Need New Movie + Video Suggestions

[Eric Menchen]

BTW, V for Vendetta is pretty good in a 'graphic novel' sort of way.

+1 on that. I thought the story was good and it was visually worthwhile as well. It might be something to watch again on Blu-Ray if I get a player and new TV.

[Roy Hersh]

The Book of Eli


An odd film, feels a little bit like KILL BILL, but the character portrayed by Denzel W. was interesting in a "Desperado/El Mariachi" kind of way.

Invictus was also very good and I liked some of the rugby footage as well as excellent roles by Damon and Freeman.

[Roy Hersh]

It was well over a decade since the last time I watched, A FISH CALLED WANDA. I saw it again last night and LOL continuously. A+

[Peter W. Meek]

AFCW is truly a classic.

[Peter W. Meek]

Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton

Just watched this. Not the Lewis Carroll story, but "Alice comes back to Wonderland" as a young lady. Same characters. Johnny Depp does well as the Hatter and I truly like the Cheshire Cat in this one. Way better than Disney ever did (although this is distributed by Disney). Helena Bonham Carter does the Red Queen in a truly over-the-top performance. Available as a 3D IMAX experience, but it doesn't need either kind of fluff.

If you like Alice, you may like this, if you go in understanding that it isn't Carroll.

There are always comments on movies on my Monday Night at the Movies blog, as well as comments on the Ports we drink:

http://home.comcast.net/~pwmblog/site/?/blog/

[Andy Velebil]

I just got Alice in Wonderland in the mail, love Netflix. Hopefully I can find some time to watch it later this week.

[Roy Hersh]

I watched this great documentary on the life and films of John Cazale: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352717/

[Roy Hersh]

The movie WANTED (2008) with Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.

[Andy Velebil]

with Angelina Jolie

Duh

[Roy Hersh]

She is coming out with a new movie that looks even better ... well at least, well, you know.

[Roy Hersh]

A fine Lebanese film, Caramel, which pairs best with Musar Rouge.

[Andy Velebil]

A fine Lebanese film, Caramel, which pairs best with Musar Rouge.

vintage????

[Roy Hersh]

Best film I have seen so far this year: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo is all about the actress Noomi Rapace and what she is able to achieve on screen. Not for the squeamish, the intensity of this film rivals the 1963 Nacional. A brilliant cuvee of Silence of the Lambs, Kill Bill and The Spanish Prisoner. 99 points.

I can't wait to see the Swedish sequel in the theater this coming weekend.

[Peter W. Meek]

Best film I have seen so far this year: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo is all about the actress Noomi Rapace and what she is able to achieve on screen. Not for the squeamish, the intensity of this film rivals the 1963 Nacional. A brilliant cuvee of Silence of the Lambs, Kill Bill and The Spanish Prisoner. 99 points.

I can't wait to see the Swedish sequel in the theater this coming weekend.

I certainly rated the books (3) as among the all-time best of their kind. The first movie is here, waiting for me to get a chance to view it.

[Peter W. Meek]

Best film I have seen so far this year: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

Sorry; I have to disagree. The books were so much more vivid. If you've read them, the film is a serious disappointment.

In the original Swedish, it may have been better, but both the dubbing and the subtitling were atrocious.

Take note that this is based on a novel-in-three-parts and is only the first third.

They added an entire extraneous sexual relationship that was never there in the book and completely left out the important one; skipped over a ton of stuff that will be critical to understanding the 2nd and 3rd parts of the story.

Read the books. The translations of all three are far better than the movie rendition.

I'd rate the book series as one of the top 10 of their kind, but the movie (1st of 3) as one of the premier examples of how a movie can do a terrible job of carrying the effect of the book.

[Glenn E.]

Best film I have seen so far this year: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

Sorry; I have to disagree. The books were so much more vivid. If you've read them, the film is a serious disappointment.

In the original Swedish, it may have been better, but both the dubbing and the subtitling were atrocious.

Take note that this is based on a novel-in-three-parts and is only the first third.

They added an entire extraneous sexual relationship that was never there in the book and completely left out the important one; skipped over a ton of stuff that will be critical to understanding the 2nd and 3rd parts of the story.

Read the books. The translations of all three are far better than the movie rendition.

I'd rate the book series as one of the top 10 of their kind, but the movie (1st of 3) as one of the premier examples of how a movie can do a terrible job of carrying the effect of the book.

I'll be the uber contrarian and disagree with you both!

For me, the books aren't all that great. As a Port I'd probably rate them in the 85-87 range - they're good enough to be worth reading, and in fact are quite good in some respects, but I wouldn't call them outstanding and they're certainly not classics. I really don't understand all the hype about them, because I find the author's writing style to be plodding and distracted. Tom Clancy was really the master of weaving multiple seemingly unrelated threads into a single cohesive whole; Larsson appears to be trying to use that structure but, at least for me, fails.

I wasn't too thrilled with the movie either, even given my less-than-amazing appreciation of the books. It's certainly not in the running for best film of the year for me... I'm not even sure I'd rate it above Knight and Day. (Yeah, I know, all you want. What can I say, I can appreciate popcorn.) It's far superior in some aspects, but greatly inferior in others. Peter touched on part of the problem - they had to cut out a tremendous amount of the book in order to make a standard length film. Personally I think it would have been much better off with a "Lord of the Rings" style treatment - make the movie and who cares how long it is. However, they could have done better editing. The Harry Potter movies prove that you can cut out substantial parts of a book and still make a coherent whole; Dragon Tattoo fails to do this in my opinion. I suspect that if you haven't read the book that the movie will seem full of holes and somewhat incoherent, but I can't say for sure because I have read the book.

I think that Dragon Tattoo is more-or-less independent of the 2nd and 3rd books. There is one over-arching theme that ties all of the books together, but really book 1 is one story while books 2 and 3 combined are a second story. The difference is similar to a long running episodic TV series such as Star Trek, vs an operatic show like Lost. You can pick up Star Trek at any point, and while there will be a few things that you don't really understand they're not critical to the main plot of each episode. You can't really pick up Lost mid-season because the shows are intimately tied together week to week.

As far as the sexual relationships go, there's only one (that I can remember) in the movie and it is very definitely in the book. They left out three that I can think of, but to me really none of them (including they one the kept) are all that critical to the plot. I guess the one involving Mimi would probably be the most important unincluded relationship, but as I recall they completely cut Mimi out of the movie and will probably simply continue to do so in the subsequent movies. Some of the other stuff that ties book 1 to books 2 and 3 can easily be added as background material at the start of the 2nd movie, so that may be what they're planning to do. For example Irene Nesser isn't necessary to close out book 1 as a stand-alone movie, but she'll need to be explained for parts of the next 2 movies to make sense.

[Roy Hersh]

I appreciate both of your points of view, but since I've not read the books, the comments are moot. As a film on its own, viewed with no preconceptions and solely judged on its own merits, I felt it was fantastic. Great action, interesting plot twists, unique characters w/flaws yet developed enough to begin to understand them ... a bit. I am a big fan regardless of the greatness or not, of the books.

[Glenn E.]

That's very cool, actually. It seems like everyone I know has already finished all 3 books (I'm in the middle of the 3rd one) and so I haven't been able to get an opinion of the film from someone "uncontaminated" by the books.

We'll have to chat about it when you have some spare time... which will probably be some time in November!

[Roy Hersh]

Or on bus rides in the Douro!

[Peter W. Meek]

Good point about being "uncontaminated" by the books. That would probably make a huge difference in how the movie seemed.

A second issue; My wife came into the room about halfway through the movie (never having read the book) and it took me about 15 minutes to bring her "up to speed". What DID get into the movie was very dense in terms of critical information. Not a movie that could be watched while distracted or "multi-tasking".

I plan to watch it several more times. It may improve as I catch more detail.

If Swedish crime novels can make the transition to movies watched in english, there are all the Per Waloo and Henning Mankell books which were pretty good in translation.