Yesterday morning I was lucky enough to be invited to Radio New Zealand once again, this time to review the new John le Carré novel, Our Kind of Traitor.
It’s a terrific novel, up there with le Carré’s best, and I had about four minutes (and a bit) to persuade Kathryn.
Listen here or download from the link below:
[audio:http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20101027–1040-Book_Review_-_Our_Kind_of_Traitor-048.mp3]While filling in for Graeme Tuckett on Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon film slot last Thursday, I casually mentioned that Daniel Craig had been cast as journalist Mikael Blomkvist in David Fincher’s forthcoming remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. With the collapse of Sam Mendes’ new Bond picture, Mr Craig has a franchise-sized gap in his schedule and I think he’s ideal casting to play the craggy crusader (originated by Michael Nyqvist in the Swedish films and a six part television series).
Thanks to @hybridmovies, I can direct you to the Financial Times article that tells the whole sorry story of the deterioration of MGM and the mismanagement that has pushed it to the brink:
Harry Sloan, a media entrepreneur who once made $200m when a Scandinavian broadcasting business he was managing was taken public, was brought in as chairman of the studio. Sloan set about the substance of his work with enthusiasm, but he was also noted for his quirky habits. He arranged his office in the MGM building according to feng-shui principles and kept a selection of crystals in the screening room to improve energy flows – he even had his office telephone number changed, replacing all the fours with eights, a lucky number in China.
You can listen to me chatting with Kathryn Ryan about Inception and The Girl Who Played with Fire here or download from the link below:
[audio:http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20100729–1150-Film_Review_with_Dan_Slevin-048.mp3]
Back before the days of “Iron Chef”, “Masterchef” and “Hell’s Kitchen”, television’s top food expert was a very tall, slightly ungainly, woman who sounded a little drunk. She was Julia Child and in the 60s she taught America how to cook. In an era where tv dinners, pre-prepared sauces and easy cake mixes were top of a busy housewife’s shopping list, Child produced the almighty tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking which went on to sell millions of copies and make her a legend.
A little later on, 2002 in fact, New Yorker Julie Powell started an online project to reproduce every recipe in the famous cookbook (over 500 of them) in a single year. Nora Ephron’s new film Julie & Julia skilfully merges the two stories, freely noting the parallels between them, and managing to produce a warm and witty film that honours the remarkable Child.
