'So, the Stasis, Are They the Good Guys or the Bad Guys?'

The Lives of Others, the excellent German Stasi thriller, which has just won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film is reportedly going to suffer the Hollywood remake treatment, effected by middle-brow maestros Anthony Minghella and Sidney Pollack for Miramax. It probably hasn't crossed anybody's mind that a German-themed film might be better conducted in German, as that it what they still, to this day, speak in Germany. Yes, it looks promising already, Cate Blanchett, William H. Macy and Jude Law with their guttural Teutonic accents. 'Don't you vurry, mein Excellency he vill tock, haff no doubt about that.' At this rate The Simpsons, like Tom Lehrer before them, might give up satire because of unfair competition from real life.