The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I had just finished reading the trilogy of murder mysterys that started with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo when we got the movie. I am usually leary of watching a movie made from a book I've read, or vice versa, but this one was fine. Maybe because the story was so good, or the transfer to film was so accurate. I don't know. I enjoyed it. Naturally, there was quite a bit that was skipped over, but it didn't really hurt the story. Mostly what I was afraid of was that they would get some doll to play Lisbeth, and they didn't. I don't think she was quite as small as the dimensions in the book, but she fit the part quite well. The only fault I found was sometimes her expression was a bit blank when I would have expected something. But then she's young, and for young people there are some situations that they haven't experienced before and so haven't developed an emotional reaction. Or maybe it's a feature of the character's asperger's syndrome. Or maybe I'm all wet.

Update February 2017 replaced missing picture.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I just finished reading the Scandinavian murder mystery: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. My wife picked this one up at Target. I saw it sitting on a table, picked it up and started reading and basically didn't put it down until I was done. Except for this one part where the protagonist makes a couple of boneheaded mistakes and gets himself in a real stinking jam, and that kind of pissed me off. It's like when you are watching a horror movie and you have a tense situation and some clown jumps out from behind a door just to scare somebody, thinking it’s funny. Just once, instead of the girl just saying “jeez, Jimmy, you scared the s**t out of me”, I’d like her to preface that by blowing his head off with a 44. That would teach the stupid jerk to not pull stunts like that.

I took it with me to the doctor's office the other day and everyone there commented on it, which was a little unsettling. Here I am enjoying popular culture, and as we all know popular culture is often garbage. In this case it is not. For the most part the characters are very real. There is some fantasy to it, but that's one reason why we read fiction, isn't it?

It does have a bright yellow cover so it is eye catching.

Update February 2017 replaced missing picture.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Opening Title Sequence

I've read the books, I've seen the Swedish version of the movies, and I recently saw the American remake, which is where this nightmare comes from. This opening sequence was made by Tim Miller of Blur Studio. The tune, in case you don't recognize it, is Led Zepplin's Immigrant Song, done by Trent Reznor with Karen O and Atticus Ross. The movie was directed by David Fincher who get's mentioned here because he also directed Fight Club, one of the bestus movies ever.

Kind of weird seeing two versions of the same story so close together, but it's a good story, and worth repeating. True Grit is another good story with an original film and a remake. After I saw the new version at the theater, I went and looked up the old one and watched it. It was interesting to see what was changed between the two versions and what was left alone. There were some subtle things that I would not have noticed if I hadn't had something to compare against.

The only complaint I had about the Hollywood remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was at the very end when she passes the bad guy. She's driving a motorcycle and he's driving an SUV. There was no reason for her to do that, and a zillion reasons not to. Why did they put such a stupid move in the movie? Desire to add "thrill"? Somebody wanted to put their personal stamp on it? Some focus group said they liked seeing really stupid motorcycle versus car interactions? It was at the end, and it was the only really stupid thing in the movie, so I guess I can't complain. Much.

John Wick

A very silly, vary action-y movie starring Keeno Reeves in the title role. Yes, I know that's not how he spells his name, and yes, I know that's not how it's pronounced, but I can never remember the correct pronunciation, and besides, I kinda like saying 'keen-o'.
    The best part was spotting all the character actors we had seen in other shows, like . . .

Lance Reddick as The Continental hotel manager Charon, from The Wire.

Clarke Peters as Harry, also from The Wire. He only shows up briefly, most memorably in the hotel corridor in his underwear carrying a gun, you know, just in case.

Michael Nyqvist (right) as Viggo Tarasov and Alfie Allen as his son Iosef Tarasov. Michael Nyqvist we saw in the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. We've been watching Alfie Allen playing the horribly tortured victim Reek on Game of Thrones.

Here we have Adrianne Palicki as the assassin Perkins. I don't actually remember seeing her before, but she has a memorable fight seen with Keeno in this movie. Plus she carries a gun, though she doesn't manage to hit anything with it. Bad quality in an assassin. Her expression here more than makes up for not holding a gun at the moment.

I don't know where they got the story for this movie, but I suspect a graphic novel. Or maybe they skipped that step. Our hero drives a succession of high performance cars. He starts with an old high-performance Mustang, similar to Eleanor from the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds. When that gets stolen he gets an early 1970's Chevelle Super Sport. I think that one gets trashed, so now he gets a new Dodge Charger. I think the Chrysler product placement team is working overtime these days. Chrysler products seem to be the choice of bad guys across the board in movieland.
    I understand how some people are still mentally locked into those aging muscle cars, but for me they are more like dinosaurs. Big, heavy, cumbersome and crude, that can be beaten six ways from Sunday by any number of modern cars. Probably not by a Civic, but certainly by a some versions of a Cadillac.

Close

Close | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix
The Hollywood Reporter sums it up pretty well:

"Few actresses portray badassery as vividly as Noomi Rapace. Achieving international fame with the Swedish trilogy of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo films in which she so memorably played Lisbeth Salander, the talented performer has still not found an equivalent breakout role in American films. That unfortunate streak continues with Vicky Jewson's Netflix thriller in which Rapace plays a character inspired by the real-life British bodyguard Jacquie Davis. Rapace gives the film her all, delivering an intense, physically demanding performance, but Close doesn't get close enough to transcending its action-movie clichés."

We have lots of action, and Noomi kicks ass, but overall the story is pretty weak. Noomi is a CPO (Close Protection Officer? Operator? aka bodygaurd) for Zoe, a young heiress. Her stepmom, Rima, is played by Indira Varma, the poisoner Ellaria Sand from Game of Thrones. Halfway through the movie it is revealed the Rima has ordered the assassination of her step daughter (typecasting much?), but then more bad guys enter the picture and at the end we are left wondering what the hell? No matter, the plot was never more than a scaffold to hang the action scenes on. The one in the fish tank in the fishing boat was new, different, cool, bizarre? Can a death be 'cool'?

Casbah, according to Zoe, means 'fortified house'.

Two Dude Defense by Walter Walker

Murder mystery set in San Francisco, like so many others before. Complicated blackmail / murder / arson plot. Private eye, religious cult brainwashing kids (where have I seen this before? Chandler, maybe?), The girl with the dragon tattoo makes a brief appearance. I wonder if this is where Stieg got his character? Our detective is not too smart, he gets beat up a lot, I mean every time he turns around, someone is whacking him over the head. There's a little too much smart guy talk. Where Dirty Harry would have just grunted this guy goes on for an entire paragraph. I think the writer was just enamored of writing tough guy talk. Prices are kind of surprisingly low, but then this was written 25 years ago. Not a great book, but if you are a writer I think you might be able to learn some things from it, both good and bad. It's kind of like some movies I've seen: with a little judicious editing, it could have been a really good story.

I got the picture off of Ebay. The cover is kind of like the book, nothing special, but at least the picture on Ebay was big enough to see, unlike Amazon, who only put up a dinky little thumbnail.