A large amount of the blame for this could be laid with Harry, who was never anything more than spineless throughout the episode, from his response to Sal and Lee’s difference of opinion over how the advert should be shot (’I think that we should give the client what he wants’) to his neglecting to raise Lee’s drunken phone call with any other member of staff, or even Sal himself. And so now Sal finds himself cast out into the cold, despite Don’s assertion that ‘you’ll be fine’ somehow I doubt he will, as his nervous phone call to his wife from a cruising hotspot suggested (this was a rare lapse in subtlety from Mad Men’s part I thought, the guys spotted in the background all fitting very clearly into gay stereotypes), hopefully this won’t be the last we see of him - even if it is, it’s been a fascinating journey following him from his first suave, confident appearance in his first episode, through to the numerous misunderstandings with other men, a marriage based on fondness rather than sex and this series’ self-preservation based paranoia. All over something that still hasn’t even actually been mentioned by name - the closest we’ve got now is Don lumping Sal in with the predatory Lee, and gay men in general with the contemptuous phrase ‘you people’.
 The one thing that the whole messy business brought to the surface is just how much of a hypocrite Don is. Barely minutes after he was lambasting Sal for his alleged impropriety he was out cruising the streets at night to make a call on Sally’s slutty teacher again (an affair which hopefully won’t last long, as despite her prototypical modern woman’s admiration for Martin Luther King and night-time solitary jogs, her ridiculously self-assured and overconfident manner also makes her rather insufferable company). But therein lies part of the beauty of Mad Men, it’s never afraid to show just how appalling its characters can be.

Speaking of appalling, Betty was once again too busy to pay any attention to the kids, this week devoting all of her efforts to trying to get off with Henry Francis, risking everything to do so despite the fact that they’d only ever met three times. This culminated in the Draper home being the setting for an impromptu fundraiser for Governor Rockerfeller’s troubled election campaign. Which Henry decided to skip, prompting Betty to go down there and in a childish fit of rage throwing the box of the night’s takings at him - apparently he thought it best that Betty came to him as she’s already married, but surely he could have actually mentioned that to her before she decided to throw a benefit on his behalf. Betty’s self-centred naivety also managed to upset Carla (not that she showed it what with the demands of looking after Betty, Don and the kids not allowing her the luxury to do so) by her declaring that the bombing of an African-American Church in Birmingham, Alabama was a sign that the time’s not right for civil rights, something equally as disgusting to present day ears as Don’s ‘you people’ comment.

Conrad Hilton also didn’t get the most flattering of portrayals in this episode. From his late night nuisance calls, going on about his belief in hard-work and god, which marks him out as incredibly different to his famous granddaughter, and his desire to spread the Hilton brand all over the world, and even into space (which Don presumed he was speaking about metaphorically), to his nonsensical reason for turning down Don’s campaign, which he admitted himself was witty and modern, but didn’t feature his apparently serious desire to put Hilton on the moon. Shame that by this point Don had Peggy, Kurt and Smitty working flat out on the campaign, even if their contributions weren’t up to much - Don referred to Kurt with the witty putdown of ‘the more I understand you the less I am impressed by you’. But at least it meant that we’ve seen the back of Connie and his old-timey faux pearls of wisdom, it’s just a shame that Sal had to go as well.

So what did you think of it, do you think that Sal will be back or has his storyline run its course? Will Betty and Henry’s affair have a happy ending or is he just using her, will Carla ever lose her patience with the Drapers and will Don ever not manage to be suave and charming despite the disgusting things he says and does?

Disgraced investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist is hired by the wealthy Henrik Vanger to find out what happened to his niece Harriet who disappeared 40 years previously. Relationships between the various members of the Vanger family are strained and Henrik believes that she was murdered by another member of the family. Facing a long period on the their private island struggling to make sense of the case, Mikael is contacted by young security consultant Lisbeth Salander who was originally hired to check into Mikael’s suitability for the case, but has managed to keep a track of his progress (or lack of it) by hacking into the files on his computer. Quickly recruited into the investigation Mikael now has to deal with not only the suspicions of the Vanger clan, but the strange behaviour of his brilliant, yet troubled young sidekick. 

The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo is interesting for not only featuring an unusual double act who have a great amount of chemistry between them, but for keeping them apart from each other for much of the film with much of Lisbeth’s  work on the case being completed from behind the screen of a Macbook. Fortunately the film manages to make the use of technology fascinating to watch, almost to the extent that it starts to feel like an extra character in its own right, not just in the high-tech spying and conversations between Mikael and Lisbeth but also in its use of more antique equipment such as the presentation of the photographic evidence of Harriet’s last day, with the photographs becoming almost animated in an eerily blurred and grainy conversation from the past.

It’s interesting that one of Sweden’s other most successful cultural exports of recent years is another crime drama Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series and the subsequent series of TV dramatisations, and it’s fair to say that there are certain similarities between the two. Both take place in the same settings of modern city apartments and the estates of the wealthy out in the remote Swedish countryside and both are filmed in a similar unflashy matter-of-fact style. Really the only concessions The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo makes to being shown in cinemas are its ominous score and a portrayal of violence far more unflinching than anything shown in TV drama. The latter is where the key difference between the two series lies, where Wallander often related its crimes to the social and political conditions that formed them, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo largely eschews politics (aside from a back story based around the Swedish branch of the Nazi party) in favour of more visceral horrific storylines - like most serial killer plotlines the details of the murders seem a little hard to swallow at points, but generally the point of the genre is to take something horrific and make it entertaining and larger than life. In some aspects the film resembles not so much a big screen Wallander, but more a Scandinavian take on The Silence of the Lambs. Although not featuring anything as gaudily grotesque as Hannibal Lector, the hero does find himself relying on a shady, unpredictable and staggeringly intelligent sidekick and the film even (perhaps unintentionally) borrows Lambs’ final shot. More importantly, like the Silence of the Lambs, the film is more willing than most crime dramas to highlight the misogynistic aspects of the genre, despite an early sexual abuse subplot that at first seems rather leery and irresponsible, the violence carried out on women is laudably presented in a stark, uncomfortable manner – perhaps the original Swedish title ‘Men Who Hate Women’ would have been a more fitting choice for the film, although it would have probably lost it some viewers.
Although dark, brooding and in some places very tough to watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo also offers thrilling entertainment with moments both of black humour and tense action. Although towards the end it does seem that the film doesn’t quite know when to stop, it never feels as long as its running length would suggest and manages to grip for most of its running time, while also raising ethical questions frequently missing from the crime genre.

A light, farcical romance telling the tale of Nemorino’s pining for beautiful Adina, who refuses to be tied down to one man, that is until her soldier suitor Belcore proposes to her. Nemorino puts his faith in doctor Dulcamara, who provides the Elixir of the title. Veteran director Miller has decided to stage the action in the mid-west of 1950s America, where the action centres around Adina’s diner, Nemorino is now a young grease-monkey and Dulcamara is a travelling snake-oil huckster.

As lovestruck Nemorino Botelho’s character is at odds with the other characters on stage, and so the fact that the intense young loner is singing in a different language to the rest of the cast highlights this further - with this production’s American update it could be possible to read Nemorino as an uneducated immigrant. In some of the group numbers where Botelho is required to sing along with the chorus, the language difference adds another interesting layer of contrast - where Kelley Rourke’s new English translation is witty, it is also rather functional, and so Nemorino’s romanticised Italian (as well as Botelho’s forceful but light and clear voice – perhaps it was a result of end of run fatigue setting in with the rest of the cast, but at this performance his voice was by far the standout) sets his character apart. Although, Botelho isn’t the only one to sing in Italian in the production - Andrew Shore’s wonderfully hammy Ducamara, invokes a salesman’s faux intimacy in making a sale by conversing with Nemorino in the original language, before reverting to the Amercianisms of Rourke’s libretto in his dealings with the other characters.

It’s perhaps a result of recent opulence in ENO productions (such as Rupert Goold’s also eatery-set version of Turnadot) that Isabella Bywater’s set seems rather stripped back, despite it featuring a full-sized diner that revolves around to give views of action inside and out. The 1950s setting does provide Miller with a rich seam to mine however, with Adina’s diner looking like something out of an Edward Hopper painting, and numerous moments of earthy humour being created such as in Shore evoking the spirit of Elvis in the pre-wedding celebration scene, or a dramatic plot development being delivered as gossip in the queue for the ladies lavatory round back.

Despite the production now nearing the end of its run and the fact that Donizetti’s score isn’t the most memorable, The Elixir of Love is worth making the effort to see, especially for those who are curious about opera but haven’t taken the plunge of seeing one yet. Not only is Miller’s production light and accessible, but the cultural mish-mash of English and Italian in these final performances offer the opportunity to see something genuinely unique and unexpectedly rewarding.

Really this was an episode where the women got the chance to shine, or more accurately their hair-dos did. From the shot early on in the episode where Sally serenely watched Betty combing her hair, through to Betty’s croissant shaped style later on in the episode and Trudy returning from her trip with a head scarf that made her look like a character out of Grey Gardens, so much of the drama was merely conveyed by how the women decided to wear their hair. And, aside from the ridiculous croissant-style, Betty’s hair managed to remain constantly impeccable, even when waking up in the morning or after a long flight. This was very much her episode during which she got a taste of political power, thanks to Henry Francis stepping in to delay the Reservoir real estate sale, although this was lost by the end of the episode, with Francine informing her that the development was going to go ahead anyway. Her reaction to this was to tell Don at the end of the episode that she hated her life – the place where they lived and all of their friends, and while this may seem mean and petulant we were given an insight as to why she feels this way. Embarking on a literally last minute trip to Rome with Don (who was flown out to once again tend to Connie’s needs), Betty got to reveal a talent that she doesn’t get to use back at home as she confidently conversed with the locals in Italian, and went around the city unaccompanied. Which is where the ridiculous croissant-hair came in. Following a trip to the Beauty Salon Betty, supposedly all glammed-up although it was hard to take her new look seriously, entertained herself with a drink until she received some unwanted attention from a couple of sleazy Italian guys. The Italians didn’t come off well in this episode as in addition to their lewd remarks to Betty, they came across as idiots by referring to Don when he arrived as old and ugly – Don may be many things, but he’s definitely neither old or ugly. This did lead to a surprisingly romantic and charming scene (at least by Don and Betty’s standards) of them pretending to not know each other and then hook up, although once again the seriousness of the scene was a little undercut by the sight of Betty in the bedroom, wearing not only her underwear but that croissant-shaped hairdo and vast amount of gold jewellery (I couldn’t help but think of Princess Leia’s gold bikini outfit from Return of the Jedi). Luckily it was all gone by the morning after and Betty was back to looking like her improbably perfect self.

As all of this was going on, the kids were left at home with Carla, who once again proved herself to have the patience of a saint by not only agreeing to look after Sally, Bobby and baby Gene at the last minute, but Francine’s kids too. Which lead to another incident of Sally losing her temper – after being caught kissing Francine’s son Ernie in the bathtub, Sally violently went after Bobby until Carla intervened. It was odd to hear Carla threaten to not allow Francine’s kids to come over any more as being just the hired help it’s unlikely that she has the power to follow through on this, although she does spend more time raising the kids than either Don or Betty do, as demonstrated when they returned from their whirlwind trip to Rome. When Carla told Betty that Sally and Bobby missed her she responded ‘I doubt that’ before turning her attention to Gene, who’s far too young to show any sort of negative opinion towards her. Don was even less interested, sensing talk about the kids’ behaviour he excused himself to check on the mail, so we were given the unusual sight of Betty seeming like responsible parent, relatively speaking. Towards the end of the episode Betty finally sat herself down to have a one-to-one chat with Sally which, although it provided useful advice for Sally on how to behave around boys, revealed rather more of Betty’s restless state of mind as it was preceded by her staring longingly at the fainting couch recommended to her by Henry Francis and concluded with the line ‘a first kiss is when you really get to know a guy, and every one after that is just a shadow of the first one’. Although Don tried to surprise her at the end of the episode with a little trinket from the hotel gift shop in Rome, it clearly wasn’t enough to stop her thinking of Henry.

Meanwhile at Sterling Cooper Pete and Ken were now also fighting it out in the race to be the most disgusting man in the office, Ken went for the rather direct approach of describing New York in August as ‘all fat girls with hairy armpits soaking their feet in fountain’ (marking an early appearance, and a rather unpleasant one at that, of the women’s hair motif), while Pete’s was, in a perfectly fitting style, more planned out and slimy. Finding himself at a loose end with Trudy away with her parents, Pete soon found himself bored of the lack of responsibilities this brought (a guy can only take so many naps on the sofa and watch so many kids TV shows), until he happened upon the neighbours’ German Au Pair in the hallway. The poor girl, who as the episode progressed retreated further and further into her unflattering bob, was trying to dispose of her boss’ dress which she had managed to ruin and so Pete leapt to the rescue vowing to get her a replacement one. Which is where the most interesting twist in the episode happened, after taking the dress back to the store and demanding to speak with the manager, he was met with Joan – who worked her way up to a management position in the store surprisingly quickly. Despite the friendly chit-chat that followed, in which Joan assured Pete that she had ‘never been better’, it was clear she was lying, her still stylish, but rather deflated hair told us what she was refusing to admit. Of course on giving the replacement dress to the Au Pair, it was inevitable that Pete would force himself on her. What was shocking was that when his neighbour found out, he didn’t have a problem with Pete behaving so callously, but asked if he could take his philandering outside of the building so as to not risk losing an Au Pair that his wife finally got on with. And into this Trudy returned, looking relaxed and stylish from her trip away, although this was soon undone by Pete refusing to talk to her by what he had been up to – by the next scene she had removed her headscarf, a sign that the holiday was well and truly over and she was back to the usual secrecy and resentment of home life.

So all in all it was a pretty downbeat episode this week, even if Joan’s reappearance was very welcome. What did you all think of it?

Primarily the problem with Crazy Heart is that, unlike what its title suggests, the film is fairly devoid of drama and passion. Unusually the film is more interested in getting the specifics correct – musicians have detailed discussions on their favourite guitars and amps for example – than in providing dramatic interest or character motivation. While there are dramatic happenings they are fairly minor and rather predictable as Crazy Heart fits firmly into the tradition of films where a disillusioned and ageing man is given a new lease of life by finding a young, beautiful woman who loves him. Not that there’s anything wrong with predictability if the characters are strong enough, but as Bridges character Bad Blake is somewhat exasperating company, and the film is even quite reticent to go into the details of what makes him or many of the supporting characters tick, it does mean that Crazy Heart isn’t a particularly rewarding or satisfying experience.

As so much of the film revolves around Bridges, it’s good to note that he brings his usual laid-back charm to the film and he manages to perform Blake’s songs (which were also awarded with an Oscar) convincingly, should he decide to turn his back on his acting career it’s not inconceivable that he could pursue a career in music. The role also requires a lack of vanity and self-consciousness from him as he’s clearly had to pile on some pounds for the role, and spend much of the film wandering around with his shirt off acting like a drunkard, and he pulls this off well although it is unlikely that Bad Blake will rival his turns in films such as The Big Lebowski, Starman or The Last Picture Show in his fan’s affections. Elsewhere the performances are all solid if mostly in underwritten parts, Maggie Gyllenhaal in particular tries her best with a role that, despite offering a few witty lines, exists solely to be the level-headed love interest and muse for Blake. Like the script, the shooting style would be best described as functional and with so much of the film taking place on hot, dusty and deserted stretches of highway this end result has a soporific, repetitive quality. While in no respect is it a bad film, Crazy Heart is an unsubstantial one only really given any weight by Jeff Bridges’ presence and an authentic-sounding country music soundtrack.

Instead of attempting a straight telling of Lewis Carroll’s tale, Burton’s version of Alice mashes-up elements from both the original book and its sequel Through The Looking-Glass, which in itself isn’t that much different from many of the previous film adaptations of Carroll’s writings, on top of this however is a new framing plot-line where Alice is now a young adult, having forgot her previous adventures other than in recurring dreams, and is now having to deal with real world problems such as the etiquette of social engagements and unwanted proposals of marriage. Once again she follows the nervy and elusive White Rabbit away from all this and finds herself in Wonderland, or as it’s now called ‘Underland’ whose numerous fantastical denizens hope that she will be able to deliver them from the tyrannical reign of the Red Queen, but before she can she has to remember her previous encounters with them and rediscover her sense of self, or as the Mad Hatter puts it her ‘muchness’. That rather convoluted description of the plot highlights the main problem with this adaptation in that it overcomplicates the original story to the extent where much of the fun is sucked out of it. While the original story is essentially just a collection of vignettes strung together, it was charming, compelling and coherent despite this, and other film adaptations have managed to convert this structure with entertaining results, such as in Hayao Miyazaki’s Alice-homage Spirited Away, however this version just feels like it is going through the motions to cover all the ‘greatest hits’ as Alice is forced to in turn meet all the famous characters and have the same expositional discussions with each. Additionally, the turning of Wonderland into the dark, war-ravaged place known as Underland is a major mistake as it means that Burton even has to hold back on his stylistic touches in order to render the place suitably desolate. While it’s clear that a lot of money has been thrown at the film to create moments of 3D spectacle – objects are frequently thrown at the screen in order to make the audience feel like they’ve got their money’s worth – it’s a shame that the money couldn’t have been spent on giving the script extra dimensions instead.

The two central performances are rather problematic as well. Mia Wasikowska makes for a pretty Alice but she doesn’t have much presence, remaining quiet and girlish even after Alice rediscovers her muchness, whereas Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter is simply irritating. It was perhaps a bad idea to bump up his character from supporting role to major star anyway as the dark back-story that has been created to do so doesn’t sit well with the comedic moments created by his lunatic antics. Added to this is Depp’s decision to portray the character as a jumble of comedic accents and tics, which serves as a reminder of how his Jack Sparrow was incredibly fun in the first Pirates of the Caribbean but got subsequently less so with each further film in the series.

However, there are still many parts where the film gets it right. The supporting cast, mostly comprised of familiar British faces, are generally excellent, with Stephen Fry’s Cheshire Cat standing out in particular as an always amusing mix of sophistication and mischievousness. The portrayals of the Red and White Queens are also rather inspired. Most reviews have pointed out that Helena Bonham Carter is essentially channelling Miranda Richardson’s Queenie from Blackadder II as the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway’s serene White Queen was inspired by Domestic Goddess Nigella Lawson (although Lawson never made quite so many gracefully elaborate gesticulations with her arms) and the contrast between Carter’s spoilt-child and Hathaway’s caring maternal figure is delightful. Whenever Burton is presented with the opportunity to show the more vibrant side of Wonderland the film becomes much more entertaining, such as the ostentatious palace of the Red Queen, with her royal court comprised of amusingly out of place anthropomorphic animals such as frogs, fish and pigs. It’s just a shame that these moments are so few and far between.

Simply put this is the Diet Coke version of the story, a pleasant, but artificial and unsubstantial take on an old classic. While there are worse ways to spend an evening at the cinema it feels like a missed opportunity. There are already better versions of the tale on film – even Disney’s previous version – which are more worthy of your time than this, as is a re-read of Carroll’s still amusing and enchanting books.

As the opening scenes with Don, Betty and Peggy all waking up (presumably at 7:23) showed there were two other major storylines going on this week. Well, not so much major in Betty’s case. Although it’s clear that she’s falling for Governor’s advisor Henry Francis – previously spotted in episode 3 – thanks to the Junior League who she’s now volunteering for in Francine’s place (probably just as well considering the only insight Francine brought to the discussion was that ‘Real Estate is scary’) pimping her out for their own ends. The general unimportance of her mission is pretty much summed up by the names of the real estate in question - Cherry Town and Pleasantville Road Reservoir sound more like places from a fairly average children’s story than a hotbed of political intrigue. Still, with Henry returning her interest, as probably best summed up by him returning her calls instantaneously despite supposedly being a very busy man, it’ll be interesting to see where this relationship goes. It was amusing to see the reaction of the interior designer at the end of the episode after Betty had gone against her opinion (and to an extent that of Don even if he offered his only reluctantly at the start of the episode), by buying a massive fainting couch on Henry’s suggestion and shoving it in the worst possible place. Otherwise there were no major developments in the watch on Betty’s parenting skills, although in a reversal to the normal situation she for once told the kids to turn the TV off when she needed time to herself, rather than the other way around. 

And so that just leaves Don, who as we saw at the start of the episode ended up bloodied and generally the worse for wear, which is probably what he deserved for driving around while drunk (there’s still something oddly amusing and yet also rather horrifying about watching him sophisticatedly sip whisky from a glass while behind the wheel), picking up a young couple of hitchhikers in the middle of the night AND take drugs from them without asking any questions. Still it’s somewhat fitting that his romantic reminiscing as instigated by watching the young couple would be pretty abruptly brought to a halt by their violent reaction to him watching them. At the office he had to deal with the unwanted attentions of everybody straining to get a look at the elusive Conrad ‘Connie’ Hilton, which might explain why he took it all out on Peggy towards the end of the episode. The problem I have with the Connie storyline is that it’s incredibly hard to disassociate the image of him with all that follows – so while he was chastising Don for being a late riser, not much of a family man or a Christian, I couldn’t help but think of the attention seeking antics of his granddaughter Paris and wonder what he would think of them. There was also the matter of Roger’s general malaise to deal with, with the release of Ogilvy’s book making ad-men almost as hated as lawyers (with this and Don’s proto-metrosexual interior decorating expertise, maybe this is the beginning of the end of the hard-drinking, macho cult of the ‘mad men’?). Miss Farrell also proved to be something of a challenge, rather brazenly flaunting her sexuality at a parent-child activity, and coming across over-confident to the point of smugness about her allure. Although she wasn’t entirely mistaken, despite his protestations at the time Don’s definitely into her. This will of course be yet more fodder for Sally and Bobby’s therapists when they grow up, both their parents are more interested in pursuing affairs than raising their children, and now even their teachers are proving to be rather sleazy.

Even before the Brits got to the office things were rather chaotic. Despite some initial excitement at the thought of their upcoming visit and his predicting that they were here to see Don and were going to whisk him back to the London office (something Don and Betty both got rather excited about), Lane betrayed his usual calm, British reserve and acted rather flustered, while his assistant John Hooker took it out on Paul Kinsey by asking him to shave off his beard (which didn’t work, instead Kinsey chose to rebel, in a rather non-rebellious way, by keeping the beard and playing a guitar in his office when the Brits came to look round) and the ladies of the secretarial pool and their choice of dress. Joan was busy trying to put things in order as she was due to be leaving Sterling-Cooper for a life of wedded bliss (supposedly). And to entire office’s dismay the Brits had, somewhat cynically, decided to visit just before the fourth of July, meaning that the independence day holiday was cancelled. So with all this going on, it was inevitable that something disastrous was going to happen – even if it was so unexpectedly grisly (the last time Mad Men strayed that far into gore was in showing Don’s war time experience, when he accidentally blew up his commanding officer).

The crisis did give Joan a chance to shine (not that she doesn’t do so generally – she still looked stunning after sleeping on the couch waiting for her useless, and drunken, fiancé to come home). Despite it being her last day, and her feeling rather emotional about both this and her fiancé’s utter failure in his career, she leapt into action, getting the hysterical Lois out of the way, stopping Guy’s bleeding and spending the last few hours of her time at Sterling-Cooper in a hospital waiting room, although Guy eventually had his foot amputated, she did manage to save his life.

Don meanwhile had managed to miss most of the drama by skipping out on the ‘fete’ (as Guy pretentiously insisted on calling Joan’s leaving party) to attend a surprise meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria. It turned out that Connie, the old man that Don met when he last hid from another work-party – Roger and Jane’s spectacularly racist affair from episode three – was hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. Hilton pretty much got Don to consult on an advert for free, before making cryptic comments about what he could offer Don and moaning about the inconvenience about being put on the cover of Time magazine – now he wouldn’t be able to anonymously hang out in country club bars as everybody would what he looked like and, even worse, in the photo he looked like ‘an A-rab’ (when actually, what he looked like was the spitting image of John Waters). During the meeting Don got a call from the office about the mini-tractor incident and raced off to the hospital, where he managed to have a tender farewell chat with Joan, and a share a Dr Pepper with the clearly relieved Lane.

In an odd way, everything turned out for the best – in addition to this being the last we’ll see of Guy, as the injury means he’ll never play golf again, apparently an essential skill in the advertising industry, Lane won’t be shipped off to Bombay, Roger Sterling won’t be pushed out of his company, even if nobody’s entirely sure what he does anymore, and the staff of Sterling-Cooper got their independence day holiday after all what with Lane closing the office ‘out of respect’. And all it cost them was a new carpet, an office wall and a dry-cleaning bill for Kinsey and Crane after they were squirted, quite spectacularly, with blood.

Elsewhere in the episode, Betty’s parenting skills continued to be incredibly lacklustre. With baby Gene to dote over Sally and Bobby don’t interest her any more– she didn’t even bother to tell them to watch TV this episode, instead settling for the much more sarcastic ‘Go bang your head against a wall’. To be fair her attempt to win Sally over by bribing her with a Jackie Kennedy-styled Barbie doll was sweet (albeit short as Betty isn’t the type to have heart-to-heart talks with anyone), but then she undid all the good she had done there by merely responding to Sally’s night terror with an exasperated ‘I have no words’ before storming off to dote on baby Gene some more. So it was up to Don to come to the rescue. Considering the way he behaves in the workplace – and the numerous hotel rooms that he hooks up with other women in – it’s still strange to see him act as the caring family man. But he’s proved to be good at it, even though he was admittedly the one who caused Sally’s screaming fit in the first place by bringing the slightly creepy Barbie back into her room after she had thrown it out of the window. Although his first plan, to get Betty to agree to change baby Gene’s name didn’t work, as she continues to childishly cling to that name as if it actually brings her beloved dad back from the dead, he managed to bring some sort of peace to the situation by taking the time to sit down with Sally, explain away her fears and properly introduce her to her new baby brother. And, with that scene nicely accompanied by a Bob Dylan song, that was the end of the possibly the best episode so far of Mad Men season three, what did you all think of it?

Comments about Firth’s BAFTA win have suggested that he benefitted from a home-field advantage, and that he won’t win the Oscar, and while to an extent these statements are true they do undermine Firth’s great achievement. His performance is an absolute revelation, so often relegated to playing stuffy, mannered characters thanks to the general lack of inspiration and sense of risk in the British film industry, like so many other things in this film his approach is meticulous. Much of his time on screen involves being filmed in extreme, unforgiving close-up and he is never less than fascinating, managing to convey George’s emotional turmoil in an always sensitive, subtle manner. Firth doesn’t offer the only great performance in the film, for the first time in what seems like an age Julianne Moore is given the chance to prove how great an actress she is, portraying Charlotte, George’s friend from the old days in London, as a fun-loving lush with a barely concealed hint of desperation, hysteria and loneliness behind each filthy anecdote and giggling fit, and unlike many American actors’ attempts her British accent is absolutely spot on. Conversely the two men closest to George in the film Jim and friendly and inquisitive yet slightly creepy student Kenny are Americans played by Brits, and both of them do a fantastic job as well. In particular Nicholas Hoult as Kenny effortlessly manages to be something completely other than the actor many will recognise from Skins or About a Boy, it’s his first truly grown-up role, as the sexual tension between him and Firth in later scenes demonstrates. Even many of the smallest roles are filled with familiar, if not famous actors, as demonstrated by Ford’s insistence on hiring Jon Hamm, Mad Men’s Don Draper for an uncredited off-screen cameo as he needed an actor with the right voice (with the film being set in the early 60s, with a backdrop of Cold War panic and covering attitudes to homosexuality at the time it makes an interesting companion to Mad Men).

Much discussion has been made about Ford’s fashion design background, with one of the most common criticisms being that it looks far too beautiful, being over-designed to the point of being sterile. While it would be true that if you took a scene from the film in isolation and stuck a sultry voiceover and a slogan on the end you could make a perfume advert, these criticisms are rather unfair, and in fact have missed the point of the film. It’s not a case of style over substance, but rather one where style is the substance. With George being such a perfectionist it makes sense that everything in his world would be so stylish. Ford’s use of slow-motion and colour saturation might seem a little much at first but they do so much to place the audience in George’s position, highlighting moments of joy or anguish and his general sense of isolation and discomfort from the other people in his world. Although these techniques might seem repetitive, it’s important that they are used as such as the film acknowledges that all emotional states must pass – both George’s happiness and despair come in waves and are fleeting. The use of colour also does a lot to place the film in the correct time period, as the vivid sunset witnessed by George and Spanish actor Carlos is rendered so gloriously that it resembles something from the technicolour era.

To make a comparison to Ford’s earlier career, A Single Man is like one of his suits, a seemingly simple, ordinary thing that is made into something so much greater by the exquisite craftsmanship behind it. Although it’s still so early on in the year, this is without a doubt one of the great films of 2010.

 From the first track, it’s clear however that Odd Blood is a very different prospect. With vocals that sound like a mournful version of the Apple Mac’s voice-over function, The Children is Odd Blood’s strangest track and it’s gratifying to note that Yeasayer haven’t made an album quite as front-heavy as its predecessor, where all of the more oddball tracks were relegated to the second half. This segues into first single Amblin’ Alp, based around the boxer of the same moniker although a knowledge of his career isn’t at all necessary to appreciate the joyously peppy lyrical content. At this point it becomes clear what’s changed between the band who recorded All Hour Cymbals and this record, while the first album was based around abstract ideas and riddled with fear and doubt, here the band have managed to convey the physicality of their live show on record. Not only is the Odd Blood, with its bouncy synths and beats, much more danceable, but the lyrics are all about physical sensation, this mostly being sex. The Arcade Fire-level anthemic, and possible album highlight, Madder Red is infused with sexual longing, I Remember is a simple and touching recollection of an affair, embellished with a surprisingly dainty piano part, and second single O.N.E. is a perfect break-up track, flipping between nostalgic desperation and a defiantly catchy kiss-off, a sort of electro-indie I Will Survive (without the negative karaoke connotations of that track – yet).

 The second half of the album kicks off with Love Me Girl, which lives up to its boyband-esque name with the band coming across as a psychedelic Backstreet Boys – marrying close vocal harmonies, with electronic distortion and a synth-line that sounds like something from Technique-era New Order, it is, in other words, magnificently loopy. Following track Rome’s megalomaniacal lyrics are once again oddly sexual and delivered with an 80’s electro-pop beat and the sort of backing vocal previously only heard on a Gorillaz record.  

With all the high-energy retro synthesiser action going on, it’s fairly likely that Yeasayer have taken a bit of influence from former tour-mates MGMT, and it could be said that they are chasing that band’s commercial appeal to an extent. However, despite the similar sound and aesthetic of both bands there is a crucial difference between the two in that while MGMT were fun but superficial and didn’t manage to convince on their more downbeat numbers, there is a sense of sincerity to Odd Blood. When Keating turns on his full preacher mode on penultimate track Mondegreen, what could have been another sex-fuelled filler track - based as it is around the simple chorus of ‘Everybody’s talking about me and my baby, making love in the morning light’ – is infused with a palpable sense of paranoia.

Although not perfect – the gloomy haze of Strange Reunions would probably fit better on their debut and final track Grizelda, a love song to notorious drug lord (or in this case drug lady) Griselda Blanco from the point of view of one of her henchmen, could musically do with a bit more spunk in order to match the lyrical content – Odd Blood does mark an incredible leap forward in quality from the band, and could very well be one of the most purely enjoyable, and definitely one of the most aptly titled albums of 2010.