REVIEW: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011 Remake)

Okay, let’s get it out of the way up front – this movie was only made because Americans are too stupid to read subtitles. There. I said it. Now, are we uptight prudes who are going to condemn this great film because of that dire fact, or are we appreciative of masterful cinema by one of the greatest directors in the business?

Director: David Fincher

Starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara

Website: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001745/

Yes, I’m certainly a David Fincher fanboy, and I love pretty much everything he’s done (okay – Panic Room was pretty shit). He’s proven himself a master of several genres and adaptable to pretty much any storytelling template he puts his mind to. His shots are stylish and hard-hitting, and the way he conveys a story is just as good now as it was back in ’96 when he put out Se7en.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo maybe didn’t need a remake just three short years after its original Swedish debut, and it’s made even more dubious by the fact that everyone in this film speaks with a heavy Swedish accent anyway – begging the question as to why they didn’t just touch up the original film and give it some DVD extras or something – but the inarguable fact is, this is an awesome story. Who cares if it’s necessary or not? This is just another alternative along with the original book and the original movie, and there is always room for more quality, gritty, hard-assed detective stories.

This isn’t a shot for shot remake either, and contains fistfuls of great atmospheric shots and nifty storytelling devices. Really all that’s changed is that this isn’t as raw as the original, and feels much more fine-tuned and professional, much more American-style polished, which is neither good nor bad – just different. Your mileage may vary. Me, I think it’s fine, and the whole thing feels more epic and immense. The original was great for its odd, scrappy rawness, but this is still a very viable new direction.

The story remains intact, a dual journey of a disgraced journalist who accepts a strange assignment to look into the disappearance and murder of a young girl 40 years in the past and of a cold and violent but brilliant young woman on a search for connection. Daniel Craig has never much impressed me before, but he does a great job here and really gives an intense, vehement performance as Mikael Blomqvist. Rooney Mara had a lot to live up to as Lisbeth Salander compared to original actress Noomi Rapace, but she does an awesome job and captures the essence of the character perfectly. She is cold, calculating and subtly angry, but not without the hints of a more emotional core below the surface.

Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger is really excellent and so is Stellan Skarsgard as Martin – even better than the original in the latter case, as he is vicious and commanding. We don’t get to see as many flashbacks in this version, which I actually like better, as it lets the story flow as a more cohesive whole. They also changed the ending twist, and that I was not expecting (I won’t spoil it here for you), but it does make a little more sense now, as opposed to the wild original version. The story is still a chilling and sprawling social commentary on the secret abuse of women and how little society does anything about it.

People complain endlessly about Hollywood being nothing but a chain of remakes and sequels nowadays, and sometimes they have a point (witness the endless stream of uninspired horror remakes), but other times I think they’re being too nitpicky. Films are the modern equivalent of campfire folk tales, and they have been ever since their initiation in the early 20th century. They can be told and re-told as many times as is the storyteller’s whim, and with a good, confident voice and a strong vision, it’s interesting at the very least to see what each new director adds to the tale. Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo is a grade-A film. Go see it.

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REVIEW: The Game (1997)

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

David Fincher has done better works than this movie, but The Game is interesting and remarkable for reasons outside of the usual fantastic cinematography and acting, namely the way it plays with the viewer’s expectations and the whole general idea of storytelling. This is at once a serious film and a bit of a farce, dually a suspenseful thrill ride and perhaps the greatest attempt at pulling the wool over the eyes of the audience I’ve ever seen. But it’s one thing to tell you that, and quite another to actually explain myself, so let’s go ahead and do that.

Director: David Fincher

Starring: Michael Douglas, Deborah Kara Unger, Sean Penn

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119174/

The Game’s basic premise is that Michael Douglas plays a rich billionaire named Nicholas Van Orton who gets a present from his derelict brother, inviting him to participate in a ‘game’ with a strange company called CRS. The film quickly turns into a high speed paranoid thriller in which Orton and a young, mysterious woman named Christine (or is that her real name at all?) embark on a wild ride of conspiracies, betrayals and twists that build up like a rising wave.

The film’s pace is fast and fluid, moving seamlessly from one thrill to the next, and as such, its 2+ hour runtime flies by like nothing. What I like about this movie on the surface is that it feels like a descent into madness, slowly becoming more and more alarming and surreal as it goes on until the electrifying climax. This is a very tense movie that never lets up, and for that it’s addictive.

As it goes on, we see Nicholas thrown into a bay in a speeding, out of control taxi. We see him in one particularly chilling scene stranded with nothing in the desert wastelands around Mexico, reduced to a beggar, without any of his riches or charm. These scenes are beautifully shot and add to the diversity of the film, pulling the viewer in and making him or her take notice.

At this point, the Mexican detour, the movie is unquestionably bleak and looks to be a commentary on the follies of the rich, and how they can be brought down to the level of the paupers they ignore. Right? Not exactly. After Nicholas gets back to the city, he tracks down the people who put him in the ‘game’ and puts them at gunpoint, especially the traitorous Christine, who suddenly gets very hesitant and jumpy…

The plot twist is finally revealed – the whole thing has been a huge set-up for Nicholas’s birthday party! Nothing that has happened is real at all, or at the very least, is dangerous at all. The entire movie has basically been a big joke. This is not a comedic film, nor has it given you any real context or set-up for what it does at the ending, so really it becomes an incredibly bizarre film that plays with its audience like nothing else I’ve ever seen. It becomes funny by virtue of being so out-of-left-field, so surreal. The whole film was previously set up on nail-biting suspense and outrageous tension – until the ending reveals it all to be a big farce. This is really a brilliant way to take the piss out of the audience’s expectations. I can understand why some people hate it, but really it’s great by virtue of just coming out of nowhere! This is an ending nobody would ever expect, and for that it is genius. Wry, tongue-in-cheek, whimsical genius, yes, but genius all the same. Hats off to Fincher for another winner of a movie.

All images copyright of their original owners. I do not own any of them.

Review: The Social Network (2010) TH

How a massive site was born

This revolves around the inception of current social networking giant Facebook.com, along with a bitter feud between those who were closely related to its creation. In the ancient days people settled their differences in a battle of strength, nowadays it requires shrewd brain power and a laptop to one up your opponent. Swords are replaced by keyboards, brave words are replaced by written law. The modern age, which includes phenomenons such as social networking on the internet on a computer powered by electricity, made the world a little smaller but also more interconnected and complex than it has ever seen in its history.

One of the most iconic rises to the top from competition was "Pumping Iron." It focused on bodybuilding but audiences learned the general rule of thumb for anyone getting ahead is you're going to either purposely or inadvertently step on others. That goes for someone taking ideas, to another giving out help. Mother Teresa had enemies, as does a CEO. Someone out there is going to have their feelings hurt or rights violated when someone else wants to advance. Although, if there's a line where does it get crossed? At the expense of your friends and business partners over your own ambitions? "The Social Network" centers around a remediating legal case in progress between different parties who feel they had their rights violated. This switches from past to present with some stylized filmmaking mechanics to make one think more is going on than meets the eye. The backdrop is basically your average college kids--think National Lampoon minus the comedy--doing what they do between classes. There is no doubt a minor story to had, though the filmmakers slipped in some tabloid scandal to pad the rest and it didn't require two hours to tell it, insignificant ties to it, or extremely loud music that drowns out conversations to sell it. This would have been better suited as a documentary as it would cut away the flash and trivial fat.

Conversations range from incoherently fast to frequently drawn out. Literally word for word is expressed without pulling away or cutting back on whether it's significant. This isn't rewarding like a "A Beautiful Mind" where you got a balanced understanding of how a unique process works and an intimate knowledge of the unconventional person behind it without wanting to wring their neck. Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg is like Spock from "Star Trek" or Chloe from "24" who looks at situations as logical as opposed to emotional. Zuckerberg doesn't see companionship like you or I, but sometimes wants to fit in despite mostly being a jerk without necessarily doing it on purpose. Possibly his only true friend and co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, gets the short end of the stick as he's a nice guy in a dog-eat-dog world. Napster renegade, Sean Parker, is a leech that sucks onto opportunity without actually bringing in technical skill but instead charisma and connections. The three who originally brought their social network idea to Zuckerberg--Divya Narendra and Winklevoss twins--range from reserved, outspoken to confrontational, though each equally want what is deserved by bringing lawyers to the table as a last resort to negotiate. For all parties, it turns into he said this, he said that bickering. When millions of dollars are on the line maybe you would too, though that shared connection doesn't make this any more intriguing or even noteworthy to watch with all the minute nit-picking and overdramatization.

"The Social Network," like the film "Flash of Genius" about Ford using windshield wipers without permission, brings a deal gone sour to the public's attention. It's hard to say if this is 100% accurate as it's based on the book "The Accidental Billionaire" from the perspective of Eduardo Saverin: the co-founder who got the short end of the stick. If all parties were involved, this would have been better suited towards a sanctioned biography, as it's still interesting that these sexed up, drinks down college guys started out young and made something out of themselves by sheer luck and risk. The film tries to tie it all together by hinting that a socially awkward guy used the only skill set he had to create a massive social network to win over the girl. Of course, he doesn't care about those billions of dollars but the love of the game: writing code. Though getting to that point and trying to sympathize after dragging through the nitty gritty was an exercise in ad nauseam.

Director: David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac)
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Rashida Jones
Website: IMDB

The Social Network (2010)

Starring: Jesse Eisenburg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake

Director: David Fincher

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network

When I first heard about this film, I blasted it as a stupid "white adolescent melodrama" with a plot that should have not been used for a long time. Need proof? Here you go: http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2010/08/movie-trailers-other-guys-edition.html. I stated that I never wanted to watch it. However, after all the praise it has received, both from critics and people I knew, I finally relented. Well, I have been wrong before, and I admit I was wrong this time as well. Here is why:

The film starts off with a Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenburg) who after a scuffle with the university, agrees to meet with two identical twin brothers named Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) about the creation of a website made exclusively for Harvard students. He ends up taking this premise into his own hands, however, and with the help of his best (and only real) friend Edwardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) he creates the phenomenon what would eventually be known as Facebook. As it turns out, however, success can come with a price.

Despite the title, the film is not so much about Facebook as much as it is about the human story behind it, and there is one central theme to this story: betrayal. There are a number of back-stabbing that ensues, or at least it is perceived, and that leads the characters to fall from the heights of their success. Granted, their fall is cushioned by millions of dollars worth of corporate revenue/settlement agreements, but still, it hurts. While they may enjoy the riches that Facebook provides them, the amount of emotional bitterness that they develop never true recedes.

The characters themselves really bring the story together. Jesse Eisenburg does a great job playing Zuckerburg, an intelligent but arrogant twenty-something who strives to be successful and gives a great amount of time devoted to his craft. This comes at the expense of the people around him, with his harsh anti-social behavior and cold demeanor that makes it appear ruthless and uncaring; it is almost like he has Aspergers. But the final scene of the film, which is simple but poignant, seems to indicate that much of what he does is a cover because he feel like he has to do it rather than wanting to. This gives the character not so much a sense of sympathy, but a curtain amount of ambiguity that makes you ponder whether he is really the person that you think he is even after the movie ends.

The rest of the characters are impressive as well. Saverin sticks with Zuckerburg through thick and thin, only to be, you guessed it, stabbed in the back. The Winklevoss's are depicted as the typical Ivy League snobs who want to get their way, aided with great accents, yet there is still the feeling that even if they legally did not deserve the rights to Facebook that they were somehow double-crossed. Timberlake does well as Parker, a playboy who angered the corporate world by selling free music online, stealing revenue from popular bands at the time such as *NSYNC...oops. Well, despite the awkward casting, it still works, as he takesZuckerburg under his wings, though it appears that even he is not immune to the entrepreneur's scorn. Are you beginning to understand why this guy doesn't get much sympathy as a character? Still, that's sort of makes the story interesting: there are no real heroes or villains in this picture, only people, with flaws and all. It is all held together thanks to the partially darkened yet soothing atmosphere usually seen in David Fincher's films as well as Aaron Sorkin's rich writing abilities (I guess I owe them an apology too, don't I?).

There has been a lot of talk about the accuracy of the film. Some movies are better at depicting real-life events than others; I thought that Sorkin's screenplay for "Charlie Wilson's War" was fairly spot on. However, I think he took a few more creative liberties with this picture, because from what I have been able to find out, neither Zuckerburg nor the rest of the players involvedbelieve that the film is that realistic. As much as I hate it when films distort real-life people and events (and I can imagine that some of these people got rightfully annoyed when they saw it and said "Hey, I didn't do that; that's totally unfair!"), I have to accept it as an unfortunate compromise when it comes to bringing it to the big screen. I mean, let's face it, in the end its still about a bunch of guys creating a website; if they were going to make the film at all, they had to add a few things to spice it up! Anyway, that being said, I find that it is best to focus on the film purely from an entertainment standpoint. And from that point of view, it excels.

It is hard to believe I would be saying this a few months ago, but I recommend this film. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go check on my Facebook account...