The Girl Who Played With Fire

Without a doubt, the Lisabeth Salander series, written by Stieg Larsson, deserves all of the praise and success that it has been receiving. They are well written, well put together, contain intriguing characters that you care about, and you can never go wrong with a good conspiracy theory. I said before when I watched The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, that it was going to be very difficult to bring these novels to life. I thought that Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg did a wonderful job with the screenplay. Director Niels Arden Oplev did an equally good job with bringing to life Lisabeth and Mikael Blomkvist. Because of their  exceptionally good job on the first movie, I was excited to see what they were going to do with The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second book in the trilogy.

Arcel and Heisterberg did not return for the second film. Director Oplev also did not return. Daniel Alfredson directed both The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest. Ulf Ryberg took on the daunting task of adapting the second novel for the screen. What makes these novels so difficult to adapt, is the numerous points of view that Larsson gives you throughout the novel. He presents you with so much detail, and trying to determine what is important and what isn't is like looking for a needle in a haystack (yea I know Cliche, but a good cliche is needed every once in awhile). 

Ryberg did an OK job. Ryberg did a decent job of shifting through the many story lines and picking out what he thought to be the most essential to the story. Some of it he got right, some of it he didn't. 

The major thing that really was swept over, was the murders themselves. There was never any real evidence presented in the film that shows Lisabeth could have been the murderer, except for the fact that her fingerprints where on the gun. They never go into any reason why she would have been anywhere near the characters Dag and Mia, or what her motivation for killing them could have been. In the movie she never has any contact with the couple at all. This leaves a major hole in the story. 

Dag is the single link that brings Lisabeth and Mikael toward Zala, which is the real story. In the novel, Dag begins to research Zala before his death and brings him up to Mikael early on. Lisabeth learns about this through her amazing hacking abilities, and pays the couple a visit the night of their murder to discover what information that had on Zala. Ryberg almost completely passes over this.  Zala is only brought up in a quick 10 second phone call to Mikael right before went to Dag and Mia's apartment to find them murdered. There was no set up at all for what is supposed to be the main conflict of the entire Lisabeth Salander mystery. It felt like he was in such a rush to get into the mystery part of it, he forgot that the set up is sometimes more important than the reveal.

The novel also really gets into how the papers portray Lisabeth while she is under suspicion for these three murders. It shows how speculation becomes damaging and all consuming at times, and later on really begins to interfere with the police investigation. 

I thought that they did not show Mikael to be as good of a friend to Lisabeth as he was in the novels. He was always very careful never to tell anyone, anything about her without her permission first. In the movie, he seemed to be quick to give out some information about Salander that he had otherwise kept secret in the novel. The movie also did not show Armansky's desire to assist in proving that Salander is innocent. These things all become important in the third and final novel. 

 

All in all, I would say that this was an OK movie. It was not anything great. If you did not read the book, I think that you would be a bit lost at times. Like most books series that have been made into movies, this one did not feel like it was thought out. It was rushed and put together so that they could put it out while people still know what The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is. That being said, I still believe that the Swedish version of this film is going to be better and truer to the novels than the English versions in production right now. Rapace still did am amazing job as Salander, and to me she will always be Lisabeth. I would say that if you have read the novels, take a chance. If you haven't..... what the heck are you waiting for? WHAT PART OF INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND! 

The Day the Video Store Died...

There was once a time where Friday and Saturday nights were movie night. Blockbusters, Hollywood Videos, and Movie Gallerys would be packed. There would be a full staff of 5 or 6 people working, and that still wouldn't be enough to handle the crowds. The video store was the place to go, and if you ever where unsure about what to rent, the staff was there to help you out with a suggestion. Now, the video store is becoming obsolete. There is no need for them with red box and with on demand you don't even have to leave your house. Great right? No late fees, no driving to return anything in a hurry before midnight, it is simple easy and convenient.  The question I asked myself is if this really is a good thing?

I worked at a video store for 6 years. It was my first and only job from 16-22. I loved it. I loved the people I worked with (my best friendships were formed here), the people that came in were always so much fun, and I was able to learn things about movies that I never would have had I not worked there. There is something that becomes lost with the red box and on demand: the human factor. 

Something that this world has become so afraid of anymore is actual human interaction. We don't ever have to talk face to face if we didn't want to. Our customers would come in and we would have actual conversations. We knew people by name, we knew things about their lives and their families. When people we would see on a regular basis didn't come in for awhile, we would become concerned. We talked face to face and nobody imploded. I like to think that sometimes we helped to make someone's day a little better. Don't get me wrong... there were those moments that made me want to smash my head through a window, and those people that just are looking for a fight, but that comes with human interaction. 

I really also think that the movie industry is suffering from the loss of the video store. No, I don't mean from a monetary standpoint, but from a creative standpoint. There were so many times that we would get a shipment of movies in and there were at least 3 or  4 smaller titled movies. I discovered so many indie films. I would watch them and suggest them to people. So many times people would come back and tell me how much they loved the movie and they would have never picked it up if I didn't suggest that. You don't get that from red box or on demand. I think that many indie films become lost and forgotten about now. Those smaller movies don't have a chance.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it does make me sad to think that one day there is not going to really be a need for a video store as I know them. What is so wrong with that little bit of human interaction? 

{500} Days of Summer... (the girl not the season)

I can't even tell you how hard it was for me to get my hands on this movie. I have been trying for the last month  to rent this movie or catch it on TV without any success. I was really excited to see what this movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Dechanel was all about, and it did not disappoint. I am a sucker for any more that starts out by telling me that it is not a love story. (Sometimes the sap happy just gets to be to much... *gag reflex*) This movie really set itself apart. It didn't do so by any original story line, but in the way Marc Webb (director), Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber (writers) were able to put onto the screen that all familiar roller coaster of love. Levitt has shown that he can definitely carry the action/suspense film and the light romantic comedy roles. 

Tom's relationship with Summer touches on all of those important relationship moments. The moment that you should have made a move but you didn't, the first time they grab your hand, that moment you realize that they could hurt you, that moment in which all in the world is aligned and you want to hug everyone because they should be as happy as you. It brings back all of those open wounds of the time you where dumped. It is the perfect embodiment of all relationships.
What I loved about the movie is that it is not told in complete chronological order.  It starts at the end of Summer and Tom's relationship and jumps around. This would normally make me feel like my head was spinning, but this was the perfect story telling technique for this film was trying to say. We see that Tom is so devastated by his break-up with Summer, and like most people he remembers all of those good times that they had together. The first half of the movie is so heavy in the happy moments that it is hard to understand how we end up at the unhappy beginning (well...ending). It is near the last half of the movie that Tom begins to take a closer look at some of the "happy moments" and see that maybe they really aren't all that happy. Isn't that what everyone does when a relationship ends? Especially when you are the one who was dumped? It becomes a what happened, we were so happy, it came out of no where... when really the signs were right in front of your face you just didn't want to admit it to yourself.

And the narrator was right, it wasn't a love story. I thought that the over all theme of the movie is that everything in life happens for a reason. (this is the thinking that gets me out of bed sometimes) Each person that comes into your life helps to move you to your next phase in life, and sometimes that person is not part of that next phase. They might not be your soul mate, but it doesn't make them any less important. So it may not be a love story, but it is a story worth watching for sure.

"Everyone has Secrets..."

Over the past week I was finishing up with a book I purchased at Target called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. (I have always been a bit late when checking out "internationally claimed" things.) It is the first book in a series of three written by Stieg Larsson. The first thing that sparked my interest in this book was that it was written by a Swedish author. The next thing that sparked my interest even further was that it was made into a film last year in Sweden. (I have more faith in foreign films lately than American ones, but that is a whole other rant) Both the book and movie did not disappoint.
The novel begins with a murder mystery that is over 40 years old. Henrik Vanger employs Mikael Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of his niece, Harriet Vanger, in September 1966. Blomkvist is a journalist who was recently been convicted of libel and must serve a sentence of three months in prison for the conviction. He agrees to take on the investigation to separate himself from his magazine Millennium in an attempt to save the magazine.  It is only later that Blomkvist is joined by the interesting heroine of  story Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo. It becomes clear early on that the real story is about Lisbeth herself and the mystery that surrounds her. She is a troubled young woman, 24, who is an amazing investigative researcher, has a constant internal struggle, and does not like to become close to people. She teams up with Mikael to try and solve the 40 year old mystery that quickly becomes a modern day problem.
The novel itself is 590 pages and reading it I became very skeptical that anyone would be able to pull off a descent adaptation of the book that was a proper representation of Lisbeth and the rest of the novel. Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg did a wonderful job with the screenplay. They were able to cut away the pieces that where not completely necessary without taking away from the characters and their development. All major scenes from the novel that were essential to each character and the story were there. At one point near the beginning of the film, they mentioned the death of one character that is very important to the end of the story in the novel. I was very curious to see how they were going to get around that, but they did a great job. They used the death of the character to reach the same ending in a slightly different way for the sake of time. This really impressed me because it was clear to me at that moment that this entire movie was extremely thought out and put together with real care and with a certain respect for the novel. (Stieg Larsson passed away shortly after he completed the third novel and therefore was not there for any sort of direction) 
The one thing that was slightly different from the novel is that there are at least 2 moments in the movie that Nikolaj and Rasmus put in which gives the audience a look into the mysterious past of Lisabeth. The novel tells you about her violent tendencies as a child and adolescent, but never really goes into anything more than that. I felt that at the end of the novel I had more questions about her than in the beginning. The movie shows a short flashback into Salander's childhood. I am assuming that this particular moment comes from the second novel, The Girl Who Played with Fire. (I haven't gotten to that one yet)
The director, Niels Arden Oplev, did an equally good job with the film. Keeping the tone very dark and cold, not only in location but in the colors and contrasts that he used throughout. There was no real sunshine through 3/4 of the movie. A constant reminder to the audience of the looming situation and the cloud that it has been over Hendrik all of these years. 

My biggest praise will have to go to Noomi Rapace. She did such an amazing job with the role of Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is a girl that says so much in her silences. Rapace could not have done a better job with so much emotion in her eyes and her body language. She always looked as if she was deep in thought. Almost as if she was arguing with herself at times. Even the quick, awkward shuffle that she does says so much for her character. She has so much baggage that she is carrying around and her inability to trust is not helping her. At one point she talks about how a persons upbringing is no excuse for awful behavior as an adult. She says that everyone is given the same choice. I felt like she was not only trying to tell Blomkvist this, but herself more than anyone. Noomi was just fantastic. 
I really recommend this movie to anyone who as or hasn't read the novel. (If you have read the novel do expect some big changes) Don't be frightened of the subtitles. Hollywood is in the process of producing and English version of the film (like I have said before they have no original ideas left so they have the remake successful foreign films....sorry like I said a rant for another day),but I have my doubts about this. I do not think that there is an actress out there that will be able to pull off the dark and disturbed Lisbeth. I read something last week that Scarlett Johansson is in talks for the role.... and if that is the case...... the movie is doomed before it has even been made. I don't care how unreasonable I am being, but I have seen enough of her to know that she will not be able to pull of this role. I can see them trying to make this more of an action film than it is supposed to be, focusing on the things that are really not important, and not focusing on the things that are important. Will I see the movie? Yea of course.... I am a glutton for punishment and I love to compare.
 For now though I think you should all see this movie. I am excited to see what they have done with The Girl Who Played with Fire which came out in Sweden last September to just as rave reviews. Can't wait for it to be out here! 

Aliens are NOT an Answer

About two nights ago I was laying in bed and came across the movie The Box with Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and Frank Langella. I stopped because I was intrigued by the previews I had seen a few months earlier and I thought that it would be worth the view. (there was nothing else of any merit on) The movie apparently is based off of the short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson. I have not read the story so my comments are solely based off of this monstrosity that they call a movie.
The basic premise of the movie, that one would get from watching the previews, is that Diaz and Marsden are presented with a box that contains a button from Langella. Langella's character tells the couple that they have a choice. They can push the button and he will present them with a million dollars, tax free, no strings attached; except that someone in the world, that they do not know, will die. If they decide not to push the button, he will take it back and it will be reprogrammed and the offer will be given to someone else. Sounds like a pretty interesting story and defiantly has the possibility to be good. That was until they brought in the aliens.
The beginning to the movie really had me going. I was interested. It was clear that there was the underlying social message in there about actions having consequences and the greed of people causing them to do things without thinking about those consequences. (I never said that it was an original social message, nor did I say it was hidden well. I just said it was there) I wanted to see where they would go with this idea. Wouldn't you know it... an alien of some sorts was taking over the minds of people to perform an experiment on them.................... Huh........................ It was at this point that I had to refrain from throwing the remote control at my television set.
The thought that someone was paid millions of dollars to produce this movie just made me want to scream. It wasn't like they had cheap actors either! It was just awful, awful. Anytime that a movie contains a storyline and then suddenly throws aliens in there because they really don't know what else to do to make the story interesting is just lazy. No, I am not saying that a movie about aliens is bad. I love movies that have story lines built around the idea of aliens themselves... Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Signs are just two of my favorites. What is the difference you ask? UM.... those movies where supposed to have aliens in them, they didn't just throw them in there because they couldn't think of anything better to make the story more on the edge. Please. That is just laziness! WRITING LAZINESS. (Can you tell I am still angry about it?)
So I say, find a better way to make your big point about society that does not include the use of extra terrestrial  beings that have come to us from the lightening. That does not just go for this movie. Any movie that has ever used aliens as your way out... I am talking to you. And Yes.... if you liked this movie even remotely.... I judge you....and your movie taste.

Friday the 13th a Fitting Birthday

Today marks the birthday of my favorite director of all time, Alfred Hitchcock. I felt that it was only fitting to post something here about him and why he holds that special place in my heart. I always say that if I could be anyone I would want to be Hitchcock. (I mean without the baldness and belly) It is because his fearlessness in the industry and his drive to discover new techniques and ways of telling a story that movies are the way they are today. He is not the master of suspense because he can scare you out of your witts, but because he created the suspense in films as we see it today.

He experimented with editing, camera movements, and sounds to stir up the emotions of the audience. These techniques would show the audience what the characters were seeing. They were no longer just observers but part of the action. His goal was to create a real fear and suspense in his audience. He succeeded over and over again. One of my younger sisters was watching The Birds (1963) with me today and was commenting on how silly idea of birds attacking was. As soon as we reached the scene where Melanie walks into the room full of birds, my sister was saying, "No don't! Were is a pillow? I need to cover my eyes!" No matter how silly she thought the idea of the movie was, she had begun to feel the fear that this family was experiencing.

Trying new things in the film industry is always a scary thing, but true film making is an art and every film maker should experiment no matter how terrified of failing they may be. What is so amazing about Hitchcock is that he was never afraid to experiment. This was his art and he wanted to try new things. One of my most favorite of all Hitchcock's films is Rope. Rope was the first time that a movie had been done without any cuts or edits. It is as if you where watching a play. It is extremely fascinating to see. The amount of work and preparation that had to go into making that film on both the producing end and the acting end is something that I admire. This is one of his films that I feel is underrated. Only those that appreciate film as an art form could truly see this movie for what it was; the never ending push in film to see what you can do and then push beyond that to tell an interesting story that loses your audience and at times gives them something to really ponder later on.

I could go on for hours and hours about the genius that is Hitchcock, but I will stop here for today. There are not many directors today that I feel can do what Hitchcock has done. M. Night has made gallant efforts in his films (many take direct omage to Hitchcock) and I respect him for that. Christopher Nolan takes risks, tries new things, and has never made a movie that was not enjoyable. For me these are the two modern day directors that keep the spirit of Hitchcock alive in modern cinema. I hope that he would be happy!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIR ALFRED HITCHCOCK!

Digging Deeper into Inception

Inception is being called the best movie of the summer. With the exception of Toy Story 3, I will have to agree with this statement, but that is as far as my enthusiasm for the film goes. Now before all of you go jumping down my throats and attacking my movie taste... hear me out.
Christopher Nolan is one of my all time favorite directors. He has never directed a movie that I didn't like. Nolan's ability to take risks and to tell a story is nothing short of spectacular and there is no doubt in my mind that he will receive and academy award one day for his work. All of his films dive into the psyche of man and attempts to explore how sometimes we are our own worst enemies. (when I have the chance I will look at each movie again soon and talk about this similar theme) Inception was not any different, but was not the strongest his movies.
The basic story has Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team trying to plant an idea into the subconscious of Fisher (Cillian Murphy). It comes to the attention of Ariadne (Ellen Page), the designer of the dreams, that Cobb has his own subconscious issues with his late wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) which can interfere with their mission. With three different levels of dreams and a heavy sedative any sort of complication can cause major problems for those involved. The team enters the first level of the dreams and discovers that Fisher's subconscious has been trained to protect against any sort of dream assault. This creates a new level of problems along with Cobb's own unstable unconscious. The team continues to go deeper into the 2 other levels of the dreams in order to plant this idea sucessfully. The movie finally leaves you to wonder if Cobb has returned to reality or if he has been stuck in the world of dreams. Different, Fun, Exciting, Interesting, Thought Provoking... Yes but I had a few problems.
One of my biggest problems with the film was the number of antagonists that Nolan had driving the action.  The first forty five minutes of the film set up Cobb and this pending problem with his own subconscious. He does not have any control over the issues with his wife Mal that he has buried deep down. This causes problems when he is in another man's dream because he never knows what is going to pop up and ruin things. If he disturbs anything in the dream, the persons subconscious can begin to become subconcious and turn against Cobb and his team. Because he is going down 3 levels into Fisher's subconcious, his control on his own mind will be worse and in turn create a greater risk for everyone else.
This is an amazing concept and what I expected to see as they entered into Fisher's mind. Cobb was supposed to be losing more and more control on his own subconcious. I was expceting to learn more about Cobb's struggle through the things that where going to come through and disrupt the mission. This should have been enough to create conflict for the team as they went through the levels. This was all that Nolan needed. Instead he added the little element of the trained subconcious and it took away from this brillant idea completely. Cobb was not creating the problems for the team. It was Fisher's own subconcious creating the problem. This took away from Cobb completely. There was no need for Cobb to create any sort of disturbance. It was already there.
Because of this conflict already in place there was very little in the dream levels of Cobb's subconcious and it did not seem to get worse and worse as they went to the deeper levels which was supposed to happen. The subconcious would have turned against the team as Cobb's own mind began to cause problems in Fisher's mind anyway. There was no reason to have it already trained. This took away so much for Cobb's story and his own personal struggle. There was to much going on. The idea seemed to begin to overpower the story.
My other problem was with the consistancy of the dream domino effect. According to the first two levels of the dreams, whatever was occuring in the first dream, will in turn effect what is occuring in the second dream. For example, the team was sleeping in a van in the first dream, at one point the van flys off of a bridge. This causes them to be in a weightless state. Everyone in the second level of the dream becomes weightless and they are floating. My problem lies with the third level of the dream because not one person was effected by the weightlessness of the second level. Everyone was grounded and nobody had any problems walking.
Don't get me wrong...this was a very entertaining movie and is worth seeing at the theater. The acting was fantastic. I have been so impressed with DiCaprio over the last 5 years and this was just further proof that he is going to be around for years to come. Jospeh Gordon-Levitt really impressed me. I am super excited to see that he is coming back into the scene and with such versitile roles (500 Days of Summer and the Inception). I cannot wait to see what he is going to do next. I just cannot justify standing on the roof tops shouting BEST MOVIE EVER because Nolan has produced better before and he will produce better later!