bored.

I've heard a few people asking why there isn't an International Men's Day. There is, it's on November 19th. Perhaps you can get a video of Angelina Jolie in a really nice trouser suit talking about teenage suicide statistics. Or indeed a rerun of this excellent Rachel Stevens public service announcement:

Blog playlist: best songs in other languages

Allegedly here are other things to do on a Sunday afternoon, but I can't quite see why anyone would choose not to spend it lying on the sofa (or outside when the weather is nice), reading and listening to Huey Morgan followed by Jarvis Cocker on 6 Music.

Assuming that's what all of you were doing on Sunday, all of you have already heard the magnificent Les Cactus by Jacques Dutronc (thank you, Jarvis). But have you seen Michael Jackson dancing to it? (Um, sort of?)



I think you need the lyrics translated as well:

The whole world is a cactus
It is impossible to sit down
In life, there all there is is cacti
I know it because I'm pricking myself
Ow, ow ow, ouch, ow ow ow

In their hearts there are cacti
In their wallets there are cacti
In their feet there are cacti
In their jackets there are cacti
ow, ow, ow, ouch, ouch, ouch, ow

To defend myself from their cacti
I've put cacti too
In my bed, I've put cacti
In my underpants, I've put cacti
ow, ow, ow, ouch, ow ow ow

In their smiles there are cacti
In their stomachs there are cacti
In their hellos there are cacti
In their cacti there are cacti
ow, ow, ow, ouch, ow

The whole world is a cactus
It is impossible to sit down
In life, all there is is cacti
I know it because I'm pricking myself
ow, ow, ow, ouch, ow ow ow

Blog playlist time! Great songs in foreign languages please. Translated lyrics optional. It's a huge category so maybe try to restrict yourselves to ones that are undeservedly underplayed.

Are you my ideal man?

I have just found my list of requirements for the perfect man, dated 30th May 1992 (I was 16):

- cooking
- knitting
- Irish accent
- Tall
- Sense of Humour
- Friendly
- Nice smile
- Nice dark hair (not too short)
- Ability to quote Shakespeare

I am, as yet, unmarried. This may explain why. Of course, if this is you, feel free to leave me a note in the comments.

Oh to be in England

Further to my review of Match Point - and it has been interesting to note that the most spirited defense that anybody can muster of it is "I can't remember that I was so appalled" - I watched The Social Network last night, which is a far far far far far far far do re mi far far better film. EXCEPT for five minutes in which the excellent meathead twins row at the Henley regatta, and then attend a reception afterwards. Women are loitering in gigantic frothy hats, a string quartet is playing something blandly Mozartian, so you know you MUST be in England because all we ever do is go to receptions with big hats and string quartets, and an elderly English man claims that his daughter is "majoring in French literature" at Cambridge University. FAIL. DOUBLE FAIL. Seriously, if you're Aaron Sorkin, how difficult is it to get a British person to read one page of your script?

I am going to organise a field trip for notable American screenwriters to take a tour of the UK. I will show them around myself. Who's in?

Match [what is the] Point [?]

Last night I saw something which I just HAD to share with the group.

Now I've seen some bad movies in my time. I have sat through the remake of The Wicker Man, in which Nicolas Cage beats up a cult of lesbian beekeepers whilst dressed as a bear. The scars may never heal from enduring, as an impressionable teen, Heartbreak Hotel, in which a teenage Charlie Schlatter kidnaps Elvis in order to cheer up his mum (Elvis goes on to redecorate his house in the style of Graceland, and propel him to victory in the high school Battle of the Bands.) I have even seen the Mariah Carey vanity flick Glitter, notable for Ms Carey only being filmed from the 'good' side of her face, for the appearance of Max Beasley as a sexy xylophone player, and for both of them being acted off the screen by a cat. Last night, though, I saw the actual worst film I have ever seen in my life, and that film was Match Point.

This Woody Allen-penned and -directed thriller (OK and here we're running into trouble already. Would you rush to see a Michael Bay-penned and -directed romcom?) is set in the kind of London someone who has never been to England might come up with if his only source material was one Nancy Mitford novel and Wimbledon (the tournament, not the movie). All the characters have come straight out of the 1930s, with the exception of Paul Kaye, who briefly plays an estate agent from a 1970s Two Ronnies sketch. It is saying something when a Paul Kaye Two Ronnies cameo is the most up-to-date character in your 2005 movie. Back in the lead roles, Jonathan Rhys Meyers (apparently heavily medicated and struggling to produce even one convincing emotion from his arsenal of two or three) plays a retired tennis ace, allegedly a poor Irish boy but with an accent that could not just cut glass but create an entire crystal sculpture, who falls in love with (or seeks to financially exploit? unclear from JRM's "performance") sweet, dim but rich Emily Mortimer (hiding behind fringe, palpably embarrassed) but can't resist bonking Scarlet Johanssen (and at some point we should really open the debate: despite being sexy beyond previously existing human measurements, can she actually act? Those in favour: evidence please). If I tell you that his chat up line is "What's a beautiful American ping pong player doing mingling with the British upper classes?" you might get some idea, but you might also think that the line is supposed to be funny and IT ISN'T. IT'S A RED HOT SEXY CHAT UP SCENE. (Scarlet Johanssen has just beaten Mark Gatiss at ping pong, and one of the tangential pleasures of this unspeakable movie is seeing the parade of middling-league Brit stars who were SO EXCITED to be working with Woody Allen until they saw the script. So just as you think you might be suffocated into a coma of awfulness, it's Rupert Penry-Jones as a louche tennis pro! It's James Nesbitt as a mysteriously astute police officer!)

Tragic consequences ensue, but not before JRM has screwed ScarJo in a cornfield in the rain - SO English, just like all my summer holidays - and by candlelight, dousing her in baby oil as snow gently falls outside, and in an exciting bondage scenario where she blindfolds him with his tie and rips off all his clothes, pausing only to have a duscussion about the relative merits of cheese versus peanut butter as mousetrap bait with her elderly neighbour. At the time, you will be thinking WTF, little realising that the cheese vs peanut butter debate is of devastating importance later on. Sex with ScarJo begins to wane when she is transformed in the latter part of the film into a bitching, demanding harpy, constantly screeching WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LEAVE HER while drinking from an assortment of seltzer bottles that I got freakishly obsessed by. WHO DRINKS THAT MUCH SELTZER? Meanwhile, back home, Emily Mortimer is desperate to get knocked up, pointing out, not unreasonably, that she wants three kids while she's young, but that this should not be a problem for a man with such a powerful serve. Clearly, either the wife or the mistress must go. But which? And how? And what will the consequences be?

Gentle reader, let me tell you. The consequences will be that people will die, and after people have died they will reappear and have a philosophical conversation with JRM who will quote Sophocles at them, and at that point you will be hit by the realisation that OH MY GOD, THIS FILM IS A HOMAGE TO CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. THAT'S WHY JRM WAS READING CRIME AND PUNISHMENT AT THE BEGINNING. BECAUSE WOODY ALLEN THINKS THAT THE TWO ARE LARGELY THE SAME, EXCEPT THAT CRIME AND PUNISHMENT COULD HAVE BEEN IMPROVED BY RASKOLNIKOV BONING SCARLET JOHANSSEN IN A CORNFIELD IN THE RAIN.

In Joe Queenan's excellent odyssey into American pop culture 'America', he coins the term 'scheissenbedauern' to describe "the disappointment one feels when exposed to something that is not nearly as bad as one hoped it would be." Watching this movie is the opposite of that feeling. Match Point is a perfect storm of terrible, the kind of terrible which can only be achieved when a hugely talented writer director assembles a hugely talented cast - well OK, but it does have Penelope Wilton in it - to make a film based on one of the greatest novels ever written and IT IS RAINING SHIT.

Of course, I cannot recommend highly enough that you see it.

Book Swaps a Go Go

There is a veritable embarrassment of book swaps going on this month, all for your entertainment. Are you embarrassed? I know I am.

First up is on Thursday 3rd Feb (ie THIS THURSDAY) at the London Review Bookshop, Bury Place, 7pm. My co-host for the occasion will be Robbie Hudson, as Scott is otherwise engaged, and our guests are Will Fiennes, author of 'The Snow Geese' and 'The Music Room' - books of beauty and elegance - and Nikesh Shukla, author of Coconut Unlimited - a book of laughter and rap music - which is not to say it isn't beautiful and elegant too. Please book your ticket here as it will almost certainly sell out. £6 or free if you bring a home baked cake.

Thursday 10th Feb, at the LSE, 4th Floor Cafe, 6pm. Scott Pack will be back on co-hosting duties, and our guests are Sarah Salway, who as well as being a fantastic author (of 'Something Beginning With' amongst other books) is the LSE's writer in residence, and Matt Beaumont, whose book 'e' is reputed to be excellent, as I would know if the publisher had sent it to me yet - fear not, there is still time. Details here, tickets are FREE, don't bring cake - it's a licensing issue, but not to worry, cake will be available from the cafe - and unswapped books will be collected for Read International, a charity which provides books to schools in Uganda and Tanzania.

Thursday 17th Feb, at the Fire Station in Windsor, 7.45pm. Back on home turf. You will be rewarded by co-host Scott and guests Sara Manning, author of the funny and poignant 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me', Jess Ruston, our very first guest making a triumphant return to promote her new novel 'To Touch The Stars'. Usual Windsor rules - £5 to get in, or free with a home-baked cake.

And indeed I didn't need to tell you ANY of this, as I could have just directed you to our fabulous new website which has been made for us by Michael Harpur, our right-hand and probably left-hand man in Windsor, who does EVERYTHING for us bar sitting on the stage swapping the books himself. He is brilliant. So is the website, which aside from details of all the events has podcasts which you can listen to if you can't make it (if you are lazy, or live in Canada, or trapped under heavy furniture.)

Hope to see you at one of the book swaps this month.

NEWSFLASH

In 'PROPERLY EXCITING NEWS' news I can ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY at the same time as my co-writer Robert Hudson REVEAL that our Napoleonic-era military gay horse romance epistolatory series WAR HORSES OF LETTERS has been commissioned for a four part series, broadcasting on Radio Four later this year. I wasn't joking about this being PROPERLY EXCITING. I am PROPERLY EXCITED.