LATECOMER: THE KILLING (series) Binge watching the Killing series. Takes place i

LATECOMER: THE KILLING (series)

Binge watching the Killing series. Takes place in Seattle. It really is beautiful. Funny tho: the location scouts work pretty hard at finding skeevy sections of Seattle. Because there really aren’t any. Seattle never had mass immigration or underclass industrialization. And where the hell do they find the black people? There aren’t any black people in seattle? It’s the second whitest city in america. They have a murder in Discovery Park, then shoot the scene in what I think is Issaquah? They get the light right (it’s blue grey in seattle all the time). The camera work is excellent. I keep saying “fk, I wouldn’t have thought of that, that’s good.”

The directing is excellent. I love long shots. The use of long shots rather than filler dialog lets actors actually act rather than wrestle with crap lines.

But what gets me is how good the casting is. The casting is awesome. It’s interesting. So the combination of long shots and good casting is just – I don’t know, it’s more than refreshing. It’s satisfying – elegant even.

I really don’t understand why casting is so bad in some movies and series. Casting is a discipline. A craft. It isn’t rocket science. But it certainly isn’t intuitive. Actors should not pitch to amateurs. It’s insulting And I see movie after movie with terrible casting. I wish I understood the process better but you know, it’s really frustrating to watch a series die because of weak casting.

Anyway, I can’t watch most series – too exasperating. This one is up in my top five. It’s a work of art. Not just Because Seattle is home, but because like Seattle, it’s elegant and smart.