DEATH RACE (2008) (a review) ...and the original too...

DEATH RACE (2008) (a review)

This is the remake of the classic Roger Corman movie, DEATH RACE 2000, made in 1976 starring David Carradine. This one stars Jason Statham (Crank, Transporter, various Guy Richie movies and a good movie in The Bank Job) and has as his arch-nemesis Joan Allen. Yes, Joan Allen. Yikes.


The story: Jensen Ames (played by Jason Stathem) who loses his job and comes home to his loving wife and child only to have a man kill his wife and frame him for her murder. He is sent to prison where the warden (Joan Allen) gives him an opportunity to participate in the famous Death Race. You see, a famous racer, Frankenstein (a man so deformed he wears a mask at all times), is dead but because he is so popular the warden has kept it secret. If Ames takes his place (wears the mask) and wins the next race he can win his freedom and get back his daughter who is being rased by some else. Ames accepts and enters the race taking the place of the dead Frankenstein. This Death Race has the prisoner racing around a track inside the prison, gaining weapsons and shields on the track as they try to kill each other and win the race. During the race Ames will also find out that one of the racers is the man who killed his wife and that the warden set him. Now it's not just about racing...it's personal!

Um...okay. So they've taken all the social commentary out of the original (as well as all the humor) and made this into a pretty straight forward action flick. Which is okay, if they do it well, which unfortunately they didn't. In fact, this is an incredibly stupid movie. The first half is actually okay. We have the death of the original Frankenstein (played by David Carridine, reprising his role from the original) and we have Ames getting framed and sent to prison where we learn about the race and watch Ames do his thing. It's all pretty good, if kind of stiff. You've got this FUGATIVE angle of Ames being framed and you've got this action gimmick in the actual death race, but by midpoint there just isn't anything else to do. There isn't really any mystery about who killed Ames' wife and framed him and it's no surprise when the warden is behind it. So we just get more of the same -- more racing, that all looks basically the same -- more grunting, more attempts by people to sabotage his car and more and more ridiculous things thrown at him. How ridiculous does it get? Well, at one point the warden unleashes some monstrous car/train/tank/fire-missile thing at them in the middle of the race. Huh? Why? How does that play into the race at all? Wouldn't people watching wonder why the f&ck this thing is doing in the middle of the race? It makes no sense, but I'm sure they thought it would look good so what the hey.

And then the ending, again, makes no sense. So Ames was framed for mudering his wife. You'd think the finale would involve clearing his name and getting revenge. No, it's about escaping. And where do they escape to? Miami. Except now he's really a fugative who escaped from prison on national tv and is still wanted for the murder of his wife. And he has no money, except now that isn't a problem for some reason. WTF?

And how does that impact the television show that is Death Race or what it means to the prison system or how does any of this connect back to the basic concept? It doesn't. Oh, and how do they get revenge on the warden? They send a bomb to blow her up -- and it's not even Ames who does it but one of the other prisoners. But if it's so easy to kill her why not do it before? And if it's so important to kill her as revenge why isn't Ames doing it himself?

Seriously, the second half of this movie is just stupid. It was directed by Paul WS Anderson who has made a living off incredibly bad and stupid action movies and this is as bad as any of them. It's a shame too, because in a celebrity-reality show obsessed culture like we have it would seem that Death Race would be a great movie to remake. But the original Death Race 2000 worked because it had something to say and this is as empty and stupid as any movie ever made. Which isn't to say it has to comment on society or anything -- if they want to do a Fugative/Shawshank thing that's fine, but they use that to say something about...I don't know...getting framed or the system that doesn't care about innocence or something. This had nothing, so by the second half they have to just throw more and more ridicuous things at the screen.

Lame.

The one positive thing about the movie was his co-pilot, Case, played by Natalie Martinez, who is about the hottest woman I've seen on screen all year. I have to buy new glasses because seeing her caused my eyes to melt and now my perscription is wrong. Wow.

*** MAYBE RENT if you want a really dumb action movie and even then you should probably only watch the first half ***

Now let me talk a minute about the original DEATH RACE 2000, the classic Roger Corman film starring David Carradine.

First let me say...

*** ABSOLUTE CLASSIC -- MUST SEE -- HIGHEST RATING ****

The story: in the future, the president has become a dictator who controls the people by satisfying their blood lust with something called the Death Race, which has car racers driving across the country killing as many people as they can. Each kill get you points -- more points for the elderly, children and cripples. The drivers are as famous as rock stars and people will sacrifice themselves or others so their favorites can gain points. Of course, some people don't like them and want to kill them, so they have to beware of people setting traps. The movie centers on FRANKENSTEIN (played by David Carradine). Rumors abound about who he is and why he wears the mask, most assuming it is to hide a horrible disfigurement. In this race, Frankenstein gets a new navigator after killing his last one. What he doesn't know is this navigator is part of a resistance that wants to kill him. However, she learns that Frankenstein is not the real Frankenstein -- that it is just a name and a mask and when one Frankenstein is used up they get other, except this Frankenstein has a plan to end the race forever. Whoever wins the race gets to shake the hand of the president and he will use that to kill the president. Now his co-pilot has to help him win the race even as her own people are trying to kill him and the other racers trying to defeat him so he can get his chance to kill the president and end the race forever...

So what is this movie doing that is so much better than the remake. (Short answer: everything.) First, in addition to the action concept (which is there in both movies) there is the social commentary -- the bloody death-filled Death Race was a reflection of the violence obsessed culture of the 70's. Not only it that commentary there, but it is woven throughout the movie. The people who love the race and help the drivers to kill, the people who hate the race and try to kill the drivers. His co-pilot is part of the resistance. His plot to kill the president to end the race. Everything keeps pulling back to the concept of the race and what it means. In the remake, the race is just a plot device. The fact that it's a tv show never has any real influence on the protagonist. The story of the remake is really about a guy who is framed trying to get out, but there isn't much story there. There's no big mystery about who is behind it and he never does anything to clear his name. It doesn't even feel like a revenge film since going to jail and joining the race aren't part of his plan, so he really only starts to look to avenge his wife after midpoint and even the big finally is about escape, not revenge. So while the original does a great job keeping everything focused, the remake is (at best muddled). There's also the movie itself. The original while commenting on society's love of sex and violence also satified it with plenty of action, blood and nudity. It's about the R-rated side of society and they made an R-rated movie to explore it. The remake is oddly devoid of this. There is no sense of the bloolust that would make the death race popular within the race itself. The racers don't like it, the co-pilots don't like it, the warden doesn't like it. So why is it popular? Why does it exist at all? And again that's the problem -- the movie wants to use these things, but not really tap into them, which would be okay if there was some other, deeper story it wanted to tell, but there isn't. So while the original is focused and cool, the remake is at best a muddled mess of concept and story, neither of which support each other or make any sense.

Want to make a great movie? Come up with a cool concept, then use that concept to tell a good story and make sure everything -- every decision from the plot to the dialog to the character arcs to the casting to the set design will help support and focus on that story. If you have a muddled concept, if you have a muddled story, if your story and concept don't support each other, if those other decisions you are making don't support the story you are telling, then everything will fall apart and what you will get is at best a muddled hot mess and at worse is something stupid and lame. Like DEATH RACE (2008).

*** (original DEATH RACE 2000) -- CLASSIC MOVIE! MUST SEE!!! ****

*** DEATH RACE (2008 remake) -- MAYBE RENT if you want a lame action movie and even then you should turn it off by midpoint because it just gets more and more stupid from there ***

DEXTER SEASON ONE (a review)

DEXTER SEASON ONE (a review)

Yeah, I'm late to the game with Dex. This is a show people have been raving about since it first aired. I finally sat down and got through the first season. So how was it?

The story: Dexter is a serial killer. He works in forensics at a Miami police force and he kills bad people. Then a new serial killer comes to town, someone who seems to know Dexter's secret, someone whose killing are so elaborate and (to Dexter) wonderful that it becomes a kind of courtship between him and Dexter.


Now Dexter comes off as something dark and different and daring. It is a story centered on a serial killer and a lot of the episodes are about his serial killer-ness. Where most series would try to make him as normal as possible to keep him likable (they do make sure he only kills "bad" people), this series really dwells on the things that make him different -- how he has to fake emotions and his aversions to a lot of normal human behavior. But instead of pushing us away, they actually make the character more fascinating.

Overall I thought the first season was very well done with some really nice touches. I wasn't as drawn in because I've read about serial killers before, so a lot of it felt familiar and the ending -- the reveal of the Ice Truck Killer and his connection to Dexter was too pat and kind of lame. Still, there was enough good in this series that I can see why it got so much acclaim and I'll definitely be watching season two soon.

*** RECOMMEND ***

AND THEN CAME LOLA (a review)

AND THEN CAME LOLA (a review)

Lame.

Did you ever think: let's take a great little German character/action film and remake it with lesbians to try to hide the fact that we are screwing up all the things that worked in the original and have no idea how to make a film with any energy at all? Well, the people who made this film did.

The story: Lola gets call from her girlfriend that her gf is at a meeting and needs her photos to get a gig and she needs undependable Lola to get them before the person leaves at five o'clock. So Lola runs out of the apartment and goes through wacky encounters trying to get the photos to her. But everything goes wrong. Then we are back at the start and we go through it all again, but with variations, seeing now a different side. And then we do it again.

So the movie this lamer is a rip off of is RUN LOLA RUN. If you haven't seen it -- see it! RUN LOLA RUN is absolutely worth watching. In fact, let me review that movie first:

RUN LOLA RUN (a review)

The story: a girl gets a phone calls that her boyfriend lost some money he was supposed to deliver to drug dealers and she has to get $500K to him in an hour or they will kill him. She tries to get the money from her father, eventually robbing her own father and trying to get to her boyfriend. But she is too late. The bad guys shoot him. Dead. Then she wakes up back at the phone call and it starts again as she deperately tries to save him again...

The story is so simple and yet it is wonderfully well done. It the energy and urgency of an action film and yet using this look structure, it also gets to explore character. We see Lola (and her boyfriend) struggle with the seemingly impossible fate of her boyfriend's eventual death, trying to overcome their own bad decisions as they try to save him. Interspersed are the people Lola passes whose lives (fates) are shown to us through a series of still photos.

If you want something different, but want the energy of an action film, RUN LOLA RUN is a must see!

Now only the lame rip-off (with lesbians).

AND THEN CAME LOLA...wow. It's weird because you would think a movie that blantently rips off another movie so, well, blatently would at least be close to equal of the original. So where did they go wrong?

Well, first they changed it from more of an action/character film to a comedy. That in itself isn't bad -- I mean the same structure was used for GROUNDHOG'S DAY which was fantastic -- but it starts a series of bad decisions. First is the stakes. In the original it has Lola trying to save her boyfriend's life. In this one she is trying to get photos to her girlfriend so she can get a job. So what's the big deal about this job? Well, nothing as far as I can tell. And that's the problem -- there doesn't feel like there's anything at stake. Movies are driven by hope and fear. So we understand she would like to get the job, but if she doesn't...? So Lola's whole goal of delivering the photos seems bland. Now that could have been okay if they had bigger stakes for Lola -- for instance her gf thinks she is undependable and if she screws up one more time then her gf will leave her. Except that isn't set up well at all. There are places where it seems to go in that direction and others where it doesn't. Plus, the photos not being there isn't Lola's fault. The girlfriend was supposed to get them, but the shop was closed, then the business people pushed up the meeting. So even if Lola isn't able to get the photos to her gf, it's not like any of it is her fault. So, again, the movie feels like there just isn't anything at stake, which makes the movie feel very blah.

Added to this is the horrible directing. Now in most low budget movies, it's the acting that's bad, but here you have a premise about someone rushing to get these photos across town on time, and yet the movie has no energy at all. Part is the lack of stakes I mentioned, but the director again adds nothing, and not only doesn't add, didn't even copy from the original -- and you wuld think at they'd be trying to at least make it on par with the movie they are ripping off.

Interspersed with the running and photos Lola runs into an ex- and her current and the movie does seem to want to say something about love or relationships or something, but to be honest to story construction is so muddled that by the end instead of making a statement with some impact everything is just blah.

No stakes. No energy. No good.

*** (Run Lola Run) -- HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION ****

*** (And then Came Lola) -- AVOID ****

a post about those Duke haters...

"I hate Duke almost as much as I hate the Nazis." -- Burt Hummel on GLEE.

Wow. Duke haters even on GLEE? This is a show about high school musical theater and even they hate Duke? Seriously? This line comes at the end of the episode when ??? and Fynn finally bond after Fynn has accepted that Kurt's dad is dating his mom -- the first man she's dated since his dad died. And how do they bond? By watching sports. And what's the first thing Kurt's dad says? (See quote above.)

Ouch.

Well, GLEE, I still love you. But your writers are a bunch of pussies.

It's Bango's world. We just live in it.

Bango is the mascot of the Milwaukee Bucks. He's a guy in a fuzzy dear suit. And he's just about the most amazing thing I've seen in a while. Don't believe me? Check out this mega-redaculous dunk as he does a back flip off a 16 foot ladder.

Yes...a BACK FLIP...off a LADDER!



From another angle:



Here's another video made to support the Buck's new slogan -- Fear the Deer!



A highlight reel:



Cheerleader gets attacked by Houston mascot and saved by Bango:



Like I said -- It's Bango's world. We just live in it.

SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE (a review)

SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE (a review)

So this is another movie about someone dating someone they think is too good for them. I've also reviewed THE TRUTH ABOUT THE AVERAGE MAN (where a guy has his friend pretend to be mentally challanged so he can be with a girl he thinks is too good for him) and I COULD NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN (where an older woman dates a younger man and is constantly insecure about it). How did this one fare compared to the others?

The story: Kirk (Jay Baruchel) is insecure. He isn't proud of his job at airport security, he's never really done anything, his last girlfriend dumped him and his parents seem to still like her and her new bo' more than him. Then he meets Molly (Alice Eve), who not only is beautiful but also seems to have done everything Kirk couldn't imagine -- she was a lawyer but left it to pursue something she loved more and is now a very successful party planner, she has traveled, she has a great apartment, and she has dated other hot, successful people. No one -- including Kirk's friends and family -- think he is good enough for her and the movie is about him struggling with his insecurity.

Um...yeah. So this movie, like I COULD NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN, is all about a person being insecure even when the other person really isn't giving them any reason to be. It's not like the girl is flirting with other guys or ignoring him or doing anything to make him think she isn't into him. And I get that insecurity is tough to shake and it can be self-destructive, etc -- but as a movie it's pretty boring. It's the same note again and again -- he's insecure, all his friends say he isn't good enough, yada yada yada. There are some laughs and some decent moments, but it just feels like the same thing over and over until late in the second act when Molly reveals that she is dating him because her ex- cheated on her and she thought he would be safe and that he wouldn't hurt her. For me, that was a cool moment because instead of just him (and his friends) thinking that he isn't good enough it really is that BOTH of them don't think he's good enough. And if that had come earlier (by midpoint at the latest) it could have been a really interesting movie. Instead it comes way too late, only after we've sat through an entire second act of the same thing over and over and over.

Still, it wasn't horrible. But it wasn't great either.

*** neutral ***

a post about those Duke Haters...

From an ESPN special on JJ Redick (Duke 2001-2005, one Final Four, National Player of the Year). At one point Travis Clay of CBS Sportsline called Redick the "most hated current athlete in America."[

OVERNIGHT (documentary) (a review)

OVERNIGHT (documentary) (a review)

This is a documentary about Troy Duffy, a Los Angeles bartender who sold his first script for $1M to Miramax that launched him as a filmmaker and his band to superstardom...except it didn't and this documentary chronicles the rise and crash and burn of this writer/director/musician in Hollywood.

The story: the movie starts and Duffy has just sold his first script to Miramax in a $1M deal where Harvey Winestein evens says he'll buy him the bar he works at. He will get to direct the movie and his band will ecord the sound track. But then things go wrong. His in-your-face attitude and ego cause clashes with everyone around him -- with Miramax executives, with his agents, and finally with his friends and family. Eventually he is able to make his movie, only to take it to the Cannes Film Festival only to see it go unsold to distributors.

Okay, well, that's it. Not much to add about the movie. It is a fascinating look at at a young man who gets a big break and how everything falls apart. I actually don't think his story is that different from a lot of people who get a break in Hollywood only to see it not progress the way they wanted. One thing left out (because the documentary was finished in 2004) was that the movie, THE BOONDOCK SAINTS, did well enough on home video that he got to make a sequel. So maybe there's a little more hope for him than the movie implies...not that he necessarily deserves it.

*** RECOMMEND ****

THE TRUTH ABOUT AVERAGE GUYS (a review)

THE TRUTH ABOUT AVERAGE GUYS (a review)

How bad can a movie be made and still be pretty good? This movies seems to be trying to answer that question. Because it is really bad, but it is still pretty good.

The story: pretty standard stuff -- an average guy likes his hot co-worker. He tries schemes to get closer to her, but she still doesn't notice him. When he finds out that she has a mentally handicapped sister, he lies and tells her his brother is also mentally handicapped and then gets his friend to pretend to the lie so he can get close to her. Eventually, of course, the lie will be exposed, etc, etc.

So the actual story is pretty standard stuff. It's a rom-com formula where the protagonist uses a creative lie (that his friend is his mentally handicapped brother) so he can get close to the girl. And that part to the movie is okay, if completely by the numbers. What makes the movie worth watching is the scenes among the group of guys. Just like in apatow movies, it's these scenes with the friends who are both supportive and ripping on each other that are the best -- they have the best energy, the biggest laughs and even hit on an occasional true thing. For those scenes alone (with a decent but not special story) the movies gets --

Okay, before I give the movie it's recommend I have to talk about how badly this movie was made. How bad is it? There's camera noise. Seriously. There is camera noise. So what's camera noise? Well, in a film camera you have a spool of film that is pulled down and run past the lens and then respooled on the other side of the camera, and while it is doing this it makes a small amount of noise, noise that the sound microphones will pick up almost every time. And one of the first things filmmakers do is get rid of the sound. It's why most people don't know about camera noise -- because every professional film gets rid of it, or masks it, comepletely. Here it is everywhere. It's even in shots that don't need sound. For instance there's an exterior shot with a guy walking up to the house and the only noise you hear is camera noise? Seriously? You have it even on an MOS shot? You didn't just cut it in post and lay over a couple seconds of ambiant sound???? OMFG! And once you hear it once in the movie you begin to notice it again and again and again -- in dialog scenes (where it can be hard to remove) to MOS to everything else. It's like they did no sound editing on the film at all.

And it's this lack of attention to detail that hurts the film. A lot. For instance, there are dialog scenes where there are weird gaps in the dialog where one person speaks and the next person waits to say their response. Waits a lot. In a pro film, you would have coverage and be able to cut and tighten the dialog. Here, nope. And for a film that is basically dialog driven this kills those scenes.

Arggg! I could go on. This is a movie that has problems all the way through it. Huge, amateur problems. It really feels like a movie made by people still in film school. Like their first year of film school. And yet, I'll give it up that overall the movie was enjoyable. But if you watch it don't listen for the camera noise, because once you near it it will distract from almost every scene. Or make a drinking game out of it. A very, very big drinking game.

I will say that the writing is pretty solid. Not spectacular, but solid. The one place where it lapses is the title -- the truth about average guys -- because it never really talks about this truth until the very end, which is epsecially weird since there are plenty of group of guy scenes where they could talk about this truth. Now maybe the title came after the movie was made, but it's a shame because the title implies a better, more interesting movie that the filmmakers never quite get to.

*** rental recommend (if you like Apatow movies) ***

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (a review)

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (a review)

So this is the story about four guys who are at unhappy stages in their lives and go back in time accidentally and find themselves caught in a mess where they kind of have to relive their lives, but also change them and one of them is disappearing because he's actually a kid and won't be born if they don't get back to the future. Did I say "Back To the Future"? I meant back to the present. But, yes, this is basically the raunchy guy-comedy version of BACK TO THE FUTURE.

So is it any good. Um, a little. There are some laughs, there are some little moments, a couple lines of dialog. The problem is there just isn't anything great. There are no BIG laughs and worst of all -- there ins't anything cool about it. And that's the big problem, because if you are going to call the movie something like "Hot Tub Time Machine" it can't just be a decent guy-comedy, it's going to have to be as smart and funny and cool as BACK TO THE FUTURE and the best of the best of Apatow all rolled into one. And this just isn't there.

Now that isn't to say that HOT TUB TIME MACHINE is horrible. It just isn't great. If you're trolling for a movie on cable or looking for something to rent, it'll do fine. But as movie theater fare goes, it just doesn't have enough oomph. (Notice how I didn't say "heat." Puns = death.)

*** maybe a rental ****

So let's compare for a moment since my dinner is cooling the twin accidental time travel movies, BACK TO THE FUTURE and HOT TUB TIME MACHINE. What is it that BTTF does so well that HTTM fails at? Well, first is the characters. In BACK TO THE FUTURE, Marty McFly spends the entire first act being dumped on. His band is rejected from playing prom. His dad is a wimp. The family car gets totalled which means he can't take his girlfriend out on a trip that weekend. Notice a theme here: it isn't just that things are going badly, but that things are going badly that he can't control. He auditions, but is rejected. He tries to get his dad to stand up to the local bully, but his dad refuses. He wants to take his gf out, but the car is totalled. This isn't just about sympathy, this is about the life of a teen where there is so much you want to do, but so often feel like you don't get a chance because of things outside your control (like your parents saying no.) Even his going back in time was beyond his control. He is visiting the professor when they are attacked and he is trying to escape. Things spiral out of control back in time as well, as he screws up the past trying to save his father from a car and now everything is beginning to unravel, including his very existance. Now he must act to save himself by helping his father, and it is by helping his father in the past that he will affect (positively) the present. Pretty cool, right?

Now let's talk about HOT TUB TIME MACHINE. Here you have four guys whose lives suck. Dumped by girlfriend one of them pines for the high school girlfriend he dumped (the one who got away), another has a wife who is cheating on him but he won't leave, there's a geeky computer nerd nephew living in basement who doesn't know who his father is, and a fourth guy who is suicidal for some reason I don't remember. Because their friend is suicidal, they take him up to ski country for a weekend of partying in the place where they had this wild weekend and they go back in time, yada yada yada. Now right away there's some clear differences. While BTTF exploits that very nature of teen-ness of the lack of control, HTTM doesn't really exploit anything. They are just four guys who are in the dumps. So they accidently go back in time and...what? Of course, they try not to change things, then they do change things but so what? And that's one of the problems -- on that pure emotional level the movie just isn't doing anything. Now you can get away with that in a comedy if you have a lot of cool and a lot of big laugh funny (ala THE HANGOVER). But in THE HANGOVER they had some cool, crazy things happening -- like that lion and Mike Tyson. HTTM doesn't have anything like that. And it doesn't have those cool time travel moments like in BTTF when he realizes his dad as a teen is spying through his mom's window? And then the lines "Where are my pants?" "There, on my hope chest"? Or how people thought his name was Calvin Kline because it was on his underwear? BTTF had TONS of great little moments as well as big cool stuff -- like a time machine built into a Delorian and the sequence with the lightning storm to get him back to the present. There just aren't any cool moments like that in HTTM. The best is when one of the guys, a failed musician, plays a gig and rocks out a modern song for the audience (almost exactly like McFly does at the school prom in BTTF).

So in the end where BACK TO THE FUTURE really seems to deal with that teen situation of things out of your control, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE just doesn't deal with anything. That's why BACK TO THE FUTURE is a classic and HTTM is a rental.

MILLENIUM TRILOGY - Girl with Dragon Tatto, Girl Who Played with Fire, and Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (a review)

MILLENIUM TRILOGY:

Girl with the Dragon Tatto

Girl Who Played with Fire

Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

(a review)

*** RECOMMEND ***

This is a review of the three Swedish films that make up the Millenium Trilogy, based on the best selling books by Stieg Larsson. The movies are detective stories centered on Mikael Blomkvist, a reporter for the magazine Millenium, and a tough lesbian computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander I'll do a short description of each story, trying to keep it as spoiler free as possible (although obviously I will have to let a few things out) with a brief summary afterwards. NOTE: these were the Swedish versions with subtitles that I watched and the subtitles didn't always seem to fit so it's possible I have a few details off.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

The story: the first movie in the trilogy starts with Blomkvist losing a libel case against a corrupt Swedish industrialist and sentenced to jail. When he gets out, he is asked to investigate the 37-year old case of a girl who went missing. It is a classic detective case: the family lives on an island and the bridge to the mainland was closed. There was no way on or off the island, and yet the girl completely disappeared. The man who hires Blomkvist suspects a member of his own family, but does not know who. Meanwhile, the corrupt Swedish industrialist had hired a tough, leather wearing computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, to spy on Blomkvist. She has become fascinated by him and comes to help him with the case. Together they begin to crack open the case and reveal all the dark family secrets the family had kept hidden.

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

The story: we start a year after the end of the first movie. Lisbeth Salander has been abroad, using her hacking skill to amass a large amount of money. Blomkvist has been trying to keep in touch with her, but she doesn't respond. At the Millenium, a young reporter has uncovered information about a human trafficking/prostitution ring that has ties to members of government. As he is investigating he is murdered and Lisbeth Salander is framed for it. It gets worse when her guardian, the man who raped her in the first movie, is also murdered. Blomkvist believes she is innocent and they both (seperately) will try to unravel the case, but to do it they will have to delve deeper and deeper into Salander's past.

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST

The story: starting immediately at the end of the second movie. Lisbeth Salander has been apprehended by police, still accused of the murders. She is placed in the hospital while she recovers from her injuries and awaits trial. Meanwhile, Blomkvist tries to uncover why Lisbeth has been so mistreated, leading to a conspiracy within the government and leading deeper and deeper into Lisbeth's past.

****

First, these aren't your typical Agatha Christie-type movies. They are much darker, dealing with some pretty intense elements of sex and violence. That's made very clear early in the first movie when Lisbeth Salander, the fierce 17-year old computer hacker meets her new guardian who proceeds to rape her. See, these movies aren't just about solving cases, they are about the various abuses women suffer and how the very institutions that should be protecting them often deliver them to the people who will abuse them.

Larsson also doesn't seem that interested in the traditional detective story. Much like HANNIBAL was very different from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, but the second and third films are very different from the first. In fact, while the first movie worked best as a buddy-detective movie, Salander and Blomkvist are almost never together in the second or third movies, as Larsson movies from a standard detective story-structure to something that will let him delve into the psyche of his most interesting character, Lisbeth Salander.

In fact, as detective stories, the movies didn't do much for me at all. The cases themselves were in parts okay, in others difficult to follow (which might be from bad translations or from my habit of multi-tasking), but at no time did I find the mystery of the missing girl of the first movie or the murders/conspiracy of the second and third movies to be particularly engrossing. So as pure detective movies, I'd probably pass.

What made the movie work for me was the character Lisbeth Salander. She was abused as a child, wrongly institutionalized and now then further abused. Now is a fiernce, intelligent, uncompromising force of nature in these movies. I don't think it's an accident that the first movie is named after her (well, the American name -- the original Swedish name is "Men who Hate Women") and that the second and third movie focus more and more on Lisbeth and her past. Some of this works and some doesn't. I thought the second movie was the weakest of the three. The framing and revealing of her past was a bit too much, making her the center of a decade-long conspiracy. The third movie continues this, but switches focus in the second half to a trial where Lisbeth has to face the psychiatrist who committed her as an adolecent and wants her to be committed again. It is a fascinating section, where we see how the system has been manipulated by men to silence her and to allow her abuse to continue. And it is Lisbeth's response -- not wild anger, but with intelligence and a fierce will -- that make the movie worth watching.

If you think of the movies as being great detective stories you might be disappointed, but if you see them as a chance to meet one of the most interesting female characters of the last few years, the movies are a pretty cool trip.

*** RECOMMEND ***

Last week's comic book convention...

Last weekend I went to the Wizard World Anaheim comic book convention. It was a pretty dumb weekend to have a comic book convention as there was a HUGE comic book convention in Chicago that same weekend. So there was no Marvel, no DC, no promos for Iron Man or Toy Story or any of the other big movies coming out. They did have one big draw...STAN LEE!

Stan "the Man" Lee

Creator of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Iron man and the Hulk!

I missed the discussion/Q&A where he was promoting his latest book so I could try to get into a signing. Unfortunately I didn't get in the signing either, but I did get this picture while he was doing his signing. He's about 89 and still active creating and meeting fans. Love ya, Stan!

Because of that other comic con, they got a bunch of celebrities to come and sell autographs. Some stars included: William Shatner (yes, Captain Kirk himself!), Kevin Sorbo (Hercules), Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs (Charmed), Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, and (the original 60's Batman tv series), Jewel Staite (Firefly/Serenity), Ed Asner (Mary Tyler Moore Show), Mickey Dolenz (The Monkeys), Gil Gerard and Erin Gray (original Buck Rogers series), Doug Jones (Hellboy, Silver Surfer), Christopher Knight (Brady Bunch), Jason Mewes (Clerks), Nichelle Nichols (the original Star Trek), Billy Dee Williams (the Lando Calrisian!), Verne Troyer (it's Mini-Me! And holy cow is he tiny!) and a lot more I didn't really know or care about.

Since they were trying to sell photos (which they would sign) they didn't want you taking random photos but I got a few and pulled a couple from the net:

Adam West (the original Batman)

Jewel Staite (Firefly, Serenity)

Jewel Staite

Doug Jones

Anya Monzikova

William Shatner (the original Captain Kirk, Star Trek)

Original Batman cast (Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar and ???)

Jason Mewes (Clerks, Feast)

Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrision, Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back)

Nichelle Nichols (the original Ohuru, Star Trek)

Verne Troyer (Mini-Me from Austin Powers)

Doug Jones (Hellboy, Silver Surfer) and Kathy Najimy (from Numb3rs, Wall-E)

Diane Franklin (Last American Virgin -- one of the coolest and most brutal teen comedies ever made...I'll have to do a full post about that movie soon)

And the Back to the Future Delorian!


There also were a few people in costumes. There was one really good Predator costume I thought I got, but apparently didn't. For some reason there were mainly Star Wars costumes, although there wasn't anything SW-related about the con. Here are a few and some superhero costumes. Nothing close to the wildness of SDCC in July, but a few:

kid Iron Man and Storm

Batman and little Batmen

Doctor Octopus

Black Cat and Batgirl

Batmobile (from original tv show)

Batgirl (sideways)

Supergirl costume

Car from movie Kick A**

(The Batmobile, Batgirl sideways, Supergirl, and the car in Kick A**)

Jedi Training

Ghostbusters

Droids, inc R2D2

C3P0 and R2D2

Boba Fett

Storm Trooper

And I did get some comic book things. Here are a couple sketches:

Emma Frost by Phil Jimenez

Ms Marvel by Mike Mayhew

Catwoman by Simon Bisley

Supergirl by Drew Johnson

That Ms Marvel sketch is by artist Mike Mayhew, best known for his fully painted artwork, which is just gorgeous. I also got some large prints he had that are fantastic. I wish he'd had more! Just beautiful!