LITERAL REMAINS

A once big shot radio personality, Grant Mazzy, has found himself reading off news, weather, traffic, and local events in Pontypool, Ontario.  His new radio gig is broadcast from the basement of an abandoned church.  The calls from Ken in the ”Sunshine Chopper” concerning the traffic…yeah, there’s no real helicopter, it’s sound effects- Ken sits in his car on a hill overlooking the highways.   How the mighty fall.

His morning show technician, Laurel-Ann, practically worships him, but he is often at odds with the producer, Sydney.  She constantly has to remind him of his position, what his job is (read off the news, the weather, the traffic report), and it’s a lot like dealing with an angry, old, lion that’s been held in captivity for far too long and wants to break free and run amok.  Grant gets through his mornings with a little help from liquor.

On one routine, snowy, day a riot erupts in Pontypool.  A mob has descended on the offices of Dr. John Mendez.  Reports are sketchy, with no official word from the news services, and their only eyewitness reports come from Ken.  The traffic reporter is scared and horrified, relaying reports of people acting crazed, extremely violent, and committing cannibalism.  Grant tries to calm Ken, but then Ken succumbs to…something…and begins talking nonsense.  Then they lose Ken.

Grant, Laurel-Ann, and Sydney become barricaded in the church basement.  They are soon joined by the fleeing Dr. Mendez, who can’t shed a lot of light on the subject.  What little information Mendez is armed with doesn’t reassure the group any.  Mendez can identify the symptoms that lead to feral behavior, and he has figured out how the virus, or whatever it is, is spread.  It’s spread through the English language.

I didn’t care for Pontypool.  Stephen McHattie is wonderful in the lead as Grant Mazzy; he’s grizzled, bitter, a smartass, a fading rebel.  He steals the show.  Everyone else just falls into place and tries to keep up with him.  Even the movie.

There has to be some way to make the material work, but Pontypool can’t find it.  A word virus?  I just didn’t buy it, I felt it was absurd, and just plain, down right, silly.  Which is a shame, especially for McHattie- he’s the only reason to see the movie.

Pontypool starts good, creating an otherworldly feel to the early morning hours; as a daysleeper myself, I can relate, and the movie gets that right.  As the film progresses, the claustrophobia sets in, and that’s done well.  By the middle of the film, though, it begins a descent into a farcical territory with which its minimalist suspense clashes.  It doesn’t work.  Plus that whole “word virus” thing is just silly, and the monsters just aren’t that interesting.

2.5 out of 5
the_novacula

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m looking forward to seeing this when it debuts Halloween night.  Now, if only I could get around to reading the comic book series.

Former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) is writing his memoirs, and the job is nearly completed when his ghost writer, a former aide, is found washed up on the shore near Lang’s Martha’s Vineyard hideaway.  It is unclear if it was suicide, or death by misadventure, though the toxicology reports indicate that the ghost writer’s blood alcohol level was through the roof.  So Lang’s publisher calls in a new ghost.

The new ghost writer (Ewan McGregor), here-forth to be referred to as the Ghost, at first believes himself to be wrong for the job, but the publishers want him, and when they offer him a ton of money, he finds himself unable to turn it down.  His agent is enthusiastic.  Upon leaving the meeting with publisher, Lang’s American attorney (Timothy Hutton) gives him what he thinks is a copy of the top secret manuscript.  The Ghost is mugged outside his apartment building, and the manuscript is stolen.  The lost property was a decoy, and the Ghost is left wondering what exactly he has gotten himself into.  His worries double before he departs for across the pond when it breaks on the news that Lang’s former foreign secretary, Richard Rycart, leaks it to the press that Lang authorized the kidnap and torture of terrorist suspects in conjunction with the CIA.

When the Ghost arrives at Lang’s American compound to get the memoirs in working condition in four weeks time, he realizes his work will be harder than he previously thought.  His late predecessor has the first draft, but the Ghost comments, “All the words are there, they’re just in the wrong order.”  He has to punch it up a bit.  Lang’s personal secretary/not-so-secret-lover, Amelia Bly, informs the Ghost that the confidential manuscript cannot leave the house, he can only work on it there.  The Ghost is also called upon to draft a response for Lang concerning the news that the International Criminal Court will be investigating Lang for war crimes over the torture of the terror suspects.  As Bly informs the Ghost, he’s an accomplice now.

As the Ghost sets about to shape Lang’s memoirs into something readable, he discovers some inconsistencies.  He also discovers some facts that the former ghost writer learned that may point to his death being foul play.  As a local man tells him, the currents could not have washed the body that far down shore, and it is a strange coincedence that the little old lady who saw lights out there on the beach the night before the body was found is now in a coma.

The Ghost Writer was directed and co-adapted by Roman Polanski and it is one pleasant little mystery movie.  It’s no Chinatown, but this is a nice, rainy day, diversion.  There are some comic touches that elevate the material, drawing attention away from the fact that this political thriller really has nothing to say about politics; it just entertains, and that’s quite alright.  Some of the performances are uneven, and I think Kim Cattrall as Bly was miscast.  She’s adequate.  Olivia Williams, a wonderful actress, is given the most unbalanced character in the film, that of Lang’s wife, and she is difficult to pin down, but maybe that’s for the best.

If parts had been thought through better (shouldn’t Lang have had better security?) this would have been a perfect motion picture.

4 out of 5
the_novacula

The scientists on the reality television show “SeaLife” are real scientists, for the most part.  Some were hired for their looks by the show’s producer, Cynthea Leeds.  Cynthea even hired a phony crew and relegated the Trident‘s real crew to the background.  It all has to look good for the viewers at home.  There are some serious scientists aboard, such as Nell Duckworth and Andy Beasley.  But Cynthea is more interested in hooking everybody up than science because science doesn’t help the ratings.

Ratings are helped by drama.  The Trident receives a distress signal while cruising the South Pacific.  The EPIRB, emergency position indicating beacon, is from a lost boat that has washed ashore the mysterious and foreboding Hender’s Island.  Hender’s Island, named after the eighteenth century captain who discovered it, lies in isolated waters and boasts dangerous cliffs that keep the world out.  It’s a no man’s land that still waits to be discovered.

Nell Duckworth knows about the island, has been fascinated about the unexplored place for years.  She jumps at this once in a lifetime chance to step foot on Hender’s Island.  And Cynthea jumps at the chance to film something that has never been filmed before; she even convinces the studio executives to go live for the island landing.  Nell and a select few of the fake crew and the other viewer-friendly scientists go ashore.  Other than Nell, and a cameraman named Zero, all the others are massacred by creatures they have never seen before.  Cynthea’s footage becomes an item of speculation in the entertainment and scientific world, and the United States Government quickly has the Navy on the spot and initiate a media blackout.

Hender’s Island isn’t the friendliest place on Earth.  It’s not the funniest.  Imagine Disney World if Mickey Mouse bit your head off, defecated down your throat and then Goofy ate Mickey and you.  The island is part of a lost supercontinent that has evolved on its own for 600 million years and everything, including the vegetation, feeds on everything else.  Projected life span on the island is just a matter of minutes.  It’s a rough damn place.  You don’t even want a summer home there.

Fragment is alive with invention.  It has some awesome creature conceptions.  The action is fast, the science is smart; I don’t know if the science is real, but it sounds pretty, and scarily, plausible.  I even learned a few fun facts about life here on our own planet.  And those creatures, they are some vicious bastards.  Warren Fahy isn’t as compulsively readable as Michael Crichton; Fragment has been compared to Jurassic Park, and it is more fun than that classic in places.  Crichton wrote with more authority though, his science was as fun, if not more fun and thrilling, as his action.  Fahy, I believe, though, has it in him to approach the master.

For the first two-thirds of the book, I thought Fragment was going to be, hands down, the best book I’ve read for the year.  Then the last act and it went into an almost tailspin.  All the bloodthirsty, breakneck, “oh my God are they going to survive” thrills and monster horror that came before, the last third or so of the book let me down.  The big “discovery” by the scientists was too saccharine.  I’m not against Spielberg moments, but it was too much for me in this book to point it almost ruined it.  But I didn’t write it, Mr. Fahy did, and I hope in his next book he can wed the two together with better results.  I know he can.  I believe in him.

4 out of 5
the_novacula

I’m a Peter Gabriel fan from way back.  I think he’s a great songwriter, a great musician, a great vocalist.  Some of his work takes time to digest, though.  For the majority of So to be so readily accessible, the follow-up, Us, required a couple of listenings to fully appreciate it.  His next album, Up, from 2002, a full ten years later, needed more than a couple of listenings.  Even die hard fans still find Up a challenge.  I had read quite some time ago Gabriel was working on a covers album, and was working on an album of his own songs to be covered by other musicians.  That project was to be a double CD:  Scratch My Back, being his covers, and I’ll Scratch Yours being his songs covered by others.  They are now to be released separately.  Somehow I missed Scratch My Back‘s March release.  Where have I been?  In my own little world, my friends, my own little world.

I didn’t find out about the album until I was doing some searching on YouTube for Lou Reed.  That’s right, I was watching some old Lou Reed performances and that’s when I discovered Peter Gabriel covered the Reed penned “The Power of the Heart”.  I listened to Lou’s version then clicked over to Gabriel’s take on the song.  I instantly fell in love with it.  A few clicks later I learned I missed the album’s original release, and I remedied that as quick as I could.

Unlike some cover albums from veteran rockers, you won’t find anything from The Great American Songbook, or classics from the annals of rock n’ roll or pop, other than David Bowie’s “Heroes”, Paul Simon’s “The Boy In the Bubble”, Talking Heads’s “Listening Wind” and Neil Young’s “Philadelphia”, but are “Listening Wind” and ”Philadelphia” really classics?  It’s a personal judgement call.  The majority of the songs are more modern and cover some varied ground:  Bon Iver, Radiohead, Regina Spektor, and even Randy Newman.

Gabriel sounds great throughout, as do the arrangements.  He set up some rules for Scratch My Back, one of which was no guitar or drums.  These are orchestral arrangements, and they sometimes bring moments to the whole affair that make you think the album should have been called Scratch My Head.  Only a couple of times.  Maybe it helped that I wasn’t familiar with the original version of most of the songs.  When I first heard Gabriel’s interpretation of “Heroes”, I thought it was different, yeah, but that it didn’t bring anything new to it.  On repeated listens, though, the song opened up to me.  Much in the same way as his cover of Simon’s “The Boy In the Bubble”; Gabriel strips the song of its original bouncy nature, and it was jarring on the first play.

That brings me to the first of two problems I have with Scratch My Back.  This is an overall somber affair.  There are lively moments here and there (more often in Gabriel’s voice than in the music), but it can play as a drag.  Each song individually is good, taken as a whole, the album is nearly too much.  You have to be in the right mood for these love songs.  If you’re a sucker for a good love song, as I am, that right frame of mind will hit you sooner or later, and the album may even help get you there.

Scratch My Back goes on for three songs too many.  Newman’s “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today”, Young’s “Philadelphia”, and Radiohead’s “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”  should have been cut and maybe the album wouldn’t drag to its finish.  Other than those three songs, the rest of the album is a winner.  “Listening Wind”, “The Power of the Heart”, “The Book of Love”, and “”Après Moi” are the standouts that earn my repeated listenings.  Scratch My Back is a little different, a little odd, very accomplished, and very good.

4 out of 5
the_novacula

This is a clip from the silent film Haxan.  The music is by Nine Inch Nails, from the album Ghosts I-IV.

For some, Friday the 13th is to be feared.  For others it is to be celebrated, and still for some, they could care less, viewing it as just another day.  I don’t fear it, but I do try to use a little more caution on a Friday the 13th.  I’ve done a little reading this morning about such a divided day, and thought I would share some of what I read.  You may know some of these things already, and some of it may be new to you.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th.  The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary. Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don’t have a 13th floor.

In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve hours of the clock, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, twelve gods of Olympus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.

Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century’s The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s. It has also been suggested that Friday has been considered an unlucky day because, according to Christian scripture and tradition, Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

In Norse mythology Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil — a gathering of thirteen — and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as “Witches’ Sabbath.”

The number 13 was considered a lucky number (such as 13 lunar cycles each year), but with the efforts of Christianity attempting to degrade all things Pagan, they promoted 13 as an unlucky number, with Friday also being considered a bad day of the week.  Friday was actually considered quite lucky by pre-Christian Teutonic peoples — especially as a day to get married — because of its traditional association with love and fertility. All that changed when Christianity came along. The goddess of the sixth day — most likely Freya in this context, given that the cat was her sacred animal — was recast in post-pagan folklore as a witch, and her day became associated with evil doings.

King Philip secretly ordered the arrest of all the Knights Templar in France on Friday, October 13, 1307.

Sources speculate that the number 13 may have been purposely vilified by the founders of patriarchal religions in the early days of western civilization because it represented femininity.  There are 13 witches in a coven.

Never change your bed on Friday; it will bring bad dreams. Don’t start a trip on Friday or you will have misfortune. If you cut your nails on Friday, you cut them for sorrow. Ships that set sail on a Friday will have bad luck – as in the tale of H.M.S. Friday. One hundred years ago, the British government sought to quell once and for all the widespread superstition among seamen that setting sail on Fridays was unlucky. A special ship was commissioned, named “H.M.S. Friday.” They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her captain. To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a Friday, and was never seen or heard from again.

Read more from where I got this info here and here.

Happy Friday the 13th!

the_novacula

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the battle of the flesh and spirit, of the divine and the profane, the sacred and the sacrilegious.  My cousin, the Big D, told me before he doesn’t care much for those horror movies about demon possession, such as The Exorcist, or for the likes of the Hellraiser movies.  For me, they are the scariest of all, and the most intriguing.  Is there a more ultimate battle than a battle for your very soul?

It could be it all goes back to my childhood.  No, I’m not laying blame on anyone, or anything- I enjoyed my childhood, it was pleasant; it was definitely a lot better than the childhoods of some people I know.  Actually, my interests in the occult and the supernatural probably, most definitely, stem from my childhood.  My father passed away when I was four years old, followed two years later by my grandfather, and two years from that by my great-grandmother.  I was exposed to the deaths of people very close to me at a very young age.  Of course I was curious about the afterlife, and I had a somewhat morbid curiosity about it all.  I can remember asking my mother sometime after my grandfather died what my dad would look like if we dug him up and opened the coffin.  Thinking back, I can see why my mother rather frowned upon that question.

My family is a church-going family, and that’s suitable seeing as we are seated practically in the buckle of the Bible Belt.  In the South, it seems we have a church on every street corner; I would guess they nearly outnumber the convience stores and gas stations.  My father was a deacon in a Baptist church, and my mother taught Sunday school for several years.  I grew up in church.  I was taught about Heaven and Hell, the wages of sin is death, and that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from eternal damnation, we only need to believe in Him and be washed in His blood.  Confess your sins, be saved, baptised, live a Christian life.

Easier said than done.

Even as a child, I wanted to know more about the bad guys, so to speak.  Satan and his minions.  I can remember watching a Geraldo Rivera special on devil worshippers and demonology when I was kid, and it completely fascinated me (it was also my first introduction to Ozzy Osbourne, he was a guest on the show).  My mother didn’t approve of me watching it, which is why I didn’t let her know until after I had already seen it.  She said if she had known, she would have stopped me.  Luckily, her mind was changed somewhat when our pastor at the time said it was good for me to have seen it, it would help arm me against the Devil.  We could all use a little bit more ammo, couldn’t we?

How many of you have heard the excuse, “The Devil made him do it?”  Or, “The Devil got in him?”  “He was possessed of an evil spirit.”   We’ve all heard it.  We’ve read accounts of possession, it’s even in the Bible- “My name is Legion, for we are many.”  Stories from the Bible fascinated and scared me when I was little; the fall of Lucifer, Noah and the Flood, the Crucifixion, the story of Lazarus.  Even the Resurrection of Jesus.  The miniseries Jesus of Nazareth freaked me out when I was a kid.  I’ve begun to question that my love of Horror didn’t start with John Carpenter’s The Fog, but that it had its beginnings with church.  The pictures of Jesus being scurged, the crown of thorns, crucifixes with Him writhing in pain.

It seems so easy to stray from the path of the Righteous, and I’ve heard it preached many times that it is easy, it’s easy to go straight to Hell.  It’s hard to live a Christian life, there is so much sin in the world, so many temptations.  Is an impure thought a sign of demon possession?  If you’re hot for teacher, will you burn in a lake of fire forever?  Are you nauseated from the flu or is that a sign of Pazuzu in your system?  Is everything the flesh likes bad for the soul?  Are we ever just human?  When asked what God was doing before he made the world, Saint Augustine answered, “Making Hell for those who question.”  So, you know, I was taught it was wrong to ask some things.

Maybe I’m messed up.  Maybe I was an impressionable youth.  Maybe I’m a little lamb led astray.  Maybe I find the macabre where it shouldn’t be, such as Communion.  I’m not making light of religion or Christianity, I still respect them.  I do my best to respect all religions (some of the crazy ones not so much).  There is right and wrong in the world, we all struggle with good and evil.  Every day is a battle for our souls.  Some days you get the bear, and some days, you know, the bear gets you.

the_novacula

To quote from Zombieland:  “You gotta enjoy the little things.”  Keep that in mind when watching Dead Snow.  I had to watch it twice; the first time I kept falling asleep during it- it wasn’t the movie’s fault, I had been to Georgia and back, and I was rather tired.  What I saw of it, I liked.  I finally watched it again, snooze free, and I have to say I thought it was a better movie when I was dozing in and out; evidently I was only awake for the highlights.

Dead Snow starts like many horror movies with a group of twenty-somethings spending a weekend in a isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere.  The nowhere this time is high up in the mountains of Øksfjord, in Norway.  The cabin belongs to Sara (her family, actually) and she has decided to hike in across the mountains and meet her friends there.  Those friends include her boyfriend, Vegard, and Martin, a med student who can’t stand the sight of blood.  There’s also Erland, the movie nerd, Roy, who is perpetually horny, and the nubile hotties Chris, Liv, and Hanna.

No one finds it disturbing that Sara has yet to make it to the cabin when they arrive, she’s hiking over the flippin’ mountains after all.  They don’t become disturbed until a stranger just happens to stop by to critique their organic coffee, drink their beer, and tell them a little story of sadistic Nazis who occupied Øksfjord during WWII.  It’s a tale involving stolen treasure and the locals rising up against the cruel Colonel Herzog and his men.  The Nazis were driven into the mountains and left for dead.

The grizzled stranger leaves, heading back into the snowy night, and unknown to the vacationing youngsters, meets a gruesome end.  The next morning, with no sign of Sara, and worried after the stranger’s story, Vegard sets out to search for his girlfriend.  Partying at the cabin, Erland finds a box hidden under the floor that contains gold coins and jewelry.  Nothing says “awesome holiday” like frolicking with lost Nazi riches.  Or getting it on in the outhouse.

Before you can say Dæmning! there are living(?), breathing (?), growling Nazi zombies beating down the doors like the big bad wolf.  These Nazis mean some serious business.  I’m not sure if they are true zombies, but they are some monster bad mofos, and a nice change to the recent spate of living dead represented in the movies, or all of horror.  These zombies, if that’s what they be, are a throwback to the old Italian zombies of yesteryear.

Dead Snow isn’t really funny; it made me smile a few times, but I never really laughed.  Director and co-writer Tommy Wirkola tries to go balls to the wall with this thing, but can never really pull it all together.  And too many things don’t add up:  Why was the stranger out there on the mountain?  Didn’t Sara, and/or her family, know about the box of gold stored in such an obvious place?  Who is going to put their arm around somebody when they are crazy swingin’ a mad hatchet at some Nazi zombies?

Yet, it has a certain glee, a certain “Hey, watch this!” cheerfulness to it.  Sometimes a movie is what it is, and with all of its shout-outs to the better films that came before it, Dead Snow is one of those little things in life bathed in blood and intestines that can be enjoyed.

3.5 out of 5
the_novacula

Splice was definitely one of the more interesting movies to experience this summer, in a season packed with the likes of Inception and Sex and the City 2. Luckily, this movie was also definitely one of the most memorable. It’s a bizarre sci-fi drama involving the psychological ramifications of what would happen if you, and your scientist lover, were to create a humanoid “child” in a laboratory; serious Freudian dilemmas ensue.

To begin: Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley are a fantastic match: him, for his nerdy, nice-guy charisma, and her for grungy yet caring disposition. Together, they play Clive and Elsa, one of the better pairs of uber-scientist lovers seen in cinema in years. They listen to techno music; they love junk food and sex. They’re watchable – and not just because both actors are more than moderately talented.

As the film takes off, Clive and Elsa are developing gene-splicing technology in order to create a new species. Once this is successful, they go ahead with their plan: create a human DNA hybrid creature in order to study it and develop cures for human diseases. They begin the fertilization process, and within days the creature is attempting to free its artificial womb. Clive and Elsa realize they will be arrested if they do not abort the “fetus” now and tell their laboratory of their experiment, but they agree to keep it under wraps. They’re just so excited.

The creature grows and grows – and it’s a girl! As it is somewhat human-like, Elsa begins teaching the child as one would a preschooler: early math, the alphabet, etc. She even dresses the “child” in a pre-teen dress and gives her the name “Dren.” As Clive grows wary of Elsa’s attachment, Dren grows rapidly, soon a teenager or young adult. She now walks on two legs and looks to be about seven feet tall.

Transported by Clive and Elsa to an abandoned barnhouse for safe keeping, Dren grows angry with her zoo-like entrapment. Using her keen intellect – and without words – Dren slyly wedges herself in between Clive and Elsa’s relationship by exploiting their weaknesses, getting attached to Elsa and then hurting her at her most vulnerable, and yes, seducing her father.There is a sex scene between Clive and Dren, the now strangely beautiful creature clad in a woman’s dress, and honestly, it is as fascinating as it is ridiculous. I’d love to ask Adrien Brody how he felt during the shooting of this scene.

Splice is absolutely unique. It is simultaneously repulsive and trashy as it is honest, brave, and insightful into the human brain – specifically those of parents and inventors. You’ll definitely be entertained, though you may be offended or angered. Director and screenwriter Vincenzo Natali gave the sci-fi horror world a treat back in 1997 with Cube, which he also wrote and directed, though to call Splice as much of a treat would be severely debatable.

2.5 out of 5
Ross Tipograph

Ross is a film buff and Emerson College screenwriting major. He writes about Halloween costumes at Star Costumes.  Our thanks to Ross for contributing to Literal Remains, and we hope to have him back soon.

Okay, relax, take a break, smoke’em if you got’em.  Life is hectic enough, so take some “me” time.  School is back in session with all the hassle of academia, work is always demanding, and everybody wants a piece of you because you, yes you, are da bomb.  Life is just so…life.  So sit back and put your troubles on hold for a couple of minutes, and enjoy this Muppet interlude.

Peace,
the_novacula

I’ve been putting it off and putting it off, but I finally watched this movie.  The American remake is going to have a difficult road to follow.  I can’t see any actress other than Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander.  She inhabits the role with everything she’s got, she becomes her.  Her performance is better than the entire movie, she dominates it much as the character dominated the original book.  When Rapace isn’t on the screen, you want her back.  Not that the rest of the movie is bad, it’s just better when she’s there.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo begins with the disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) standing accused of libel against the powerful  Hans-Erik Wennerström.  It seems Blomkvist’s sources were less than credible.  While he is suffering through the trial, lawyer Dirch Frode has hired Milton Security to do some investigating into Blomkvist’s life and background.  Frode’s client, Henrik Vanger, a wealthy industrialist, wants to hire Blomkvist for a special assignment.  It’s hacker extraordinaire Lisbeth Salander who does the research on Mikael Blomkvist.

Having been found guilty, Blomkvist is set to go to jail in six months.  Not long after his sentencing, Blomkvist is approached by Dirch Frode to meet with Vanger.  The elderly Vanger lives on the little island town of Hedebey, which only has the one bridge to enter or exit the island.  Henrik Vanger asks Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of his beloved niece, Harriet.  Harriet went missing from the island forty years earlier, and Vanger believes that she was murdered, though her body was never found.  He also believes that one of the greedy, cutthroat, members of his own family is the killer. 

The Vanger family itself is a rogues gallery; they seem to hate each other as much as they hate Blomkvist for snooping into the family’s history.  How Henrik is so nice and human is a miracle; hate is quite possibly in the family blood- Henrik’s three brothers were Nazis.  But Henrik’s hate has been channeled into identifying Harriet’s killer; a passion fueled by the fact that he receives a framed flower in the mail from some corner of the globe every year on Harriet’s birthday.  It’s that salt in the wound that drives him on.

Lisbeth Salander, having developed a fascination with Blomkvist, observes his investigation from afar.  Using her highly developed hacker skills and computer knowledge, she reads through Blomkvist’s information on his computer.  It’s when Blomkvist becomes baffled by a code in Harriet’s old journal that Lisbeth can’t keep from sending Mikael the solution.  Blomkvist then tracks Lisbeth down and enlists her help in trying to solve the mystery of Harriet.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is not always easy to watch.  There is a rape scene that is very disturbing, but it isn’t used to gain sympathy for the characters, or to gain our support.  Long before that scene, we are already invested, and involved, with Salander and Blomkvist.  It’s easy to point out what Rapace does with her character, but I think Nyqvist deserves some recognition, too.  Yes, Salander is an unlikely hero, but so is Mikael Blomkvist.  He’s rather plain, rather ordinary, and I think he’s more interesting here than in the books.  Of course the movie Salander is nothing compared to the literary Salander, but the movie Salander still has no equal.

This is a great adaptation of the book, yet it somehow feels too succinct.  It still doesn’t feel complete, like when you’ve finished putting a model together and still have some pieces left over:  it still works, but it’s not all in there.  Maybe having read the book before seeing the movie diminished the appeal for me.  I’m still grateful I have it, though.

4 out of 5
the_novacula

Okay, I may have officially become one of “those” people.  Don’t snarl your nose up at me, every single one of us becomes one of “those” people one day.  My day has come.  I guess you could say I’ve jumped on a bandwagon.  I have become somewhat trendy.  I am a Stieg Larsson fan.  I have been for over a year now.  I think, though, that I have crossed over into die-hard fandom.  Okay, maybe I’m not a die-hard case, but you don’t have to be a genius to realize Lisbeth Salander rocks it better than brand new socks.  And I love brand new socks.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second book in the Millennium Trilogy by late author Stieg Larsson.  Fire finds Lisbeth living in exile, and luxury, in the Caribbean, estranged from everyone she knows while journalist Mikael Blomkvist  is riding high on the success of his book about the Wennerström affair, the ordeal that caused him to serve time in prison.  It’s that success that leads Blomkvist into an entirely new mystery, and that mystery brings Lisbeth back into his life.

Young freelance journalist Dag Svensson, aided by his girlfriend Mia Johansson, is working on a story about sex trafficking.  He wants to publish an article in Millennium, and he wants Millennium to publish his book on the subject.  It’s an explosive story that isn’t afraid to name the names of judges, police officers, and politicians who pay for sex.  It’s the sort of high profile story that Millennium does best.  Blomkvist, seeing Dag as a younger version of himself, wholeheartedly agrees to publish it.

Then, just as Dag is doing some fact checking and securing his sources, he and Mia are found murdered, gunned down in their own apartment.  The Millennium team is devastated, and Blomkvist is convinced that it has something to do with Dag’s story and his investigation into the true identity of an almost mythical underworld criminal known only as Zala.  When Lisbeth Salander’s fingerprints are lifted off the murder weapon and a nationwide search commences for her, Blomkvist begins his own investigation into the triple homicide:  Lisbeth’s corrupt and abusive guardian is found murdered, too.

The police and the press paint Lisbeth as a psychotic, plastering details (and lies) of her personal life and her past across newspapers and television programs.  Even Blomkvist and Lisbeth’s friend, Miriam Wu, learn some of the truth of Lisbeth’s childhood, and it’s enough to make them, momentarily, question Lisbeth’s guilt.  It is uncovered that a lot of occurences in Lisbeth’s life didn’t happen by chance, and it seems a lot of people want Lisbeth Salander out of the picture for good because her existence could very well be a threat to national security.

I think the best thing to say about this book is to let it speak for itself.   To quote from it:  “When he was at his best he was brilliant, and when he was not at his best he was still far better than the average.”  That line is in reference to Blomkvist, but I think it aptly describes Stieg Larsson.   I liked The Girl Who Played With Fire better than The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  The first book seemed to drag in places, taking some detours in the story, but I have to admit that my appreciation for it has deepened having read this one; things that I thought were kind of unnecessary in Dragon were there to help set up the story of Fire.   Fire, though, seemed to only get better as it went along.  Even when it came close to venturing into far-fetched territory, it was still better than the average and more believable and thrilling.

It’s easy to see why people love Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.  They don’t grow on you, they are instantly likeable.  They have their flaws, true, but they have a determination to set wrongs right and to see justice served in an unjust world, moving to the beat of a different drum.  They are the people we’ve all been striving to be.

5 out of 5
the_novacula

The German village of Eichwald isn’t the best place to call home.  It’s picturesque, and in the early 1900′s, just before World War I, it’s the kind ofhamlet which everybody works together, everyone knows everyone else, and the world is large outside its borders, and so far, far away.  But their is a corruption in the village, and someone, or maybe it’s a group of people, are working against the peacefulness of Eichwald.

Or maybe it’s no one at all.  Maybe everything that happens in The White Ribbon is a lie, and none of it never happened.  As the narrator, the schoolteacher grown old, says at the beginning, not everything in the story he is about to tell may be entirely true, some events based on hearsay.  Maybe the scenes and situations that unfold are just how his, then, young mind perceived them.  Whatever the reality, it makes for a striking and intriguing film.

The White Ribbon is a character study of the village of Eichwald.  There is the schoolteacher, who reliably or unreliably tells the story; the town pastor who rules his family with an iron grip on the Bible; the baron who all but owns the village and provides for it; the steward, loyal to the baron and a monster to his family; the widower doctor, father of two grieving children; the midwife, mother of a mentally handicapped son, she also suffers through a secretive, and abusive, relationship with the doctor; and a farmer who owes his livelihood to the baron, as does nearly everyone else.

Troubling events descend on the town, and the doctor is the first victim.  Upon returning home from a visit one morning, the doctor’s horse trips over a wire that has been tied to two trees and stretched across the road.  The doctor is badly injured and sent away to the hospital.  Then the farmer’s wife is killed in an accident at the sawmill.  The baron’s son goes missing and is later found tied up in a barn, having been beaten with a cane.  The midwife’s son is found tied to a tree and badly beaten and all but blinded.

Who is the culprit?  If you are looking for answers, The White Ribbon only supplies speculation.  Sometimes there are no answers, I guess.  Good and evil just exist.  It’s how they exist side by side in this movie that is so fascinating, how righteousness and a desire to live properly can lead to cruelty, how loneliness can lead to abuse, and how pride can lead to destruction.  Anyone in the village could have committed the crimes, and that is the movie’s point, for me at least:  we all have it in us to be good or evil.  Once the public masks are stripped away, how would another person view our private lives?

The White Ribbon is more intriguing and interesting than likable or accessible.  Although I felt cheated by the ending, the story kept me riveted to the screen.  I never knew what would happen, or where exactly the film was going.  This is a beautifully made film about the ugly nature of mankind.

4.5 out of 5
the_novacula