the girl's with the dragon tattoos!! and...THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!

some of you may know that i have recently seen both versions of "the girl with the dragon tattoo".  well, i decided to write a little...write-up about what i thought about both of them.

i already wrote a facebook note about what i thought of the fincher version and you can go read that now if you want...but, you don't have to.

i'll begin with a kinda comparison of the two films.

firstly...i really liked david fincher's version more than the original.   2011 dragon is a more streamlined and satisfying story.  gone are any and all visual references to lisbeth's parents.  in the original you see lisbeth set her father on fire and later visit her mother in an institution.  that has been jettisoned.

2011 lisbeth is a complete mystery.  in the original mikal tells her that she knows everything about him but he knows nothing about her.  but we do.  we see bits and pieces of her past.  in 2011, next to nothing.  we see nothing of her backstory.  there's a mention that she tried to kill her father.  but we don't see it.

we do see her interact with her former guardian who had a stroke.  there is a softness there you see nowhere else.
 
i also found 2011 more satisfying because of two scenes that are totally different than the original.  first, there is a scene where lisbeth revisits her rapist guardian in an elevator.  he is visibly upset and she is so threatening even though she probably weighs all of 80lbs.   anyway, she tells him to stop visiting tattoo removal sites of she'll come back and tattoo his forehead.  apparently that didn't even happen in the book and that's such a great scene!!


the next thing is the death of martin vanger.  in 2011 lisbeth asks mikal if she can kill him and he says yes, but she doesn't get the chance as the car explodes after the accident.  but you could see that she wanted to.  the original works, too...but i just  found the fincher version more powerful.


finally, i will talk about the differences between the  two lisbeths.


rooney's lisbeth is almost not human.  her eyebrows are lightened so you can't really see them and it makes her look...off.  she's also cold and emotionless.  it seems as though she already knows everything that is going to happen and is just waiting for everyone else to catch up and that that fact annoys her.  she's curt and sometimes rude.  because of the lack of the scene with her mother we don't really see a softer side until the end when she "happy" because she has let mikal in just a little and thinks of him as a friend.

noomi plays lisbeth as kind of a gothic punk.  she is also curt and rude but more in a "leave me alone i've had a rough life" sort of way.  there's so much more humanity in noomi's lisbeth and in many ways that makes you relate to her character a little more.

both lisbeths are incredible specimens of womanhood.  both are tough and independent, resourceful and smart.


so...hopefully this will open a discussion about the two films. i want to know what you think and what you think about what i think.

"the town"

ben affleck's second directorial effort is based on the novel "prince of thieves" by chuck hogan.  it was originally set to be directed by adrian lyne ("fatal attraction") but there was a falling out with the studio.  affleck was asked to step in due to the success of his first crime flick, "gone, baby gone".

the first cut of the film was 4 hours long but the studio made affleck cut it to no longer than 2hrs 10min.  he settled at 2hrs 8min although the film does not feel as though it loses anything in the cuts.  sometimes a film ends up feeling "choppy" but this has a fluid flow throughout the film.  the directors cut is said to much more close to the actual novel, however.  not having read the novel...i couldn't tell you.

the basic story goes affleck, renner and the rest of his gang are professional bank robbers.  during their last robbery renner kills the assistant bank manager and kidnaps the bank manager (rebecca hall).  renner let's her go, however , the team discovers that she can identify renner by his tattoo on the back of his neck.  renner wants to kill her, but affleck decides that he will watch her to make sure they are ok.  during this he falls for her and instigates a relationship.  affleck's character wants out of the bank robbery business but renner and the others want him to stay.

affleck's direction here is solid as is his acting but the acting kudos go to jeremy renner (nominated for an oscar).
  

jeremy renner

renner not only is completely convincing as this character he nails the working class boston accent which is hard to do without just sounding like your saying cah instead of car.  rounding out the cast is jon hamm ("mad men") doing his best tough-guy FBI agent, rebecca hall (probably best known as christian bale's wife in "the prestige"), blake lively ("gossip girl", "green lantern" and even though i detest her i have to say she did a pretty decent job in this movie) and one of the last performances by pete postlethwaite.  affleck seems to be pretty good at getting the performance that he wants from his cast.  he told lively to hang out with local charlestown residents to get her character down and renner buddied up with convicted bank robbers for his and it worked.  

john hamm

rebecca hall

blake lively

pete postlethwaite

in my opinion, this is a very well-crafted heist flick.  there were moments of real suspense for me as i watched renner's character almost get recognized by the only witness.  i actually had to pause it for a moment to postpone the inevitable...which didn't come until later...


affleck has been tapped to adapt stephen king's "the stand".  from this film it seems that he is very good at adapting from novels and i am very much interested to see what he does with one of my favourite novels.


overall, "the town" is a classic heist/love story with an open ending that could go either way...good or bad...happy or sad...


bottomline:
3.5 outta 5

"the stranger"

it's sad for me to say that orson welles peaked at his third film, "citizen kane", released in 1941.  that film is a work of genius and truly is one of the greatest films ever made.   that's what we think now, at least.   in 1941 it was a flop and actually booed at the academy awards whenever it's nominations were announced.  this resulted in welles never really being able to flourish in hollywood.  he had to take what work he could and try to raise money for his own projects which was much more difficult to do in the 40's and 50's.  but this isn't about "citizen kane", this is about a film that he made in 1946 called:

"the stranger" is a simple little tale of a wanted nazi war criminal posing as a professor in a small connecticut  town.  welles' nazi assumes the identity of prof. charles rankin and he's gonna marry a supreme court justices daughter, mary (played by loretta young).  

welles with loretta young (mary)

on the day of his wedding rankin gets a surprise visit from one of his old nazi buddies, meinike (not the muffler guy...the nazi guy).  rankin, at first, seems happy to see him but then realizes that this man is the only one that knows who he is and has to kill him.  rankin's world slowly begins to unravel as he tries to hold on to his new identity by any means necessary.

rankin doodles some nazi propaganda.

little does rankin know that meinike was followed by mr. wilson (edward g. robinson, see?) who is renowned nazi hunter for the government.

robinson as mr. wilson

thus begins a cat and mouse between mr. wilson and rankin as wilson reveals the truth to rankin's friends and family.  rankin grows steadily more desperate to escape that truth and even plans to murder the only other person that knows that meinike was ever in town, mary.


in lessor hands this would have been a throw-away thriller but welles' genius with film saves it.  you see many camera shots and performance nuances that you wouldn't see from the normal "cookie-cutter" hollywood machine.  welles even goes so far as to show actual concentration camp film footage to hammer home the atrocities that rankin is responsible for making this the first post-war film to use such footage.

i thought this film was really well done and even though there were some over-the-top melodramatic moments, mostly from loretta young, i found it compelling.  


this is only the second welles movie i've seen, so far.  i can't really compare it to anything other than "citizen kane" and that would be unfair to this film 'cos kane would crush it to little nazi pieces.


bottomline:
3 outta 5


 
 

"cowboys & aliens"

i don't think i have to explain to any of you out there that know me that i am a huge fan of harrison ford.  he has been my personal hero since i saw "star wars" back in 1977.  not that i could really remember seeing it in '77...but you get the picture.  he is an iconic figure who has brought to the screen two of the most beloved characters in moviedom.  interesting thing is:  out of all the movies he's made only two were westerns.

he's a natural for this genre and has so much more presence here than in many of his recent contemporary films.  i probably would have enjoyed this movie more if it was a straight-up western...but it IS called "cowboys & aliens"


so the movie breaks down like this:  you got a run down  town that's basically being kept from turning into a ghost town by the business supplied by wealthy cattleman, dolarhyde (ford).  because he keeps the town running he feels as though he owns it and every one or thing in it.  his son, percy (paul dano) is a drunk who terrorizes the town but the townsfolk are powerless to stop him.  even the sheriff (keith carradine) really has no power.


enter the lonesome stranger, jake lonergan (daniel craig) who sees the trouble percy is causing and subdues him.  lonergan, however, has no memory (and a nifty gadget on his wrist that makes weird noises now and again) and has no idea that he's a wanted man and the sheriff arrests both him and percy.

dolarhyde learns of this and gets his men together to go get his son and take lonergan to deal with him on his own.  the raid on the town is disrupted, however, by strange lights in the sky:  the aliens have come to take the townsfolk off to their lair.


dolarhyde, lonergan and many of the town form a posse to go off after the aliens to get their people back.

they find the lair and begin their attack and are inexplicably joined by some indians (the only reason i could tell was because the filmmakers needed more victims for the aliens).  the fight is brutal and after many set-backs the humans win and the town is kinda back to normal and even the mean-spirited dolarhyde has changed for the better.  and daniel craig rides off into the sunset.

all in all, the movie doesn't totally suck.  the western part is good, the sets are well done, the landscape is cool, the acting is better than most and the dialogue doesn't feel forced or too cheesy (except for the parts where they refer to the aliens as demons).

you've got some good actors here: ford, craig and dano (mentioned earlier) are joined by sam rockwell, clancy brown, adam beach, walton goggins ("justified"), noah ringer ("the last airbender"..the movie sucked but he's pretty good here), and mega-hottie olivia wilde.  you've got some good FX...the aliens look pretty cool.  but for me it's just not enough to make this movie really shine.  this is a movie that i should love because it meshes two genres that i love: westerns and sci-fi...but it just doesn't work in the end.

bottomline:
2.5 outta 5