Posts tagged violence
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Swedish Version Better
Jan 1st
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
“Swedish Version Better”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Hollywood version, is out only 1-1/2 years after the Swedish version was released in the U.S., and if you didn’t see that version, you might think that this newer one is pretty good.
Daniel Craig plays investigative journalist Mikael Blomqvist, and Rooney Mara has replaced Noomi Repace as Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo on her back, and the similarity of the actresses’ names can be confusing, just as the story can be for new audiences.
Spoiler Alert! If you have read the book on which both movies are based or if you saw the Swedish movie and managed to read the subtitles and watch the action at the same time, then you already know how this one ends, unless you have forgotten some of the convoluted details.
The movie cuts back and forth between Lisbeth and Mikael for the longest time before they ever get together to solve the crime that is the basis of the mystery, and once they do, Lisbeth says, “I like working with you,” to which Mikael replies, “I like working with you, too.”
This exchange is amusing, considering what happens just before they say that, but for the most part the movie is serious, grim, and graphic in its sex, violence, and nudity.
Mikael has been hired by a wealthy industrialist to figure out what happened to his niece, Harriet, who was 16 back in 1966 when she disappeared from the remote island on which the industrialist’s dysfunctional family all live.
Harriet’s disappearance was especially mysterious, because her body was never found, and an accident on the bridge to the island prevented anyone from getting on or off the island.
Meanwhile, Lisbeth has problems of her own in her personal life, she has a history of committing violence, and although she claims that she has taken care of herself since she was 10, she has a guardian from whom she gets her money to live on.
Lisbeth is an experienced researcher, an accomplished computer hacker, and her appearance is, shall we say, “extreme,” although I liked her appearance better in the Swedish version. Her dragon tattoo is better in the Swedish version, too.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Hollywood version, is just not as good as the Swedish version.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Straw Dogs” an Exercise in Violence
Sep 24th
“Another Unnecessary Remake”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Straw Dogs is a remake of the classic 1971 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George that was directed by acclaimed director Sam Peckinpah, who was known for the violence in his movies.
This 2011 version stars James Marsden and Kate Bosworth and was directed by Rod Lurie, and the location has been changed from a small town in western England to a small town in Southern Mississippi.
The title comes from the straw dogs that were used as ceremonial objects in ancient China. They were used as sacrifices, dressed up, put on the altar, and then when the ceremony was over, they were thrown into the street.
David and Amy are married, and when they drive into Blackwater, Mississippi, where Amy grew up, she mentions that the young good ol’ boys in town don’t have much to do anymore after their glory days of high-school football are over, and David compares them to the “straw dogs” of ancient China.
David is a Hollywood screenwriter, Amy recently starred in a television series, and they are in Blackwater because Amy’s father died and they are there to fix up his house and then sell it.
So, when they meet Charlie in town and find out that he has a small construction business, they hire Charlie to repair the roof on the barn.
Charlie says, “We take care of our own here,” and then he says to Amy, “Remember when I took care of you?”
And that is when David learns that Amy and Charlie had been high-school sweethearts.
Well, you can see where this is going, can’t you? Charlie and his construction team are rude and obnoxious, they ogle Amy because of the provocative way she dresses, and they belittle David almost every chance they get, because he doesn’t understand their small-town Southern culture, doesn’t fit in, and unknowingly insults them.
And then when Charlie and the boys invite David to go hunting with them, David feels obligated to go with them as a gesture of good will, but, of course, things don’t end well.
Things don’t end well at all, which can also be said about the whole movie.
There are some small subplots that attempt to flesh out the main plot, but basically the movie is an exercise in violence.
Straw Dogs is just another unnecessary remake.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Straw Dogs – Movie Trailer
Sep 22nd
Sam Peckinpah examines the instinctual capacity for violence in his controversial 1971 film, loosely based on the novel The Siege of Trencher’s Farm. To avoid the Vietnam-era social chaos in the U.S., American mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) moves with his British wife, Amy (Susan George), to the isolated Cornish town where she grew up, but their presence provokes antagonism among the village’s men. As the hostilities escalate from routine bullying to the gang rape of his wife, David finds his pacifistic self backed into a corner. When the hooligans attack his house, David finally resorts to the gruesome violence that he abhors.