Girl with the dragon tattoo times two

Last night the Gen and  I went to the movies, to see the American remake of the Larsson story, starring R. Mara, D. Craig, directed by Fincher. We like Fincher. I’m a great fan of the original movie starring Nyqvist and Rapace and directed by Oplev as well and of all three books by the (supposedly) late Stieg Larsson. Perhaps not so much the second and third installments, but the first movie, Män som hatar kvinnor  (Men who hate women) I really liked. I knew it would be difficult to watch this soonish remake, because it is almost the exact copy of the original and yet trying desperately to be entirely different.

Standalone, it’s an excellent film. I think. The actors, director and cinematographer are actually doing a really good job. Craig is okay, although he feels a bit too tired and quite oddly thin for my taste, wearing tight jeans and falling all over. His face when she pulls down her undies and the walkie-talkie alarm code: Fuck fuck fuck is hilarious. Understandably he’s been aiming to remove himself from any Bond affiliation, but compared to Nyqvist he’s sort of like rice-paper to cardboard. Rooney Mara on the other hand, is amazing. She’s this dark punk ninja pixie that you can’t wait to see and hear next. If I had never seen any other version of her I would instantly love her. She’s a little rough diamond. I long to watch her again and I hope she inspires some cool deep heroines in the future.

         Other actors did a good job as well. I especially loved the part where they all speak with the something of a Norse accent, except maybe Skarsgard, who is actually Swedish – he speaks perfect American. It was good to see Robin Wright Penn and Joely Richardson again, wearing very little make-up, old women that they are and still so very beautiful. And the casting of the rapist social worker was good. He displayed a great measure of paternal fondness and sadistic fucked-upness at the same time. In the original movie Bjurman (Bear man) is instantly repulsive.

         The rape scene was powerful. Possibly one of the worst in history of cinema. I tried to warn my friend that this story contains a tremendously savage rape and she asked me if it will be graphic and I admitted that in an American version, I just don’t know. For a moment it actually seemed like it will be skipped altogether, but Fincher decided to go with it and delivered it all. It certainly splits you down the middle and makes you very, very happy this is only a movie.

        

… And so on and so forth. If you haven’t seen the original and like the genre, I coldly recommend it (I would say warmly, but it takes place in winter Sweden, so… You wish.). If you had read the books and seen the Swedish version, then perhaps wait a few decades. Even the Bond-like opening credits will confuse you. Seriosuly, what WAS that?

Now for the bad parts.

         There is too much of everything in this one film. Too many gruesome murders. Like, three times as much. Everyone seemed to be raping everyone in that family, too. It would have been good enough to leave it at “You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies. The most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet -  My family.” Everyone knows how that feels and yet often it’s just family rivalry and things aren’t really as bad. It leaves the speculations and the mysteries opened. No need to over-sell it. Lots of stuff from the other two parts of the trilogy are crammed in here and also several parts that aren’t in the story at all.

         Regardless of how excellent Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth is, Rapace’s is a whole lot better. More realistic, a lot tougher, a lot more unique and troubled looking even without the elaborate make-up and hair-cut. They are both supposed to look like troubled little girls, but Rooney’s looks about twelve and cute whereas Rapace’s looks old and hard. Perhaps these indeed are the European and the American editions. Very well to the point in fact.

         In the Swedish version, it is she that helps him and then he is the one who falls for her. In the American it’s him who finds her and she is the one who then follows him around with big loving puppy eyes, hoping to be loved. Kind of defeats the point of Lisbeth, doesn’t it?

         However good the casting in the American version was, the original was better. Then again the sort of appeal that original cast has isn’t really clear enough for the American standards. People need to be cuter, thinner and more hysterical and their hair always needs to be perfect, unless of course there’s something deeply wrong with them, in which case the hair is slightly tussled. There also needs to be more guns and winning fights and possibly airplane travel in American versions. And exactly how Lisbeth cleared the Cayman accounts needs to be told frame by frame, otherwise people wouldn’t really get it. Like… What the Hell are bonds, right?  

         I preferred the role of the missing girl in the original film. How she was Mika’s babysitter and how she actually moved to Australia and had a good life there. The solitary playing fake identity lady played by Richardson didn’t really make much sense.

         What the fuck was that with the cat?!

          

PS. To all my friends and people whose phone number I know...

Should you happen to ever recieve a slightly flirtatious or downright lesbian advance text message from me, chances are it was meant for the hubby and I am simply too madly in love to be able to choose the correct numbers from my phone. It happens. Don't be alarmed. He gets about five of those per day and he isn't worried yet :))p

Wishlist 2o12

Photography:
  A new computer or a better screen at least:

- Rotolight
- Maybe a studio. But not so vital anymore :D Love daylight.

...short list, I know :))












Paper:
- Books published, as per usual :D 

+
- a tiny car

- ridiculously cool vibrator. If I'm gonna have one, it may as well be a work of art ;)

- mayhap another pet?

- and a small, not particularly painful trip with a hubby. 

On sex toys, wet dreams and X-mas dinners with Predators

I love it when the General gives me the sad eyes and says: I have no more clean T-shirts. As if that was such an irreparable condition, all that can fix it s a hug and a good cry. Yes, honey, I got it by now. Your theory of how shirts travel to and from the washer by themselves has tragically failed. I’ll make an exception and pose as a housekeeper just this once. Just no more big sad eyes.

         On the other hand, he has made a face like he just saw The Blessed Virgin Mary this morning, when I asked about our plans for today and he said: Playing Warcraft and having sex and I said: Oh, gods, no, please, no more sex. I can’t do this any longer.

Spending more time on Lelo site than I was on Wikipedia lately has paid off. Also the toys we got for Christmas from our friends and the Generals’ words: I will root your sex drive out of you if I have to go buy new batteries during. And after a few days I am willing to feign defeat. I’m an old lady and I don’t have time to sleep four hours after those orgasms twice a day. I should probably invoke the quickie rule again, only this time in reverse: one vs. four ratio, please.

The family dinners have passed; I feel a year older. Recession has shown on the gifts, though I am proud of the doggie calendars I made for my folks. The parental injustice didn’t sadden me as much as I thought it would, though I did rename one of my family members into an Antichrist in my phone, and the food was, as always, absurdly excellent. Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to watch my Predator quintology beforehand, so I just watched the really gruesome bits ASAP afterwards. It’s much needed to level my redefinition of good and evil. You know: my family is not the worst. There are bigger monsters out there.

I did dreamt an excellent stoream this morning. Maybe now as a story it lacks certain, if not all, sense, but within it it was quite pleasant. The theory that saliva production halts to zero during dormant hours is entirely false: a strong parasimpatico, particularly during such dreams, produces a lot more than normal. I literally soak my pillow.

Like an English TV mini-series, because I woke up during, there are two parts… J

         It starts with me in a London or somesuch ministry or city hall, where I am trying to get my passport done to leave the country, but cannot remember my young son’s birth date. (His name and picture need to be included, but the date fazes me. This is due to the fact I can never remember my last name in proper order.) I try to call the General, but the connection is too bad and I cannot hear him well enough and I don’t want to get it wrong. To deal with this, I go to the other part of the building, across a small park to a more administrative area of the establishment where a friend of mine works and he might be able to help me more than the nervous teller ladies. The security lad in a small bunker room between the door and the hallway also knows me, so he lets me in while he phones my friend to come and get me. We chat and he mentions that the postman van parked in front is strange, as this is parcel region 18 but the van is marked 16.  While he’s on the phone, I notice that the ‘mail man’ is approaching rapidly, holding nothing but a small wooden pepper-shaker-like object. My little red flags go up and I start to urge the security lad to leave the phone, open the door and allow us to flee into the hallway. Just as he does this and I run in, yelling at people to take cower, not even looking back, I hear the first explosion and just as I manage to hide behind one of the classroom-like door niches, the second, inner door blows and the metal panel flies clear across the hall. Glass is flying everywhere. More of it than usual, even, and a lot brighter. As I proceed to run, my legs badly cut and my calves kind of full of shards sticking out, I realize that the man attacking is actually using some sort of sonic scream to literally shatter people like glass. This shakes me so, that when he finds me, I can’t even look, I just hide and hope he ignores me. But he doesn’t, he begins to shatter me, too, and to my great relief and surprise, as my body is turning to tiny bits of very bright glass, it feels very painless and calm. I almost thank the man, who is now a source of sharp brightness, but then I blow into a million bits that continue to cut through people.

         This is when I woke up, so the next ‘episode’ began with a camera POV and it was on the roof of the ministry, where a politician lady was talking to her head security consultant and the roof they were walking was also where sometimes they tortured and experimented on suspects. But this time there was a young soldier there, painfully tied up in wires and pulleys and sort of elastic material with cutlery pulled away from him and then aimed for his eyes and the like. Supposedly this soldier once ventured into another world and was there tortured like this, so now they tortured, semi-willingly him again to try and establish what they were dealing with. There was a debate about how they used forks, but never making a sound, so when they dropped their fork onto a platter, it made a difficult, almost sonic sound and they realized something. Dunno what. Something pivotal.

         Cut scene to a young woman in front of a mirror, putting make-up to cover the eyes under her bags and the song is playing something about how she spent the whole night up with her boss. She’s not very pretty and quite pale and bit of lower middle class, though small and lovely in a tired, desperate way. She is wearing a nighty and a thin over-robe, and goes to clean up the bed of her baby son, who managed to wet it again, because she forgot to put on a diaper. Her son is absurdly large for a baby, which somehow agrees to a theory her boss is a very large and obese man. The baby patiently lies on her bed with white sheets and blue covers, but is amused because the ceiling is also starting to drip while she complains how he is a constant source of water.

         Meanwhile, three men dressed in desert storm Special Forces outfits which they probably bought on-line, one of whom is the same sonic mail-man who assaulted the ministry; break into the very same building. They go through the receptionist’s book of tenants (well, one does, the other two have fun disposing of the poor guy), until they find one they like. They make a call and that young woman with the baby answers. They seem to ask her some random questions though she cannot help but to flirt a little with the strangers on the phone. However, talking to them, she finally sees her ceiling is almost completely wet and quite swollen and dripping on her son. She takes the son quickly to the other room, where situation soon becomes the same. Though not very bright, she gives into her instincts and starts to run out of the apartment, shutting the front door just as the bedroom ceiling gives in under the burden of the upper apartment being completely flooded.

         Running out, she pulls the neighbor old lady, which can be her mum or her grandma and they start to run down the stairs, arguing. They may for some reason be the only tenants who run, because even though there seems to be water everywhere, others don’t notice it. And the windows and doors of this building appear to be very tight. Once outside, it’s clear this is a rather poor but tall apartment sky-scraper, surrounded by a few more and a neat, shy park with threes and some green patches in between parking lots. Even as the three are fleeing, they can see splashes of water coming from an opened window row, making them realize the building is swaying. Not only that, it’s so heavy with the extra weight of water in every apartment on every floor that it’s literally sinking. There are some hands trying to call for help, but it’s too late. The only happy trio is the strange terrorists, now on that opened row balcony, enjoying their achievement. They notice us – mum, daughter and baby – running away as other people are approaching to see what’s going on. They even shoot something at a bunch of young school-skippers that tease the daughter’s wardrobe. But they also shoot at us, which is what wakes me up for the second time… So alas, I am not sure how this story ends :P

Winter officialy here :)

Barky

Interesting way of self-soothing - plug your snout into your pooper and dream happy dreams :))

Almost there... ;)

It took me a decade to stop masturbating over some of the characters in LotR and I wonder if anyone in The Hobbit will hit me so straight as some of them did. I'm thinking this guy? :))

Though I am very curious about what they will make of Legolas's evil dad and of course of my beloved Beorn.

I knew it was premature to close down my show in the shire :P

I am starting to drink beer more than usual. By that I mean I ordered my first beer today. I never even particularly liked it until along came drinkers (and I could say she's a real bad influence, because all we ever do is drink and talk about sex, but then I remember it's me who orders the drinks and always talks about sex and she just listens like friends do, hopefully not thinking about running away screaming :P) and ordered my first grapefruit Radler. Granted, it was during a sex fair and we were very thirsty, but it was still an excellent drink. I wonder how my family will react seeing me drink alcohol on X-mas. 

On a related subject - I have been going way too often to religious events lately as well. It's starting to brew something in me, some odd need to belong to a ritual or faith. As puzzling as it may be how any intelligent person would ever believe any of the nonsense most religions sell, I can imagine why one would overlook the retarded rules (I'm thinking mostly Muslims here and an occasional Buddhist) in order to feel blessed by the wisdom and the revelations of gods and sages. I am happy believing in nature and circle of life and that most things have personality if not soul, which clashes heavily with having to endure General's need for slaughter, but I do miss the ritual. For this reason I may make Gennonsuke, the male lead and love-interest in The Nasty Little Light a shinigami AND Jewish. He's half Swedish as it is. Might as well learn a thing or two from his layer cake personality...