Movie Reviews
Hitchcock
In the scene where Hitch is trying to get script approval for Psycho from the blue-nose censor board that existed at the time, the head Bowdlerizer says there is no way they will approve showing a toilet on screen. There has never been a toilet in any American picture, he says, and there won’t be on his watch. I’m wondering if this can be literally true. I know ... Read more »
Hitch
With some movies, it’s a matter of expectations. You don’t go to see Animal House and come out saying, “Well, it wasn’t as good as To Kill a Mockingbird.” You go in expecting a romantic comedy, which is a genre that is tough to do and hasn’t worked for me much lately. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not as romantic as I used to be, or ... Read more »
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
The literal translation of this title from the Swedish, I am informed, is “The Air Castle That Was Blown Up.” I think we will all agree that it just doesn’t work in English. “Air castles” or maybe “dream castles” in Swedish seems to mean much the same as it would in English, that is, “pipe dreams,” but I suspect the idiom is something that doesn’t translate. I’ve tried to think of a better ... Read more »
Hit and Run
People who go to Comic Con in San Diego every year live for the next $200-300,000,000 blockbuster, the next John Carter, the next Batman, the new Zombie Apocalypse. They slaver over the trailers debuted there, and haunt the Internet for more previews. Summer movie people. Looking for the movies that the studios sometimes spend as much ... Read more »
The Girl Who Played With Fire
This is the only film and book in the trilogy whose title remained more or less intact (the cyber-translator I used rendered it as “The Damsel Playing With Fire”), and it obviously was the source of all the English “The Girl Who/With” titles. These titles are improvements for the English-speaking audience. This film/book and the third one are really one long story, whereas the first could ... Read more »
A History of Violence
This has to be one of the best movies of the year. How rare to see a thrilling movie that doesn’t exploit its violence, that doesn’t follow the tired old formulas. Tired? Hell, most of the shoot-’em-ups we see these days are so phony, so predictable, so paint-by-numbers that I’m amazed they have the energy to stumble into the last, stupid reel with any pulse at all. ... Read more »
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
(The excellent Swedish version.) Apparently I was one of the last people in the literate universe to hear the sad story of Stieg Larsson, the Swedish journalist who wrote and sold a trilogy of books, then promptly keeled over dead. Since then, the books have sold 27 million copies in 40 countries, making him the second-best-selling author in the world in 2008, and the best-selling dead ... Read more »
A History of Britain
Our tour guide in this series, one Simon Schama, is not known to me, though he’s apparently written a number of popularized history books and is well-known on the BBC. He insisted it be called “A” History of Britain, not “The,” and that was wise of him. Though it runs 18 hours, you can only say so much on television, particularly when a fair amount of time is ... Read more »
The Millennium Trilogy
1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor) (2009) Apparently I was one of the last people in the literate universe to hear the sad story of Stieg Larsson, the Swedish journalist who wrote and sold a trilogy of books, then promptly keeled over dead. Since then, the books have sold 27 million copies in 40 countries, making ... Read more »
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The inferior, American version. CONTAINS SOME MINOR SPOILERS!! One thing to get out of the way right off: I feared this would be horrible, and it’s not. I speak as one who adored the Swedish version, starring Noomi Rapace in the best performance by an actress in 2009. So, would I recommend this film to people? Yes, with the major ... Read more »