The Damned United on film
January 26th, 2009
I’ve raved about David Peace’s The Damned United before, so I’m excited that there’s going to be a film. Given the provenance of the makers (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), the auguries are good.
Brian Phillips, who writes the brilliant Run of Play, is not optimistic:
What I’m afraid of, in other words, is that the combined intelligence of the filmmakers will be applied to the task of middlebrow simplification. I fret, on the evidence of The Queen, about overarching stag metaphors.
The trailer looks pretty good:
[youtube 4ImnSx1HPIw]
A bell rings
January 26th, 2009
Not because they’ve created another angel in heaven, but because today is William Kristol’s last column for The New York Times. It’s almost as much of a relief as the day when the Financial Times got rid of Amity Shlaes.
Now, when is the Times going to sack Ben Stein? And when will the axe fall at the FT on Tyler Brulé? I’m one of the diminishing band of people who pay with their own money for delivery of these papers in physical form every day. But some of the content does make me gnash my teeth with regularity.