Addicted To: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Or, rather I should say, Lisbeth Salander.  I stormed through Stieg Larsson's Swedish novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in about a week, unable to put it down.  Now, I'm 100 pages into the follow-up The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Don't love it as much as the first one yet, but it's certainly still good.  More focus on Lisbeth and less on Mikeal.  In the first one, I was actually screaming.  Like, seriously shouting out loud.  If you've been underneath a rock as much as I have the last two years in regards to these books, pick them up and read them now.  You won't regret it!

In preparation for David Fincher's "The Feel Bad Movie of Christmas," I wanted to read the books before I saw his vision and adaptation.  The trailer is magnificent, (seen here) and, having now read the novel, looks to capture the sense of it pretty well.

I also watched the Swedish version, and though I'm not usually a stickler for film adaptations that change details from the book, this one did so so foolishly that it was distracting, and in many ways made the film less entertaining.  The pacing left something to be desired, and the film's final act dragged painfully.  Made me all the more nervous and excited for Fincher's adaptation (with newly-married Daniel Craig and The Social Network's Rooney Mara).

Above, you can already tell the stylistic differences between the Swedish version (left) and Fincher's version in terms of their depiction of Lisbeth.

5 Best MTV Movie Award Winners

The annual MTV Movie Awards are tonight.  I fondly remember when that used to be an event.  A big fun event for everyone in the MTV generation, something that people would watch and talk about the next day.  Even before my time (cough, the 90s), their winners were of consistent quality.  Then the mid aughts showed up.

I'm not saying that the MTV Movie Awards ever mattered, or that their obvious degridation means anything in the light of day, but it's just unfortunate is all.  People see this, and immediatly assume all the generation is stupid Twilight fans.  This sounds odd, but the small respect the Golden Popcorn once had has all but vanished.

Kill me please

Starting in 1992, the MTV Movie Awards had a nice run of quality and classy winners until about 2004.  In 2004, the ever-dubious and criminally-unfunny Napoleon Dynamite prevailed.  The years to follow vetted Wedding Crashers, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Transformers, and the first two adaptations of Twilight.  Prior to 2004, we had each of the Lord of the Rings film winning Best Movie, Gladiator, The Matrix, There's Something About Mary, and Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  I mean...what happened?  I mean, two years in a row Kristen Stewart best Oscar's Best Actress, and she looks to do the same this year to Natalie Portman.

Alas.  Here is what I think are their five best Best Movie winners.

01. Pulp Fiction
02. Se7en
03. Gladiator
04. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
05. Terminator 2: Judgement Day

And honestly, I could to a top 10, top 15 even.  I can't get over the shockingly abysmal drop-off in quality.  This year, The Twilight Sage: Eclipse is expected to be named Best Movie over Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Black Swan, and The Social Network.  In a brighter time, I'd say Fincher's film had a chance of winning, but when you have 15 year old girls voting for you ad nauseum, how can you lose?


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The Girl with the Nipple Ring

It seems that director David Fincher, MGM, and super-producer Scott Rudin aren't relying on the worldwide and critical popularity of Stieg Larsson's book series or the original Swedish trilogy to sell The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to American audiences.  First, the leaked Red Band trailer (below) was speckled with teasing nudity and blood, and now the first glimpse of the poster (Tweeted this morning by @GuyLodge and seen larger here) has a very deliberate nipple ring to distract you.

I haven't read these books, but I plan to at least get through the first one before Christmas and this film in released.  The trailer looks utterly awesome.  Fincher brings back his entire team from the Oscar-winning The Social Network, including the editing duo of Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth who, judging by the beauty of the trailer, could be a serious contender at the end of the year.  Beyond the technical aspects, which I expect to be happily represented by the respective branches, I'm uncertain as to the Oscar prospects of this film.  Some people are waving the flag of back-to-back nomination for Fincher and even a Lead nomination for Rooney Mara.  Until we get a better sense of the quality (and even if they'll embrace this type of film) I'll remain undecided, but hopeful.

I need to get one my early predictions, too.


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Oscars, Oscars, Oscars, ACK!

This is my attempt to sound as not pretentious as possible.  Not to claim that I'm in any position to criticize the Oscars, or to criticize those who criticize the Oscar, because I'm not sure anyone is.  When we judge the Oscars, praise or bash winners, I feel people sometimes forget just what the Oscars are: a bunch of people who vote with their hearts not their head.  And you want to know the trick?--that's perfectly okay.

I don't think the Oscars voters think like critics, and they really shouldn't.  Critically praised films have their own way of lasting in the ether, especially if they're fortunate enough to lose the Oscar for Best Picture (more on that later).  The voters cast their ballots with their heart, what movie they love the most.  This year it was The King's Speech, not my favorite film of the year but a fine win nevertheless.  Is it up to the caliber of The Social Network?   Well that's everyone's personal opinion.  The general bash-loving consensus wills us to believe that The Social Network is better, but apparently it wasn't.