My fiancée was out-of-town this past weekend. Which meant a lot of pizza, the toilet seat stayed up, and I could finally watch all the shitty horror and action movies that she’s too smart to waste her time on.
I’m almost embarrassed to mention how many movies I watched this weekend and how bad each of them was, but I don’t need to impress anyone. I’ve already convinced one crazy girl to spend the rest of her life with me. So here goes…
I’ll save us all time by not discussing each but I will list them:
Friday:
- The International (I’m starting to wonder why anyone has ever thought Clive Owen was good.)
- Wilderness (Bad. That’s all there is to say.)
- District B13 (Not enough Parkour for a film starring the founder of parkour.)
Saturday:
- 50 Worst Movies Ever Made (Number 1 worst documentary.)
- The Short Films of David Lynch (What happened to Lynch as a child to make him this way?)
- Deadgirl (What a fucked up movie.)
- Below (A sad moment in Darren Aronofsky’s career.)
- Dead Snow (Zombie Nazis. Can’t beat that.)
For Today:
- S. Darko (The sequel to Donnie Darko or the worst sequel in the history of sequels.)
- The Fountain (Rewatched this. Not shitty. Had the finish the weekend with one movie I liked.)
The point is, I had way too much time to sit around this weekend and the Roku is addicting because I can watch all the horrible movies I’ve kind of wanted to watch, but never wanted to waste valuable space on my Netflix DVD queue. Bad filmmakers should thank Netflix Instant everyday for exposing them to slacker audiences like me.
Just so you don’t lose complete faith in me, I did make it to the theater this weekend to see one movie, The Girl Who Played with Fire.
By now most of you have heard of, if not read, Stieg Larsson’s book “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I’ve heard of it, but as you can probably imagine, I haven’t read it.
The book is an insane sensation in Larsson’s home of Sweden. Larsson had written three books in the Millenium Trilogy following Lisbeth Salander and reporter Mikael Blomkvist. The first was published in 2005, and the last in 2007. In 2009, all three film adaptations were released in Sweden. They have slowly trickled into wide circulation in the U.S. in past six months. (Over a year at various festivals.)
This past week was the release of the second in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire. All of the original cast has returned. I’m sure none of the actors would pass up the opportunity. Most importantly Noomi Rapace returned as Lisbeth.
I think Rapace is probably the only reason I watched the second film. The first was good, but a little boring, however, Rapace was addictive. She’s not strikingly beautiful, or by any means difficult to look at. It’s hard to explain. I don’t know what it is about her. She’s like the snake charmer playing her flute and I’m the snake. She moves around on-screen in circle after circle as I dance for the tourists in the Marrakech market.
Lisbeth is driven in each film by her hatred of men. It’s a bit simplistic but true. In fact, the revenge she sought in her childhood, and the root of this hatred, is fleshed out, and exposed. We learn why Lisbeth is who she is, and why she insists on living a life outside of the norm and away from people.
The basic plot of the film is Lisbeth has been set up for the murder of a researcher and a reporter from Millenium magazine. The same magazine that her friend and brief lover Mikael Blomkvist is the executive editor. The two victims had been investigating the Swedish sex trade, and were making a list of prominent citizens who had paid for sex.
The film splits its time between Lisbeth and Mikael as they both try to uncover the truth and clear Lisbeth’s name. It’s very similar to the first film in that respect, however, Lisbeth and Mikael don’t meet again until the end of the film.
I found myself once again bored. Adaptations are tough. My impression of the Swedish filmmakers is a deep respect for the source material, which is always commendable, but in the end the freedoms one has in a novel often can’t make their way onto the screen. I was always one of those people who after watching an adaptation of a book, would complain about how they left so much out, but having recently adapted a book for the screen myself, I’ve discovered the difficulty of such a transition.
With the Lisbeth films I feel the book coming through. There are too many characters popping in an out that the shift of perspective throws the whole film out of whack.
I’ll watch the last film, but again only because I’m so intoxicated by Rapace. I hope that David Fincher’s remake is able to make the film I think these books can be. However, Carey Mulligan as Lisbeth worries me, because she is strikingly beautiful.
