from the hip

The sadly deceased Scandinavian crime writer Stieg Larsson’s book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is selling more and more, both in the UK and in the US. Also, Steig Larson’s second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire is high in the hardback charts. The third and last book in the Millenium trilogy is due this fall.

And now the Swedes have almost finished the first movie based on these fabulous books! Here is a teaser from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

embedded by Embedded Video

The Icelandic band Sigur Rós has recorded a somewhat unusual music video for a song entitled “Gobbledigook”. The video has lots of nudity (what is known as “frontal nudity” in the US). As a result, it will be banned on MTV and has been removed from YouTube.

The movie may be interesting because of the nudity – it has both nude males and nude women. It may also be interesting because of lots of pubic hair – a new trend? In Iceland?

However, the most interesting aspect of this is the marketing aspect. We have seen Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, and others using sex videos and nudity to become world famous. Is this possible for a band with a music video too? If it has lots of nudity?

Also, the media world is changing, and this video may well illustrate how relatively unimportant traditional media channels are becoming – even YouTube, when it chooses to censor. My bet is that this video will go viral, and that it will be one of the most viewed music videos this year.

It is still art? Who knows? However, the new album, which this song is from, is called “Nude”, so at least it reflects the title of the album.

What remains to be seen is whether sex sells, and whether the group will be able to reach their intended audience with this content or not?

We will see!

PS: Oh, and the video? You can find it on the homepage of Sigur Rós:  Here.

Swedish actress Izabella Scorupco is extremely upset. She played the movie “Sun Storm” (Solstorm), based on a crime novel by Asa Larsson, together with actor Mikael Persbrandt. The movie was first shown i Sweden in November 2007.

In the movie, Izabella Scorupco – elected as the most sexy woman in Sweden in a vote by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet – has hot sex with Mikael Persbrandt on a kitchen table. A small part of this is shown in the movie.

On the newly released DVD, however, four and a half minutes of sex is included as background material – with the title “the sex scene”. The actress is upset because she had not been asked or informed about this in advance from the movie company.

When asked about this by Aftonbladet, the producer Lena Rehnberg says that the scene was included on the DVD because is was a “freaking good scene” (skitbra, in Swedish).

And that’s sufficient as a reason, I guess?

And now, of course, the sex scene is being distributed on the net. Which, I guess, is not likely to make Scorupco any less angry?

Here is a review of Sunstorm at ScandinavianBooks.

Ashley Alexandra Dupre became instantly famous over night when the world learned that she was the call girl visited by New York ex-governor Eliot Spitzer. Also, according to some, she may have sold similar services to Hollywood-playboy Charlie Sheen,  dressed up as  cheer leader.

Deservedly or not, she stood to make millions of dollars on her newfound fame. Books, interviews and such will come, for sure. But some wanted to pay for porn pictures of her as well. Hustler seems to have been willing to pay 1 million USD for that. Producer of “Girls Gone Wild” Joe Francis was too.

According to Associated Press:

Joe Francis had reached out to Ashley Alexandra Dupre, now 22, with an offer of $1 million to appear in a non-nude spread for his company’s new magazine, plus a chance to join the “Girls Gone Wild” tour bus, his company announced Tuesday.

But Francis said someone had a revelation at the Tuesday morning staff meeting: Did anyone think to check the archives?

They did, he said — and there she was.

“It’ll save me a million bucks,” Francis told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “It’s kind of like finding a winning lottery ticket in the cushions of your couch.”

Francis said at that point, his offer was off the table: “We actually had been dealing with her rep,” he said. “Our (offer) was the real deal. We just never made the connection.”

He said his employees got to work on pulling the footage and planned to offer it on the Web site by Tuesday evening, with a free sampling on the front page and the rest available with a $29.95 monthly subscription.

And off the video will come nude pics and internet videoes. All in high demand.

So that was a  cool million lost for having shown off her body on tape at the wrong time! Bad deal, if you ask me.

A Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet, shows a video of her, showing some skin. Not that I think you’re interested, but just in case.

Timing is king!