Thursday, May 17, 2012

Review: The Lucky One

Took the girls over the pass to Durango for a girls day and saw The Lucky One starring Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling. The film brings to life another of  bestselling author Nicholas Spark's novels, which quiet a few have been turned into movies, starting with...


Which is about, sorry for the spoiler, about finding love in an unusual place, momentarily, before someone dies. Then came ...


also finding love before someone dies, except this time it is quick and unexpected instead of long and slow... Then comes....

which is about finding love, again, before someone dies, of old age this time. Then there was...


which is about.....finding unexpected love before someone dies, quick this time. Then comes along...


About Not finding love for a long time because of duty and guilt, while someone else dies. Followed by...

which is also in a nutshell about love and life waiting until someone dies.

Do you see a pattern in Nicholas Sparks movies. So here comes The Lucky One. Does someone die? Should I tell you? Of course I will, but first let me get up the red Alert Spoiler is coming warning.
SPOILER ALERT * SPOILER ALERT * SPOILER ALERT

No one dies in The Lucky One..............well, that isn't really true actually, cause the family Efron comes to, to find "girl" is grieving the loss of a son who was also a soldier and didn't come home, thus why Efron finds the picture on the battlefield, but the lovers prevail until the very end....and then someone dies ( But it is a minor character, so don't worry, it just gives a clean tidy ending to the story)
The Lucky One wasn't a "bad" movie, it just wasn't a good movie. It didn't inspire me, give me anything to chew on and think about when I left the movie theater. It, like really all of Spark's stories, took the easy way, the cliche'  way of pulling at our heart strings- death, grief, cancer- all bring up the emotional Geiger counter really fast without a lot of effort in the writing side. His stories really are just a matter of "same song, different verse". He has created "a universe" and now it is just a matter of changing the names and the setting of the characters and reaping the huge financial benefits from what Hollywood considers a "sure thing". I just wish they would start taking chances again!
Something else I find odd- that will definitely be a post in itself- what is happening with the trailers of these let us say- not very meaty offerings Hollywood is trying to ram down our throats, with the lie that they are giving us something new, refreshing and well, good! We are getting the WHOLE story in the trailer- no longer is it a teaser, a peek of just a few of the good bits, with the allure of coming to see the whole movie to get the rest of this good interesting story. Which by the way is what a trailer should offer. Now, we usually get ALL of the few really interesting bits, cause there ain't anymore and lately, even the endings! The Lucky One Trailer to me is not trying to tantalising us into coming and  finding out the rest of the story. It is, like many trailers aimed at a young demographic saying.... come watch Zac Efron! Which I guess is nothing new, really, and you know Elvis made movies....

and I think the girls of that generation were not going to the movies to be taken on a journey of a really good story. But I am old and I can be "tantalized" at the movie, but how about a good story with some muscle to it, instead of it being a vehicle to just watch the firm and possibly tattooed muscles on the screen!


Friday, May 4, 2012

Review: Girl With the Dragon Tattoo


I have spent the last couple of days, doing battle with a "un-named" hacker who entertained themselves with messing with my google account and all the blogs there within! Finally got that all fixed and it inspired me to think of the good "hacker" movies I have seen and totally realized I have never reviewed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Warning! This is the vilest of vile stories turned into a really good movie. Which is very different than a good story turned into a vial movie. Every bit of nudity, language and violence in this movie, in my opinion, just makes the story more real and honest. That is the difference between The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and some of the trash out there now which is like those "Butterball" turkeys that start out kinda of puny but then it is injected with a lot of crap or in the movie business naked women, cuss words and blood spatters. How about we just get back to Real stories told honesty?

The story, originaly titled Man How Hates Women, is first of a series. It was written by the late, Swedish author Stieg Larsson and already made into a Swedish movie. This is a story that has gotten a lot of press, articles in Vanity Fair and such and Larsson's legacy has definitely lived on through the efforts of his partner Eva Gabrielsson.


The story, or US movie adaption, centers around Mikael Blomkvist...


a black marked journalist who seeks sanctuary in the far north writing  the patriarch of a wealthy family's memoir, but what he ends up doing is solving one of the family's little dirty secrets, intertwined in power, anti Semitism and as the original title suggested....men who hate women.

The Swedish setting is wonderful, I wish more movies would be set in such places, instead of always in LA, New York, or London. The stark landscape and Scandinavian style of the cars, houses, furnishings set against the greys and white of winter really adds to the story.

Mikael is played by one of the my favorite actors Daniel Craig, of course known for the OO7 franchise...

The patriarch of the family is played by Christopher Plumier...


who, though in his early 80's , has  had a resurgence of late with movies such as the Last Station...


And Lisbeth,  as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...

is played by Rooney Mara, whose biggest movie so far has been The Social Network...


which I confess I have no desire to see, but will be definitely looking out for her next starring roles.

In the movie, Mara is a brilliant computer whiz and hacker and a ward of the state with an sadistic social worker, who demands sexual favors from her. Putting an end to that, Mara also seeks refuge in the far North, taking on the job of research assistant to Craig.


The two form a rather untypical love interest and the dark secret of the Vanger Family empire only are revealed with both of their unique skill sets and tenacity. Again, be warned this is an uncomfortable movie to watch in many ways...

Interestingly, for a movie with such a strong female character, it fails "the girl test" which according to bechdeltest.com...

1. Does the movie have at least two named women characters in it? YES
2. Do they talk to each other? NO
3. Do they talk to each other about something besides a man? NO

Most movies fail or barely make it. In The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth has a adversarial relationship with a company archive secretary, when she is trying to research the movements of one of the company's executives, but she never talks to another named female character. Hum?

The US version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is out now on DVD and available for download on Amazon.

The original trilogy...

in Swedish is available on Netflix at the moment with English subtitles.