The Girl Who Played with Fire

We saw The Girl Who Played With Fire (Flickan som lekte med elden) this afternoon — the Swedish film (with English subtitles) based on the Stieg Larsson book, the second of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. It’s a terrific action drama and Noomi Rapace is even more remarkable as Lisbeth Salander.

Read the three books. See the movies.

(The third film, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Luftslottet som sprängdes) was released late last year in Europe but not in the U.S. yet.)

The 100 Best Movies He’s Ever Seen

Sports writer and columnist Joe Posnanski lists the 100 best movies he’s ever seen.

The movies that are on this list are the ones that, one way or another, transported me into another time and another place. They made me laugh so hard I couldn’t stop, or they changed the way I looked at the world, or they made me fall in love, or they made me ridiculously happy, or they chilled me to the bone. What they did was take me outside of myself for an hour and a half or two hours or however long.

It’s an interesting list, based he says in part on reading Roger Ebert’s The Great Movies and The Great Movies II.

I’m not sure I could do a 100 best list. I don’t remember movies that well and would be too dependent on external hints (such as Ebert). There surely are many movies I will watch for a few minutes when I find them while surfing the channels — even though I’ve seen them many times before.

Posnanski’s list is in alphabetical order, so click the link above to check it out. His explanation is interesting, too.

I quickly estimated I’ve seen about 75 of the 100. Ebert’s books are terrific reading and the great movies reviews are online.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

There are many of us who have no shame about our obsession with Lisbeth Salander, the tattooed, nose-ringed, bisexual computer hacker whom the late Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson placed at the center of his three posthumous bestsellers, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Given that, the prospect of a film version of the second book is a cause for excitement. It’s a shame that the second film, directed by Daniel Alfredson, lacks the stylistic flair and driving energy that Niels Arden Oplev brought to the film rendition of the first book. But Noomi Rapace, who became an international star in the role of Lisbeth, is back in action, and she’s spectacular.

Peter Travers | Rolling Stone Movies

The first film is available on Netflix streaming — in Swedish with English subtitles.

Top Raising Arizona lines

Here, at Luis’s suggestion, the top lines from Raising Arizona:

1. Smalls: You want to find an outlaw, hire an outlaw. You want to find a Dunkin’ Donuts, call a cop.
2. Gale: H.I., you’re young and you got your health, what you want with a job?
3. H.I.: Edwina’s insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.
4. Policeman: Do you have any disgruntled employees?
   Nathan Arizona Sr.: Hell, they’re all disgruntled. I ain’t running no damn daisy farm. My motto is “Do it my way or watch your butt!”
   Policeman: Well, do you think any of them could’ve done it?
   Nathan Arizona Sr.: Oh, don’t make me laugh. Without my say-so they wouldn’t piss with their pants on fire.
5. Evelle: Gale? Um, Junior just had a … an accident.
   Gale: What’s that, pardner?
   Evelle: He had hisself a little ol’ accident.
   Gale: What do you mean? He looks okay.
   Evelle: No. You see, moving though we are, he just went and had hisself a little ol’ rest stop.
6. Evelle: You know how to put these things on?
   Grocer: Well, around the butt and up over the groin area.
   Evelle: I know WHERE they go, old timer. I just want to know if I need pins or fasteners.
   Grocer: Well, no, they got them tape-ettes already on there. It’s self-contained and fairly explanatory.
7. Policeman in Arizona house: What did the pyjamas look like?
   Nathan Arizona Sr.: I don’t know – they were jammies! They had Yodas ‘n’ shit on ‘em!
8. H.I.: But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren’t screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids. And I don’t know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I’m liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don’t know. Maybe it was Utah.

Redux post of the day

First posted here five years ago today.

The American Film Institute announced its Top 100 movie quotes of all time. Here’s the top 10.

1. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” “Gone With the Wind,” 1939.
2. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse,” “The Godfather,” 1972.
3. “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am,” “On the Waterfront,” 1954.
4. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” “The Wizard of Oz,” 1939.
5. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” “Casablanca,” 1942.
6. “Go ahead, make my day,” “Sudden Impact,” 1983.
7. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” “Sunset Blvd.,” 1950.
8. “May the Force be with you,” “Star Wars,” 1977.
9. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night,” “All About Eve,” 1950.
10. “You talking to me?” “Taxi Driver,” 1976.

Best movie review in one line of the day

“Like the marriage montage near the beginning of Up, the last 10 minutes of Toy Story 3 seem to have been developed in collaboration with an ophthalmologist specializing in the production of tears.”

Dana Stevens – Slate Magazine

She says it’s the best of the three Toy Storys.

The review linked to this video.

Watch it while you can

I’m thinking Pixar and HBO won’t let this stand long.

Tonight’s film

Omigoodness. Tonight’s film was as good or better than last night’s (Sin Nombre), which was better than the night before’s (Paris, je t’aime), which was better than the night before that (The Band’s Visit) — and that first one was terrific.

Via DVD from Netflix tonight I watched Captain Abu Raed, a 2007 film made in Jordan, in Arabic with English subtitles. Abu Raed is an elderly widower who works as a janitor at the Amman airport. Neighborhood children mistake him for a pilot — a captain — when he retrieves a captain’s hat from the airport trash. A self-educated man, Abu Raed tells the children stories of places in the world; places he’s never been and the children themselves are unlikely to ever see. From there, the movie focuses on Abu Raed’s growing friendship with a female airline pilot and two of the children.

Superbly told, superbly acted, with a few surprises along the way. The movie is amusing, but dramatic, even heart-wrenching as it develops.

Beautifully filmed with wonderful views of Amman.

All four of the films this week were excellent and each highly recommended.

Tonight’s film

Via Netflix streaming I watched the 2009 film Sin Nombre (Without Name) tonight. It’s a U.S.-Mexican production filmed in Spanish. (The version I saw had English subtitles.) The movie won the dramatic directing award for Cary Joji Fukunaga and a cinematography award at the Sundance Film Festival last year.

A remarkable and well done film that portrays a part of the immigration story from the other end. Sayra, her father and uncle are attempting to migrate to the U.S. from Honduras to join the father’s new family in New Jersey. Willy, aka El Casper, is a violent gang member in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico. His loyalties are divided between the gang and his girlfriend, however, so that neither trusts him. This leads to trouble which ultimately puts him on the same train northward through Mexico as Sayra.

The acting is excellent throughout, the pace brisk but never hectic, the violence appropriate to the circumstances.

I gave this five out of five on Netflix. I thought it was that good.

According to background I read about this movie, many of the extras portraying immigrants in the movie were in fact immigrants. As director Fukunaga reportedly said, he didn’t have to tell them what to do.

Tonight’s film

Tonight via Netflix streaming I watched Paris, je t’aime (Paris, I Love You), a 2006 montage about love in Paris consisting of 20 independent five-minute stories, one after the other, created by 20 filmmakers with an international cast, among them Juliette Binoche, Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe, Ben Gazzara, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bob Hoskins, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Nick Nolte, Natalie Portman, Gena Rowlands and Elijah Wood.

Not surprisingly, the 20 episodes varied considerably — some appealing more than others; some where five minutes was too long, some where it was too short, and some where it was just perfect. Several were touching; a few haunting.

In French with subtitles; some English.

Very, very enjoyable and different. Love comes in many forms.

Nice views and scenes from Paris, too.

The Band’s Visit

I watched an amusing little film this evening, The Band’s Visit, a 2007 Israeli movie on DVD from Netflix.

Eight members of the Alexandria [Egypt] Ceremonial Police Orchestra are stranded in a small Israeli town, misdirected from their scheduled appearance at an Arab cultural center. Mostly in English, with some subtitles for the Arabic and Hebrew, an exchange takes place among some members of the band, especially its leader, and a few of the isolated, bored and lonely people of the community. It’s amusing and touching and a study in human nature without being predictable.

The Band’s Visit is slow paced, more short story than major motion picture. Nothing really happens.

But it’s altogether delightful.

Best idea of the day

A year ago after seeing a local stage production of “12 Angry Men,” I wondered why someone didn’t rewrite the play as “Twelve Angry Women.” It seems to me the dynamic, even if the same biases were represented among the jurors, would be quite different with an all-female jury. Well-done it could be a striking antithesis with the classic movie.

I’m still wondering, but I know I’m not skilled enough to do it.

Män som hatar kvinnor

We saw the 2009 film version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo yesterday at Guild Cinema. The film is in Swedish with English subtitles; the title in Swedish (as with the book) is Män som hatar kvinnor or Men Who Hate Women.

It’s a fast-paced but not frenetic 2-1/2 hour adaption, faithful to the book in the essentials. There’s something to be said for seeing the movie first (surprise element) and something to be said for reading the book first, as I did (having a clue what is going on).

All of the acting is remarkable; Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander is simply all you could ask. It’s hard to imagine another actress in the part after this; how’s her English?

A Bourne-type film without being manic. We liked it a lot.

Plant the corn again, please

Charles Pierce isn’t a fan of Field of Dreams. An excerpt:

This is supposed to be a film about fathers and son, and the connective generational tissue that is baseball. As such, it can’t even get Shoeless Joe Jackson hitting from the correct side of the plate? Nobody thought to check? And, even if you buy the conversion of the novel’s J.D. Salinger character into the reclusive black-activist played by James Earl Jones, having done so, do you think that character wouldn’t have noticed that there didn’t seem to be any room for Josh Gibson, or Cool Papa Bell, or Buck Leonard out there beyond the cornfield? Heaven, apparently, is as segregated as the 1939 St. Louis Browns.

Elsewhere, Dave Kindred discusses his top three sports movies. They are:

3. Raging Bull
2. Bull Durham
1. The Hustler

Each of the above links deserves a click to read the whole essay.

Thanks to Avelino for the tip.

The Ox-Bow Incident

One of my very favorite western novels is The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Everyone should read it.

And one of my very favorite western movies is The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) with Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn, Harry Morgan and many others. I watch it every so often, including again this evening. The film has been selected for the National Film Registry as a “cultural, artistic and/or historical treasure.” But beyond that, it is a pleasure to watch.

Tonight I streamed the film from Netflix via my Wii. (The Wii Netflix disk arrived just today.) Of course, it’s a 67-year-old black and white film, but the streaming by Wii worked well.

All Wiis have built-in wireless capability.

How do movie theaters decide which trailers to show?

As many as six trailers play before features at major chains, like AMC and Regal. The studio releasing a given film typically has automatic rights to two of these slots, and theater executives (in consultation with higher-ups from various studios) select the remaining four. Though theoretically studios and theaters could attach any trailer to any movie, they usually decide which releases to promote by using the “quadrant” system, which divides potential audiences into four different categories: men under 25, women under 25, men over 25, and women over 25.

There’s more info at Slate Magazine.

Two films

I’ve watched two French films recently thanks to Netflix, one on DVD and one via streaming.

I like the way many European filmmakers spend more time with their story then our often special effects besotted American directors. I cannot say that the films are better written — my language skills are too limited — but surely characters are better defined. Good European movies are often like fine wine to be savored, not beer to be gulped.

The first was the romantic comedy The Valet [La doublure] (2006), featuring Gad Elmaleh as the loser parking valet François. His lifelong love refuses his proposal, but right after he finds himself pretending to be in a relationship with a famous supermodel — played by the stunningly beautiful Alice Taglioni. It really doesn’t matter what happens — it’s a romantic comedy for pity sakes — but it’s amusing, and all the right things happen to all the right people. Elmaleh played a similar character opposite Audrey Tautou in Priceless [Hors de prix] (2006), also an amusing film I liked. He seems to have a lock on the lovable French loser role.

The second film was Séraphine (2008), based on the life of the French primitive artist Séraphine Louis also known as Séraphine de Senlis. Yolande Moreau plays the title role and she is simply magnificent. Séraphine Louis was a rough middle aged cleaning woman when her work was discovered by art critic and collector Wilhelm Uhde just before World War I. The film takes time — truthfully a bit more time than absolutely necessary, but we are savoring — to show us Séraphine’s daily struggle with life, including gathering the natural materials she used in her art. It’s simply a lovely film that I intend to watch again. Ms. Moreau won the best actress award at Cannes in 2008 and the film won several 2009 César awards (the main national film awards in France), including best actress, writing, music, cinematography, costume, and best film. Indeed.

Image is painting by Séraphine de Senlis.

The Sheriff and the Movie Stars

Sheriff Greg Solano visits the set of True Grit to see Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. Worth a click if you like Jeff Bridges or Matt Damon or the Sheriff (and who doesn’t?).

The Cove

I watched the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove this evening.

The Cove follows an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers as they embark on a covert mission to penetrate a remote and hidden cove in Taiji, Japan, shining a light on a dark and deadly secret. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery, adding up to an unforgettable story that has inspired audiences worldwide to action.

The film makes you marvel, makes you cry, makes you angry, makes you frightened — not for the dolphins — for us. We are indeed a soulless species.

If you haven’t seen the film, you should. It’s good enough to win an Oscar and it’s important.

If you have seen it, what are we going to do about this tragedy?

Precious

The DVD of Precious came out Tuesday and I received it from Netflix yesterday. We watched it this evening and I have just one question?

Why did they even bother to nominate those other four actresses for best supporting actress?

Mo’Nique was extraordinary in a difficult role. I’m shaking my head as I type just thinking about it.

Gabourey Sidibe gave a stunning performance as well in the title role. I have seen three of the five best actress performances now. I thought Meryl Streep was wonderful, but would have voted for Sanda Bullock before tonight. Now I’m not so sure.

If you haven’t already seen Precious, find the time.

Even more impressive than Meryl Streep

Randy Newman has 18 Oscar nominations.

And just one win (for “If I Didn’t Have You”).

(Streep is two for 16.)

Perhaps even better line from Pierce

“Yes, Avatar was a great technological achievement.

“So was Teflon.”

Charles Pierce

Best line about the Oscars show, so far (II)

“[I]t wasn’t until I listened to Jeff Bridges’s acceptance speech that I realized how precisely autobiographical The Big Lebowski really was.”

Charles Pierce

Film buff

Yesterday I saw my sixth of the ten films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar — District 9. Seeing it didn’t change any of my predictions. I’m off to see Avatar later this morning — in 3D of course. I’ve already predicted it will win.

Yesterday, in addition to District 9, I also watched The Hangover, Raising Arizona and The Milagro Beanfield War.

I’m not entirely certain that getting an HDTV with a wireless internet connection (Netflix!) was a good thing.

Tom Hanks on winning and losing on Oscar night

Watch his facial expressions.