This Swedish thriller left me stunned...

This film is an incredible example of why remakes of amazing foreign properties should not be allowed. This film is paced beautifully, developed expertly and comes to a head in a satisfying and thought provoking way.

This film made me happy I hadn't read the book yet.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a Swedish thriller/mystery based on the best-selling novels by the late Steig Larsson (author and journalist much like his protagonist). The story picks up as Michael Bloomkvist, celebrated journalist, is convicted for defaming the character of a wealthy businessman about whom he wrote a tell-all exposé and takes place over the 6 months prior to his serving his jail sentence. Bloomkvist is approached by another wealthy tycoon whose favourite niece disappeared nearly 40 years prior and who is desperate to find out what happened. He is charged with uncovering the secret of her disappearance and the identity of her killer and, having nothing else to lose and no paying gig to speak of he accepts the assignment.

Though all of this is incredibly compelling and serves as the main storyline, keeping the momentum going it is the subplot and introduction of the titular character Lisbeth Salander which keeps the audience pinned to their seats. To give anything away about Lisbeth would be to take away from the impact of her story so I will simply say that actress Noomi Rapace's performance will be etched in my brain for quite some time.

You owe it to yourself to see the original before Hollywood makes a travesty of this incredible film (they're in talks with the production company for a remake). Do you remember My Sassy Girl (with Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford)? Brothers (you may remember this offering featuring Nathalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey MacGuire)?

There's a reason the remakes weren't huge hits...respect the original. And while you're at it check out these two films as well. They may not have done well as remakes but there's a reason they were purchased...




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Harry Brown, needs a vacation...

I truly adore Michael Caine. I think his acting, even in those few movies that he's done which weren't worthy of him, has been truly superb. In Harry Brown, we have undoubtedly found another movie which simply wasn't worth his acting talents. Caine, the film's suposed protagonist, is a pensionner who's wife has passed away and who live alone on the estates (low rent housing in London's south end). All Harry wants is to play chess with his only surviving mate, Len. But when Len is pushed too far by he hooligans living in their housing complex and gets himself killed it looks like Harry (a veteran marine involved in the conflict in Northern Ireland) has to go back to work.

Although there wasn't anything in the film which pushed so far it seemed unreal the overall feeling of the film-- for me--amounted to a badly executed cross between Gran Torino and Payback with none of the charm of either. Although Caine's returned marine is perfectly balanced, making mistakes from lack of practice and not being able to chase down young drug addicts, his coldness during the whole procedure makes it difficult not to sympathize with the victims. In addition where Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino grew through the film (realizing the error of his racist ways and defending a family from gangsters), Caine's Harry Brown devolved into a sometimes likeable killing machine reminiscent of homeicidal psychopaths. All this would be fine if, like Gibson's Payback protagonist, while clearly psychotic there were moments of lightness or comedy.

All in all I think the film was a little heavy on the violence and not heavy enough on the justice. If you want to see Michael Caine prove that pensionners can fight back the by all means, see the film, but be warned: you may come out of it with a tinge of pride for the unsung hooligans defending their homes from vigilantes and self-righteous policemen.

BABIES!!

Isn't that what you think every time you see the trailer for the new documentary film? Babies follows the youngest of four families through their first year until they start to walk. A great premise that was not at all executed well.

The four families that were chosen came from different countries and situations (one assumes in an attempt to show that we are all the same). Unfortunately I didn't get that at all and what's more, I found myself getting annoyed with the parents from San Fransisco and their insistence on speaking a language I could understand. Not a good sign. The film has consciously chosen not to interview the parents in order to focus our attention on their protagonists (the titular babies) and as a marketing strategy it works beautifully. Change a little text and your film can be shown Inc any country in the world. As a storytelling technique it comes off a little lacklustre.

The problem is not in the setup though but rather the execution of the film. The babies are not compelling enough to keep my attention for two hours and the interesting life of the children (who live in Nimibia, Mongolia, Japan and San Fransisco) is never mined because the filmmakers wanted to prove their preconceived notion of what they would find so they weren't looking for anything else. The babies were cute, the film was surprisingly short and ultimately it's a good thing to support documentaries but I would suggest you save your money and spend it on ice cream and a walk in the park, it'll be much more exciting.

Better Together?

Even though I like many of the players I'm concerned this will be a one note comedy that doesn't last very long...thoughts?

The Invincibles: live action edition...

...a.k.a. ABC's upcoming No Ordinary Family.

Looks like the superhero related television is coming out of the shadows for the upcoming season as--in addition to NBC's The Cape--ABC's new offering about a family who develops superpowers takes its turn in the spotlight. The show follows a typical nuclear family who in a moment of desperation go on a vacation to try and spend some quality time together. After their plane crash lands in a freak storm they return home only to find that they may have more in common than they thought.

The show stars Julie Benz (of Dexter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) and Michael Chiklis (most notably of The Shield and the Fantastic Four films) as Stephanie and Jim Powell, a couple who's marriage and family life could use a kick in the pants. The family is rounded out by Kay Panabaker (a veteran of television guests spots) and Jimmy Bennett who is probably most well known for playing "young James T. Kirk" in the recent Star Trek adaptation from J.J. Abrams. Also starring Weeds' Romany Malco as Jim's friend and confidant, No Ordinary Family hits your television set next season.

On review of the trailer, I think it may fare a little better than The Cape but we'll have to wait and see. It's certainly on my list of things to give a shot...will it be on yours?

Could The Cape be the next Heroes?!

(Season one people, the only season worth talking about was season one).

As this season's offerings come to a close we're starting to get a few glimpses of what to look forward to next season. Among them and in the wake of shows like Heroes and Human Target is The Cape, a modern day retelling of the Robin Hood stories (with a few little twists like a family). Vince Faraday is a family man and the only good cop still serving on what is presumably the New York Police Department, after he is framed and left for dead he becomes an outlaw, cut off from his wife and son and unable to return to his home.

In exile he meets a Circus master who shows him the ticks of the trade he needs to become "The Cape" and fight back against the corruption that plagues his fair city. Modelled on his son's favourite Comic book hero, "The Cape" becomes a crusader for good and an outlaw who is hunted by his former comrades in arms. Along the way he picks up a few friends, including Summer Glau who plays his insider as a Blogger with access to vast amounts of media (read Marian, though one hopes not a love interest since there's the pesky matter of his wife and kid), a strange "Little John" amalgam made up of Verne Troyer and Vinnie Jones, and various other secondary characters.

I won't lie, even though the trailer is the ultimate cheese I'll probably watch a few episodes. Hopefully Summer's penchant for picking good projects will hold true. And hopefully NBC's tendency to let new shows reach their stride will overrule the other part of Summer's penchant which is being on good shows that end before they should...

Summer offerings a little less than "A"-okay...

I'm usually a big summer moviegoer. Certainly the summer is the time when the most anticipated blockbusters are usually released. But it seems like this year the offers are a little slim.

The Losers, an action comic originally conceived as a parody of the A team, has the unfortunate timing to have come out the same year as the new A team led by Liam Neeson. In addition the A team movie seems (in trailers anyway) to play like a parody of itself, aping the lines made famous by Mr T in the eighties. All the while another "A" team is being introduced in the adjacent movie theatre as Robert Downey Jr. and every famous person they could find to appear romp through Iron Man 2, which ends up amounting to a glorified trailer for the forthcoming Avengers film.

Having said that, I do think it will be a decent summer for documentaries and foreign films and with the general lack of big blockbusters that interest me I may actually manage to get out and see them. The trailer for Waiting for Superman nearly brings me to tears every time I see it and Disney's Oceans is poised be incredible. In addition there are plenty of docs that came out this year I have yet to see as I've been shirking my movie watching responsibilities in favour of television (which has been increasingly compelling of late).

So in the end, it seems, there may be enough alternatives to the summer blockbusters that I will be able to curb my appetite for film. And of course there's always Scot Pilgrim vs. The world ;)

The Glist...

Alright Glee, I have a bone to pick with you...

That's right, after month and months of watching and waiting for the show that knocked my socks off to come back I've suddenly found that (surprise, surprise) it's not all I have wanted it to be. They promised us bigger musical numbers, surprises, more drama, more fleshing out of some of the secondary characters. And while I've seen some of that occurring, I've found that a great deal for what was promised is being isolated to a few key players and we're just ending up dropping a lot of promising storylines.

And so I've come up with a Glist of my own, the top fifteen reasons why I'm still watching, but I'm getting increasingly impatient.

15. Will Shuester has become a simpering, narcisistic ass-hat in the last few episodes. He's consuistently mistreating the women in his life and to be honest, is more and more turning out to not be the best educator. And I know a lot of educators.
14. Terri Shuester was supposed to get more airtime this season. They were going to develop her character. What happened to that?
13. Why is Ken being nice to Will Shuester now? He hasn't shown maturity in the past and Emma broke his heart for Will so when will's treating her badly why isn't Ken trying to smash his face in instead of giving him advice?
12. Molly Shannon.
11. Are Puck and Quinn together? I see them walking together, I could have sworn I saw them holding hands in the background the other day. If they are, why hasn't it been addressed? It certainly would have made Rachel's attempted seduction of Puck a little more sinister in the last episode. And does anyone remember when Quinn said she was going to "do this on my own"? When did that plan go out the window?
10. Why did they drag Kurt back into the "loving Finn" trap when we thought he had moved on from that? If he's decided that he wants him to be his brother that's one thing but the parent relationship storyline almost seems like a throw away reason to have Kurt looking sad and angsty. Love Kurt, don't love that storyline.
9. Tartie needs more airtime. Five seconds of "Yes let's be the minority couple and kiss to seal the deal," isn't enough. They're also both great characters in their own right. I want to know more.
8. Why was the music in the fourth episode SOOOOOOO bad?! I get that the theme was bad music but why couldn't they have chosen bad music that could actually be saved? Wasn't that supposed to be the point? If they thought they saved it, they're sorely mistaken.
7. Santana and Brittany need to be a little less fleshed out. I really want them to stay on the periphery because they're soooo good on the outside. Brittany's one liners are amazing.
6. As much as I love KChen...what was her purpose in that episode? And what fully grown man comes onto a woman by placing the back of his hand on her chest?
5. The fact that Rachel and Finn were "together" when the show came back made no sense whatsoever. Even Rachel isn't that stupid. It's like they're taking her two steps forward and ten steps back.
4. Sue's personality is getting a little spastic. I like that they're giving her layers and a chance to show that while on the outside she's all business, she's really just the dorky teenager who never got past her compatriots teasing her but they need to be careful about it. She can't just turn on a dime, it needs to make sense...even if it's just meant to be funny.
3. Finn actually liking Rachel in a real way also doesn't make sense. She's done nothing to deserve it other than liking him too much. If it's about missing the attention she was giving him I get that but if that's the case they need to make it more clear.
2. Where is Quinn living? And how is she affording to live there cause she's not getting money from Terri anymore...
1. The Glist was a bad reveal...it felt a little like a sad attempt to remind us about Quinn. Hint guys: I never forgot so can you please ANSWER MY PREVIOUS QUESTIONS!?

It just seems to me that the producers and writers are dropping a lot of great storylines in favour of the quick sell. And I'm getting increasingly annoyed with Rachel's lack of capacity to change. C'mon guys! I want my favourite show back!

**Please note: in spite of all this....THE MADONNA EPISODE ROCKED!!!!**