Lana the Dog and Alien: Covenant

Thanks for coming back! I've been gone a long time, because of a stubborn chest cold and work overload.

So a few quick things:

--Lana has been saved! Thanks to those of you who told me you went to the shelter's Facebook page!

--Looks to be like the Trump administration--and I do mean all of them--have been to brunch with Russia, if you catch my drift. We can impeach a guy who slept with an intern, but not a guy who for years has been in bed with the Russians? It'll get uglier before it gets better, and I'm not sure I want Mike Pence at the con, either. Maybe if it's proved the entire election was rigged, they all go, and we do it all over again. The proof is there. Someone just has to type it up. Where's Woodward and Bernstein when we need them?

--And Jared Kushner is yet another thug in an expensive suit. He and all of his brothers-in-law.

--Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant, which I just saw today, is a visually stunning film of bleh! I'm really upset about how he chose to deviate from Prometheus's sense of ideological wonder and instead delve into monomaniacal domination, which we've seen plenty of times before. I'm also angry about what he did with Noomi Rapace's Elizabeth Shaw character, an awesome, riveting, strong women who deserved a helluva lot better than this. Like her, I also wanted to know about the Engineers, and about why they created, and then wanted to destroy, us. You'll see why we're now never going to know. Why would a very talented director waste so much time making a visual but morose film? And the captain...I swear, he must be the dumbest character this side of Friday the 13th movies. After seeing lots of death and destruction and aliens, he actually peers inside a hatching alien cocoon for several long moments. Deserved what he got, though Ridley Scott made him suffer for way too long, after he asked David, the Synthetic, philosophically, about what he believed in. Odd last question. Watch Prometheus again and skip this one.

A Very, Very Short Book Review -- The Sleep Room

Photo: from the Washington Post's review of the book

Very good, pleasant read that will make you feel you are there, and maybe make you feel a little smarter, without taking that much out of you. As usual with Tallis, he excels at place and time, is a little short on female characters, is heavy on the psychology and philosophy, maybe mentions Freud a little too much, and adds a wrinkle that you should see coming but that you appreciate nonetheless. Such has been the case with the Leibermann series set in Vienna--actually with Freud--and the two non-mysteries I've read. The end result is a pleasant excursion that leaves you with something to think about. Especially interesting is the Cartesian confusion of reality versus dreams. Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am, but how do you know you're not dreaming of thinking that? What if, in fact, what we think are our dreams are actually our reality, and our reality is nothing but slumber?

The book is set in a supposedly haunted mental health facility, which is run by a well-known and well-connected guy who believes in putting his patients to sleep for many months for therapuetic reasons. (This is all supposedly based on a real guy and a real place, according to Tallis's notes at the end.) But the discerning reader is a little wary right away, especially this one, who has seen The Others and such films, and is ready to be psychologically waylaid. When the patient reports start coming, and one of them refers to a report (one of two) that isn't presented with it, you should know what to expect at the end, in the last report.

When it comes, though, you're not dissatisfied, exactly. I think this is because Tallis doesn't seem to think that he's pulling a fast one on us. He knows we know what's coming, but it's in the getting there that matters. Tallis treats the reader intelligently, and writes intelligent stories that never become highbrow or condescending, so for that we're willing to go along for the ride, even if we know how the ride will end. It's a pleasant enough journey, and the ideas presented are interesting. It's not as depressing an ending as it could've been, either, because you saw it coming miles away.

For the record, I disagree with the "extreme paranoia" mentioned at the end, as I don't think the character's misgivings go too far, but that's perhaps the point in this made-up world of his. I think it would've perhaps been a little more interesting and convincing to have one of the other characters in that situation at the end, which would've led to more interesting world-building. But this could've also been messed-up big-time by Tallis, at which point the whole book would've perhaps felt like a waste, or maybe it would've seemed like it had a condescending tone, like it was over-reaching. Read it, and decide, and leave me a message if you'd like. Makes me want to write my own take on this whole thing in my own story or novel, and end it the way I say. We'll see.

My Top-10 Films of 2015 (So Far)

I may see one or two more before the year ends, but thus far here's my listing of the 10 films I saw this year.  When I've already written a blog entry for it, a link will be provided in the title of the movie:

10. Terminator: Genisys

A big let-down, and the only film I saw in the theatre this year that had me checking my watch. Couldn't wait for it to end. And making John Connor the antagonist was the biggest bonehead decision of 2015. Well, before Slater elected to kick away in overtime in yesterday's Patriots game.

9.  The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I: I 90% liked it; 10% didn't.  Read about that here.

8.  Bridge of Spies

Not a bad film, exactly, as my blog entry said. But I couldn't recommend it with excitement, either. A professionally made, professionally acted, professionally delivered movie, and all over the year end's Top-10 lists in many places (and #8 for me, though I only saw 10 total movies as of 12.28.15.), but still not a film that will generate awe or excitement. Spielberg's genius works against him here. My expectations for his films are sky-high, and this isn't. Even more low-key than Lincoln was, but without Day-Lewis's awe-inspiring performance. A good film for a Sunday afternoon on cable.

7. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Middle East is a land mass unlike any other in the world.  Without traveling it, if you want to get to Africa, you'd have to take a ship or plane.  Those who control the Middle East control all trade (today, much or most of the trade) coming and going from all of Africa.  Control that, and you will have riches and power, then and now.  Combine that with the extreme religious significance of those lands (three of the world's major religions spring from it) and combine that with the concentration of oil there, and you've got land that everyone wants. And they'll all fight for it. Forever.

Now think of this movie, and that mountain. It's got gold and not oil, but it's all otherwise the same. A better movie than it's being given credit for, especially when compared to Jackson's LOTR films. And a very political movie, too. It's got something very relevant to say.

6.  Spectre

A very good Bond film, Daniel Craig's 3rd-best, IMO, after Skyfall and Casino Royale. Expecting it to be as good as Skyfall was indeed too much to ask, and that's okay. The planets aligned for Skyfall, which was a better movie than it had a right to be, and perhaps was the best in all of Bond. And a great movie in of itself, by itself, that transcended the genre. Spectre doesn't do that, but it's a great ride nonetheless, and Christoph Waltz's performance is as good as you figured it would be. Though it's not as good as Javier Bardem's in Skyfall, Waltz doesn't have as much to work with, either. There are a couple of head-scratches here, in terms of what Blofeld does, and you wonder why he's treated as well as he is at the end (to better set him up in the sequel?), but overall this was a good ride.

Honorable Mention: Jaws (re-release).  This would have been rated if it had been released this year.

Top Five Next Blog Entry--to be continued

Saving animals; TerrorCon, and Linda Blair

Photo: Linda Blair and an unshaved fan.  You can still see the little girl from The Exorcist in her face.

Not too much to say here, except that some time ago I was fortunate enough to go to TerrorCon and to get my picture taken with Linda Blair and a few others, as well as with many Jaws props.  (In blogs to come.)

In case you didn't know, Linda Blair was Regan in The Exorcist, still one of the best (and creepiest) horror films ever made.  (Though I am seemingly amongst the minority who sees Ridley Scott's Prometheus as a masterpiece.  I saw it again last night [or this morning, depending on your POV] and was still jolted a few times.  Every time I see it I get something new, important, and scary out of it.  How many films can you say that about?)  A blog entry to come will be about The Exorcist, as well, so stay tuned.

I don't have anything new to add about Linda Blair's filming of The Exorcist.  If you're reading this, you're probably a fan of the film, and if you're a fan of the film you already know that the really bad lines to come out of Linda Blair's mouth was over-dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge (though initially said by Blair), and that she didn't know the meaning of what she was saying most of the time.  She was a down-to-Earth kid (so much so that William Friedkin, the director, was a little surprised by the directness of her answers during their interview) and she had a good time during filming.  She did, and didn't, like the incredible attention she received afterwards.  And, of course, she was never able to repeat such a success.  (Though who could?)

And so I just want to take a moment and mention a cause she and I have in common, as I promised her I would, and I am a man of my word.  We talked a bit about adopting animals (I have a greyhound, as you may know, who was left in a cage for two years)...

...and she mentioned that she had just bought many acres of land to use to house and treat abused and neglected animals.  She takes in dogs and cats and other animals who have been abandoned, left to die, abused and/or neglected, and she gives them a safe haven and the best health care available.  It's her Worldheart Foundation.  Read about it at http://www.lindablairworldheart.org/ 

Give, if you can.  And report those who abuse and neglect animals.

Have a nice fourth, everyone.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire--Movie Review

Photo: Movie poster, from its Wikipedia page.  Remember who the enemy is, indeed.  Good catchphrase.

Saw Catching Fire last night, so a few quick things:

--Best thing to say about this very good movie: It didn't seem anywhere near as long as it was.  That says a lot, because this one ran about 2 1/2 hours.

--Few actresses hold up better under so many intense close-ups as Jennifer Lawrence.  The camera was directly in her grill for the whole movie.

--Then again, few retain such unrealistically perfect make-up application, especially for an action flick.  Not that she isn't pretty anyway, I'm just sayin'.

--Woody Harrelson, along with Matthew McConaughey, has had a career resurgence the last few years.  Woody Harrelson has certainly come a long way since Cheers.

--Donald Sutherland has been playing this type of bad guy for a very long time now, with the same menacingly slow speech, rich voice and grey mane.  Good to see that some things never go out of style.

--Speaking of which, where were his granddaughter's parents the whole movie?

--I've never read the books, but I was pretty confident that they wouldn't do the exact same thing for two consecutive movies.  Something else had to be afoot here.

--Kind of obvious, too, because most of the former winners seemed really pissed off to have to do it twice.

--And how can you not expect a rebellion when you promise those who've cheated death--cheated it from a situation that you initially threw them into--that they won't ever have to do it again, and then make them go through it again?

--And then throw all of them together in one group, and they're all enraged.  At you.

--And leave alive the former winners who didn't have to be in these Games, and not expect them to also be enraged?  And leave them out there with the general public?  Who're all beyond enraged?  At you.

--Now that I think of it, this is one half-assed despotic leader of a dystopian future.  In that vast library he's always sitting in, he doesn't have one Orwell in all that?  And with all of those great ray televisions, he hasn't watched any of those types of movies?  These dictators have to be better prepared.

--How did the other rebels know that she'd finish coiling the wire around the arrowhead shaft and then throw it up into the dome the second the lightning hit?  It was a realistic guess, considering her psychological profile (the movie should've shown they had such things), but the whole rebellion was predicated on the electronic surveillance being blown so she could be rescued.  And that was only going to happen if she threw the arrow like she did, exactly as unrealistically perfect as she did, exactly when she did.

--That must've been a 500-foot throw, straight up, by the way.  There's no Olympics in this future?

--As Jeffrey Wright's character said, "There's a flaw in every system."  That includes screenplays and movie-making.  I gotta stop thinking these films through like this after I see them.

--Incidentally, you can currently see Wright on HBO's Boardwalk Empire.  Good show, though this past season hasn't been as good.

--The directing and pace of this movie was better than the first.  The first was also a good movie, though it was just what it was, if you know what I mean.  Essentially, it was "The Most Dangerous Game" for teenage girls, with a female protagonist.  With a little of Orwellian Dystopia and Stephen King's The Running Man thrown in.  Not that that's a bad thing.

--If I were starting a rebellion, I also wouldn't tell the symbolic figurehead of that rebellion until I had to.

--But I would want to be the rebel and the symbolic figurehead of that rebellion, cause that's how I roll.

--I was hoping more would be done with that little girl's character from the first one.  She was, indeed, too young.  Though I'm old enough to feel that they all were, but whatever.

--A friend of mine says the next one should be called Please Put Me Out, but she's just jealous and bitter.

Captain Phillips--Movie Review

 Photo: Movie poster, from its Wikipedia page.

This is a very well-acted and -directed film that maintains its tension even though you know how it's going to end.  (It's based on the main character's book, after all.)

Paul Greengrass, director of United 93, a couple of Bourne movies, and other good films, uses his favorite shots--grainy, documentary-like, hand-held, and jittery--and scenes of routine and family to good effect.  He does not direct to excess, as many good, flashy directors often do, nor does he waste any shots or use rapid-fire direction that overwhelms.  Spotless directing here from one of the best directors nobody knows.

Tom Hanks gives another outstanding performance--again, especially considering that we know how it's all going to end.  He's great as the family man who's also the absolute professional.  When thrown into tense and violent situations, he doesn't allow his acting to get hysterical or cliche.  It's a very authentic performance.

The actors who play the Somali pirates are also very, very good, especially the leader of the group, who comes across as desperate, yet professional and often intelligent and wise.  He's needy enough to follow through despite obviously tremendous odds against him, yet he's not self-reflective enough to wonder why his last haul--which netted millions--still did not change his destitute, starving life.  He says he's a fisherman, and that the U.S. has depleted the fish supply in the ocean waters near his home, but the viewer knows there's more to it than that--and we know that he knows it, too.  But his character refuses to mentally go there, anyway.

Though at least 95% of the film takes place aboard a ship and a tiny escape vessel, the action still has grandeur and scope--not to mention vast oceans, attack helicopters and destroyers--but the movie never loses its intense focus.

It's gripping and tense, well-acted and well-directed, and a movie worth paying for and watching.

Nietzsche's Ubermensch--Man of Steel (movie)

Photo: Movie's poster from its Wikipedia page

Do not be swayed by the somewhat negative press surrounding The Man of Steel.  Go see it, and for the following reasons:

--Because it's meaningful and visually appealing at the same time.  You can't say that about too many films.

--Because the special effects and direction will wow you, even if you're not into special effects, and even if you think the fight and destruction scenes go on for a bit too long.  Which they do.  You'll still be wowed by them, though.

--Because you remember the Richard Donner / Christopher Reeve Superman movies, and you remember them with fondness (especially the first two).

--Because you admit that it was always rather dumb that nobody put together that Clark Kent and Superman were one and the same.  That won't be a problem in this re-booted franchise, and by the end, you'll see why.

--Because you want to see Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner act very well as fatherly / sacrificial figures.  (But that means that you've gotten older, of course.)  Incidentally, if Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner are you fathers, you'd better be able to kick some ass.

--Because Michael Shannon's General Zod is a very good performance, and an antagonist who really is a presence, and who really does need to be dealt with.  And he's an adversary with a purpose, with an actual cause that, in of itself, is at least very understandable.  Where Terrence Stamp's Zod was a campy excursion in bad guy attitude, Shannon's is a very dangerous dude with flaws and strengths.

--Because you want to see a serious superhero flick that also takes itself very seriously.  But not like the more recent Superman film, which was not good, but which also took itself very seriously.

--Because you appreciate the realism of such films that take themselves this seriously, although you'll tire perhaps of counting the blatant ad placements, such as Sears, IHOP, and many, many others.

--Because you like Hans Zimmer soundtracks that are good to listen to, and yet also fill you with move-move-move, and with a sense of serious foreboding.  If you loved the soundtrack to The Dark Knight, as I did, you'll like this one.  Though I think Zimmer should team up with James Newton Howard again.

--Because of the film's message, which is that there's greatness in each of us, equally.  We all have something to offer this world, and everyone in it.  We're all Superman with something. 

--Because the other message is of free will, not just of pre-determinism.  Are you pre-disposed to a certain life-long behavior, or do you have free will and choice?  Zod, as he states frequently, was literally born and bred to be a fighter, to protect his species.  When there's no longer any species to protect, he's nothing.  Superman is a collection of many millions of DNA life-forces, whereas Zod had but the one.  We all also have many possibilities and purposes, and we have to remember that, especially when we get in the habit of thinking of ourselves as one-dimensional, and stuck in whatever it is we've been doing lately.  You have to take a leap of faith, a priest tells Superman, before you can actually trust in someone, or something.  That's the Nietzschean leap of faith, too--the belief that we all innately and existentially have a near-perfection in us, if not in totality, at least in something.

--Because one of Nietzsche's favorite words, ubermensch, means, literally, superman.

If you can look beyond the excessively long destruction scenes, or be wowed by them like I was, even if you do think they're a tad long, then go see this film.

And heed its message, even if it is sometimes buried under special effects and a loud soundtrack.

What is your superhero ability?   

Marathon Bombing

Photo: Boston's finest rushing to help an injured runner.  This will be SI's cover.  From mashable.com.

My thoughts, such as they are, on this week's marathon massacre and the FBI's and Watertown PD's amazing capture of Suspect #2.  There'll be another post soon that chronicles my thoughts as the week unfolded:

--This week's news reporting was the best of up-close and immediate news and technology.  And the worst.  It was the best because we were up-to-date about a really serious issue--this was news worth the attention, for once.  But we were in people's backyards.  Reporters and cameramen had to be told by the police and FBI to not report on tactical information, to not show how they were about to storm the boat, to constantly get back.  Incorrect information was reported around the world before it was checked by reporters.  For example, the supposed post of "You killed my brother, now all of you will die," or something like that, was incorrectly reported as written by the second suspect.  Instead, it was written by some loser hoaxer.  And a student missing for a long time now from Brown University was reported as one of the suspects.  He wasn't, and he's still missing.  The positives far outweighed the negatives, but as this sort of coverage happens more and more, I hope news stations don't get more powerful, more arrogant, more resistant to the authorities and to responsible and accurate reporting.

--Before the post-bombing events unfolded, I made a sort of criminal profiling blog that I didn't post, because I thought it'd be a disservice to those who suffered, and, also, frankly because I thought I'd be so wrong that I'd embarrass myself.  (Back during the DC Sniper situation, I wrote a long email to a friend that was my attempt to amateur profile the situation.  I was right about most of it, including that there were two snipers, that one was much older than the other, that they were living in a vehicle, and even about their race and approximate ages.  I was wrong about the vehicle: I predicted a van, but they were in a Chevy Caprice, with a hole in the trunk's lock for the gun barrel.  There will always be some sort of anomaly.)  This sort of thing is more playing the odds, more common sense, than any sort of talent or intelligence.  Anyway, here's what I'd thought, and what actually happened:

      --I thought there'd be two of them, maybe more, if the information was correct about the JFK Library's fire (it wasn't) and if there were two other bombs that didn't detonate (there weren't).  I thought that, if there were two, they'd be very close (but I didn't anticipate literal brothers), and that there'd be an age gap (but I predicted a larger gap, like with the two DC snipers).  I never thought there'd be just one, someone who planted the bombs himself and detonated them separately on a timer.  I thought this because, if there had been just one, it'd make more sense for him to detonate them at exactly the same time, because people will run away from the whole race once the first bomb explodes.

      --I thought the suspects would be younger, both in their teens and/or twenties, but younger than thirty.  And that, along the same lines, I thought they'd be students at one of the great many nearby universities.  (I thought these because--Why the marathon?  It struck me as an odd thing to terrorize.  My conclusion is that the suspects must've been very familiar with it.  Why's that?  Because they're nearby.)  I thought they'd be wearing caps or hoods.  This last is a minor thing, but not everyone wears caps and/or hoods, and the authorities would need something to exclude some of the people they'd have to analyze on film or in photos.  And the suspects would know there'd be cameras somewhere--though that's what ultimately caught them, anyway.  Turns out, in an urban area, there are cameras everywhere.

      --But I thought there'd be a much more personal reason for the bombings, something not completely political or religious.  I was totally off-base about that, which is why I'm just an amateur at this.  The suspects purposely bombed the onlookers, most of whom would be American.  And they bombed the Boston Marathon itself.

      --I thought the suspects would have more of a personal reason because the bombs went off long after the professional--and, often, international--runners had finished, so I thought they wouldn't be the targets.  And if the professional, international runners weren't the targets, then the amateur runners must have been.  Turns out, there are a lot of international amateurs who run in the marathon (for some reason, my thinking was limited on this).  And it now seems like the crowds themselves were the targets, not any of the runners.

      --However, I was on about their approximate nationalities, based on the pressure-cooker, which has been a sort of specialty used in conflicts in many Eastern-European, Russian-bloc countries.  As well as in conflicts in some countries where every type of bomb has been used.  I thought the suspects would not obviously stand out in appearance, so that they'd probably "look American," whatever the hell that means.

      --I thought the FBI should release the images of the suspects, which national intelligence organizations are often reluctant to do.  Once they did, it was all over in about twenty-four hours.  But the rapidity of that shocked me, as it did everyone else.

      --I thought it might have been possible for the suspects to be tied into the specific restaurant or whatever that the bombs were placed in front of.  Totally wrong on that.

Well, that's about it, as far as that kind of thing goes.  Next time I'll post something about my thoughts during the week as everything unfolded.

I want to close by saying that I will not soon forget the horror I felt during the initial event, and the respect and admiration (words I do not throw around, and emotions I do not quickly and easily feel) for the men and women who helped the victims and who fought and apprehended the suspects.

For many of them, law enforcement is a personality, not just a job.

People are inherently good, and many of them are inherently good at what they do.

Zero Dark Thirty

photo: from the film's Wikipedia page

I'm posting this entry quite a bit after I'd seen the film because I wanted to post the entry for Silver Linings Playbook before Sunday's Academy Awards--as at least Jennifer Lawrence should win something from that very good film--and because I wanted to post an entry about the Awards show itself, leaving a few days in between each entry, to give my readers time to breathe between my entries.  And to not overdo it.  So, anyway, this post is probably happening about a week after I'd seen this film.

This film is not to be missed, and, as with The Hobbit, I'd heard some things about it that made me question whether I'd want to see a two-and-a-half hour film that ended up being disappointing.  But once again, I needn't have worried.  This was a great film and quite an experience in of itself.

That says a lot, because we all knew how this one would end up.  What we didn't know, though, is how it would get there, and for that, the experience of watching this is worth it.  The movie is essentially a director's showcase, although all of the actors deliver solid performances, especially Jessica Chastain--who is very suddenly everywhere, and in every type of movie imaginable--and Jennifer Uhle, whose character plays with your expectations for awhile until suddenly hers, and Chastain's, are good friends.

Jessica Chastain's character changes rather dramatically during the movie; the turning point is when she loses a friend quite close to her.  (This is a situation an astute viewer should see coming, though when it does, the scene still packs a solid punch.)  She's the quiet observer during the interrogation scenes (more on those later), but when she's spoken to by the prisoner, she delivers a solid, professional answer--though her character clearly feels for his plight.  (Viewers should keep in mind, as she did, that he is a professional killer and liar--and would do both again.)  This keeps her humane, yet growing in her job, and shows that she won't back down when others might.

She becomes more haggard, emotionally and psychologically, rather than physically; I didn't see it when another character comments about how she's looking like she's falling to pieces.  Frankly, Jessica Chastain never looks like she's falling to pieces.  If she lost an arm in a battle scene, she'd look beautiful doing it.   

(An aside here.  A friend disagreed with me about this, but it seemed unrealistic to me that not one single male commented to her character about how beautiful she is.  Now, I know that they were all professionals, and I know this is a no-nonsense movie directed by a very talented [and Oscar-winning] no-nonsense female director [Kathryn Bigelow], but it is not conceivable to me that not one single guy, in a male-dominated, stressful, testosterone-laden profession, would comment, lewdly or not, about how incredibly striking she is--especially given that Jessica Chastain is one of the most classically beautiful actresses to come along in quite some time, and also given that a large percentage of the shots of her in this movie are close-ups.  In short, her character did not hide her beauty [except to put on wigs to hide her red hair], and the camera constantly zoomed in to show it.  There, I said it.)

Anyway, though she gets emotionally and psychologically haggard, that seems more to do with the bureaucratic nightmare that is her job, rather than what she has to go through at her job.  This, despite the fact that she almost gets blown up in a restaurant (a very effectively shocking scene) and shot up in her car.  (Surprising that the shooters didn't wait just a few seconds longer for her there.)  But she does change, and not to the dismay, too much, of her (male) superiors.  They constantly comment on her intelligence, by the way (and she is very smart), but never once about...well, never mind.  Anyway, it gets to a point where she's writing in large red figures the number of days that have passed since she, in her opinion, positively proved where Usama bin Laden was (referred to as UBL frequently in the movie--not OBL, for those who called him Osama; keep that in mind when you hear the next Obama / Osama diatribe).  But finally she gets the deployment she's been asking for.

And what a sequence of montages that is, all of them sans Chastain's character, as the elite troops go in there, ostensibly to see what there is to see, as most of the people involved are not 100% sold on the fact that UBL was even there.  (The leader of this troop says he's still willing to go in only because of Chastain's character's bullheaded certainty.)  The scenes of how they (maybe?) did this are intense and gripping--again, despite the fact that you know how it's going to turn out.  This part of the movie alone is worth the price of admission, though it shouldn't be the only reason to see this film.

Now, back to the interrogation scenes.  One of the reasons I was hesitant to see this film is because I'd heard and read that it supposedly okayed the use of the torture that it depicts.  I don't necessarily agree with this.  Firstly, the characters clearly don't like what they're doing (the guy who's "good" at it is so disgusted by it that he leaves the area) and they know that Congressional leaders are talking about them doing it--and they know that they can't be the one caught with one of the instruments in hand.  This shows me that the movie-makers are showing that it was done, that the people didn't necessarily find joy in it (which would've been even more disturbing), and that...well, they got exactly the information they needed because of it.  If not seeing a character make a speech and take a moral stance against it means to you that the film-makers were condoning it, then you would think they were doing just that.  But, really, what they were doing is showing that it was done, and showing that nobody liked it, and showing that they knew they couldn't be caught doing it, and showing that it gave them the information that ultimately led them to bin Laden--all the while showing the reality of that whole situation.  If the movie-makers had taken a moral stance about it in this movie, that would've been completely out-of-line and unrealistic, considering what they were trying to do.  They were trying to show how one woman, and her colleagues, got the information that ultimately led them to bin Laden.  Period.  To see a film about the morality of that type of interrogation, you'll have to go elsewhere.  That particular criticism against this film is unfair and untrue.  They didn't sanitize and condone that type of interrogation.  They depicted it, and that's all.

The second reason I was hesitant to see this film is that James Gandolfini apologized for his portrayal of his character.  As I watched the film, I tried to figure out why, and by the end, I still hadn't figured it out.  I am still confused about this.  He's not in the film long enough to create a standing and unfading characterization, and his character doesn't say or do anything that would come close to needing an apology for.  He's not a weenie; he's not a blowhard; he's not too tough; he's not anything at all that would need an apology.  He questions whether Chastain's team ever agrees about anything, which is reasonable to do, because they don't agree about anything.  He questions whether anyone can concretely prove what they're asserting, which is appropriate, because they can't concretely prove what they're asserting--and they are not all, in fact, asserting the same thing, to the same degree.  He's a political businessman looking at the engineers of this thing, wondering if they're doing the right thing, wondering if he'll be doing the right thing--whether he agrees, as the CIA Director, to sell the plan to the President or not.  And he's clearly appreciating everybody while sort of shaking his head at them all at the same time--which, again, is completely appropriate for his character to do.  I don't know what Gandolfini was apologizing for, unless it was the hairjob, which was indeed terrible.  Other than that, I just don't know.

So that's it.  Sorry for the long review, but there was a lot to say because there was a lot to see.  And there's a whole lot to like, so go see this one.

P.S.--The Academy's snub of Bigelow for Best Director is much harder for me to digest than its snub of Ben Affleck, who also did a great directing job, but with immensely easier material to direct, for a movie that was much more of an actor's showcase, rather than a director's showcase, as Bigelow's film is.  This is one of the best-directed films I've seen in years (and I agree with a critic's announcement that it blows Argo out of the water, and I liked Argo), and is surely one of the best (if not the best) directed films of this year--in a year of many very well-directed films.  (I admittedly haven't seen Life of Pi yet, which is high on my list of things to do--but that film, from what I've read, is heavily CGI.)  This film was a better film, and a better-directed film, than Bigelow's own award-winning Hurt Locker, which I also liked a lot.  She has already won directing awards for this film from the New York's Film Critics Circle, as well as from similar circles from other cities.  (Affleck won the Director's Award.)  I'd have to say that she deserves the Oscar more than anyone nominated, which says a lot, since I love Spielberg's work, and he was brilliant enough to cast me in one of his films.  But this movie was better-directed, and much harder to direct, than Lincoln was.  I can only assume that her snub was due to the unwarranted political firestorm attached to this film.

Silver Linings Playbook

Photo: movie poster, from its Wikipedia page

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[Note: The word "Crazies" here is used to denote the categorical, but not universal, behavior of the characters described, and the behavior of their real-life counterparts.  Never doubt that these behaviors cause these victims to suffer--especially when the self-realization and guilt hit.  These people are not crazy; they are ill.  They suffer, and they are victims--often of their own, often uncontrolled, behaviors.]

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Can two Crazies fall in love?  And if they do, is it really love, or are they just crazy?  Do Crazies know what love is, or is what they think love is just more of the obsessive behavior that embodies their craziness?

And does it matter?  Luckily, no, not at all.  Not in this film.

Believe me, I know Crazies (not going to go there), and I assure you that they are very much like the characters played by Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro--and yet nothing like them at all.  Will they scream bloody murder at each other and slap each other in public?  Yes.  Will the girl scream that he's harassing her, in public?  Yes.  Will she then turn on the crowd and the cop who respond to her yelling?  Yes.  Will she then lie to save the guy who she's just lied about to begin with--all of this still in public?  Yes.  Because that's what Crazies do.

But will the cop--who happens to be assigned to the Bradley Cooper character--walk away from this like he does in the movie?  No.  No, he won't.  And now the Cooper character, in real life, would have violated his probation, or whatever, and that's the end.

And there are a million more examples of this throughout the movie, examples of how Cooper and Lawrence represent real-life Crazies, yet not, at the same time.  The brilliance of this movie--especially to those like me who have been there, and who have, finally, walked away from them, and who have survived the hurricane caused by the damaging winds of their illnesses and personalities--is that you don't care about the discrepancies.  Maybe most audience members will wonder how someone can stay around people who are as much of a live wire as these two are--and possibly that's a great question, even without having to deal with someone like the guy's father, who's a Crazy himself--but the reality is that you can, for reasons we won't go into.

Granted, Cooper's and Lawrence's characters have things going for them that most bipolar obsessives with anger-management issues and lots of self-hatred and self-defeating behaviors don't have going for them--namely, an avoidance of drugs and alcohol; an avoidance of really nasty characters who don't have an avoidance of drugs and alcohol; and a large-enough support group, which in this case consists of a bipolar, obsessive and angry father, a counselor who doesn't advise his clients not to go to professional sports games where there will most likely be lots of alcohol and fighting (and who shows up there himself), a rather straight-laced brother, and some friends who don't run away from them, although they do things like wake up their parents at 3 a.m., throw books out of windows at 3 a.m., walk out of social dinners in the middle of the dinner, and spout whatever's on their minds, at a million miles an hour, without a filtering system of any kind (Cooper's character).  Or, they do many of the above things, and sleep with the entire office and half the town on top of it (Lawrence's character).  These support groups don't leave because they, somehow, don't suffer from the antics of these characters.  In real life, they would leave because such characters, ultimately, and after possibly many years, leave them no other choice.  Everyone gets injured, but you wish them well.

But that's not the reality of the movie here, and by the end of it, despite all this, you're rooting for them despite yourself, because they are sweet, and endearing, and they mean well, which isn't exactly reality, either, but whatever.  You want it to be the reality, and so it is, at least for two hours.  And that's the genius of this film: That despite the (many) conventions, and despite the (many) breaks from reality, the writing and, especially, the acting--from Cooper, Lawrence and De Niro--are so outstanding that they draw you in, and you root for them, and when the two Crazies fall in love at the end (because Cooper's character walks away from his film-long obsession, which such a real-life person wouldn't do, or at least not without the emotional devastation that would accompany it), you buy it, and you forget that these people are suffering from an illness, because you like them so much that you don't want them to suffer from the illness anymore, and so they don't.  And they live life happily ever after, in each other's arms and in each other's laps.  Smiling, laughing, and drinking beer, which real-life bipolar victims and obsessives simply would not do, not if they ever wanted to recover, to manage their illness, and to live something close to a real life.

Happily, real life is not what this is, and you'll love it as I did, so go see it.  (And don't think too much of the title.)

P.S.--Normally I'd blanch at a movie that makes the thirty-seven year-old (Cooper's age at filming) main character fall in love with the twenty-one year-old (Lawrence's age at filming) love interest, and vice-versa.  But these characters are supposed to be ageless; you're not supposed to consider their ages just like you're not supposed to consider that real bipolar victims' lives don't (and won't) work out this way.  It's a fantasy movie in which such people could live like this, and suddenly reverse illness and behave like this, and fantasy characters are ageless.  Jennifer Lawrence's performance, surely one of the year's best, transcends her real age anyway, and she more than holds her own with De Niro, never mind Cooper.  If I hadn't just mentioned it, you might not have considered the ages until movie's end, anyway.  I didn't.

P.P.S.--This from the movie's Wikipedia page:

Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph . . . describes the lead character as a "rambling headcase", his mental illness passed off as a lovable quirk and complains that Tiffany's reasons for being interested in him are largely unexplored. [Jennifer Lawrence] does manage to create a complex character from thin material, but he criticizes Russell [David O. Russell, the director] for ogling her.

(Me again.) All true, but I disagree with Collin about one thing: none of it matters.  That's how good the film's suspension of disbelief is.  So go see it.  (But while watching, you can't help but notice how often the film's mise-en-scene is Lawrence's butt, or chest, mostly during the dance rehearsing scenes.  That did weird me out a tiny bit.)    

Argo

Photo: Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, from the film, and from the film's Wikipedia page.

I'd wanted to see this film for a long time, since before it came out, and I'm glad I did.  I'm not a huge Ben Affleck fan; I've long considered him to be the more pale of the Affleck / Damon team.  But he directs Argo even better than he acts in it, and he wisely keeps his acting subdued and minimal throughout.  (In fact, one wonders if that was all his real-life character said to the people he helped save.)

It's filmed in a purposely grainy 70s style, more old 70s film than documentary film, if you know what I mean.  The sets, style, props and costume are all pitch-perfect.  The film even opens as if it were a 70s Warner Bros. showing (which I'm just old enough to remember), a nice touch that I noticed right away.  Anyway, this film is all 70s, all the time, even superficially so--and this helped it a great deal.

The directing, pace and acting was so good that, although you know how it's going to turn out (everyone of that age knows that all the Iran hostages came out alive, right?), it's still full of tension anyway.  For this reason, the Academy's snub of Affleck as director is a little confusing, although the other directors also did great jobs, and their films were maybe a little harder to direct.  Maybe.  I don't have a beef with any of those nominations, but it would've been nice to have a sixth slot for Affleck.

In terms of the film being an actor's showcase (which it essentially is, just like Lincoln, which was a better film, and hence the snub, maybe), it's really Alan Arkin's film.  Arkin is all over the place recently, which is nice to see, as he's been a great, but sporadic, actor for a long time.  (One of his better recently was in the silly but very watchable Get Smart.)  He has all the good lines here, and he delivers them with clear amusement.  (This is very obvious when he delivers the movie's catch-phrase, which involves the movie title, and which he delivers with relish.)  He and John Goodman obviously had a good time filming this.  Though those two characters have limited roles, and though they're literally trapped in their office on-set (they have to be there when the phone rings), they manage to somehow carry the film from that side of the Pond.  In a small but clear way, this is a Hollywood film that pokes fun at itself.

At just two hours, it's also one of the shorter better films of the year.  It doesn't feel too short, and it definitely would've seemed too long had it been so.  The film doesn't have anything more to say but which it says.  Speaking of that, don't leave the theatre at the end of the film if you'd like to see photos of the real-life people juxtaposed with the actors who played them, as well as some historically-relevant shots of the real people with other important real people of the time.

I normally don't recommend spending $11.50 on a film that's just two hours long, that doesn't need to be seen on the big screen to fully appreciate.  (I want to see so many films that I have to narrow it down.  Two of the ways I do this is to choose longer films--thereby getting more bang for the same eleven and a half bucks--and to choose films, usually action or sci-fi, that need to be seen on the big screen.  Prometheus was one of those.)  But I do recommend spending that money to see this short-ish film that doesn't need the big screen to fully appreciate.  Just see the longer ones that need the big screen first, as I did.   

Django Unchained

Photo: Movie poster from its Wikipedia page

Any Tarantino flick is worth seeing, and this one is no exception.  Though worth seeing, however, I can't say it was on par with his latest and greatest.  In fact, this one was the biggest disappointment for me since Jackie Brown.  Of course, a disappointing Tarantino film is still a good film, but Django could have been so much better.  One of the most glaring examples of this is that the dinner scene here tries to maintain the same unbearable tension as the basement bar scene in Inglorious Basterds, but it doesn't come close.  There is tension, of course, but not to the elevated levels of Basterds.

It went wrong when Waltz's character, King, shot DiCaprio's, which was naturally followed by King himself being obliterated.  And then all Hell broke loose.  This didn't work for me on many levels, not the least of which is that it simply isn't in King's character to do it.  He himself reminded Django what they were there for, to not lose sight of their goal--to free his wife.  They were clearly about to do this, even if it wasn't in the way that they intended.  And they were about to walk away with her; DiCaprio's character was too much of a Southern gentleman to shoot someone in the back after a business transaction.  And a handshake after a deal was, for God's sake, actually how transactions were socially, if not legally, finalized in the South back then.  Heck, even Mikey and Frankie of American Pickers do that today.  The contract is the legal law, but the handshake is the social law, and in that part of the country, they're equally important.  You can't do business with someone whose hand you can't shake.  It's a gentleman's agreement--even if, nastily enough, you're dealing in slaves.  (This was undoubtedly what led to King's repugnance about shaking his hand.)

This was followed by an even more unrealistic plot event: after shooting the iconic plantation owner--and about twenty of his men--Django gets sent to work at a mine for the rest of his days?  That's not the slavery south I've read about.  He'd have been whipped until dead, or hanged, or attacked by dogs, or even dragged to death by a horse or carriage.  Sent to work in a mine?  With three dumb hillbillies in charge of him?  Not bloody likely.

Of course it's all a cartoon.  Of course Tarantino wants to cinematically wipe out slavery in an orgy of firepower and fire, just as much as he wanted to wipe out Hitler and the Nazis with firepower and fire--and Inglorious Basterds was clearly not realistic or sensible, either.  So Django had to be able to get back to the plantation house to bring it all down.  I get that.

The difference, though, is that Inglorious Basterds' ending stayed true to its own twisted universe.  Everyone stayed true to their own twisted personas in that parallel universe of unreality.  Here, they don't.  King's character was all about logic and sensibility, and a heckuva scary guy, too, when he wanted to be.  And a fantastic, quick shot.  Would he stare at the wound he made in the white flower, or would he turn and fire upon someone he would know was going to immediately fire upon him?

Django is actually Samson unchained, of course, in this movie, so he has to be the one to knock the building of slavery down with everyone in it.  I get that.  He, and Tarantino, and perhaps even the audience is in need of that purge, just as we all were in need of purging Hitler and his crew at the end of Basterds.  Understandable.

But not like this.  How, then?  I don't know, but it's not my job to know.  That's Tarantino's job.

So go see it, because it's a Tarantino film, and it's memorable, and it's well-acted and well-directed and well-designed and well-choreographed and it's, well...well-done.  It's very well-done.  And so maybe I'm spoiled by Tarantino by now.  I want something more from him than just very well-done.   The first 80% rocks, and the last 20% is the purging, I guess, and it's very well-done--but it doesn't rock, and it doesn't jibe with the rest of the film.  It's almost two different films in that way, unevenly broken into an 80/20 split.

But you still have to go see it, of course.  So go do that.

P.S.--While standing in line to buy the tickets for this movie, a guy walked around saying that the 6:40 showing of the movie Lincoln was sold out.  I am thrilled to hear that an important and high-quality movie, with such a rare, slow pace, was still being seen by American moviegoers. 

Movie Lovers

Photo: The Tree of Life movie poster, from it's Wikipedia site.  (See this film.  Roger Ebert, in this year's Sight & Sound poll, said it's one of the ten best ever made, world-wide.)

I must be a movie lover (technically called a cinephile) because:

1.  I sit through the credits.  I love to know who the cinematographer, director, and supporting actors are, and sometimes it's necessary to just let the whole movie sink in after it ends.  I was like this after the movie Lincoln recently.

2.  I do sometimes compare people to movie characters.  Actually, I do that all the time.  The real people hardly ever compare, even if the movie character was "bad."  I realize this is antisocial of me.

3.  I get giddy about upcoming movies by directors I like, such as a new Spielberg film.  I'm enough of a cinephile to get excited by the new Ed Zwick, Peter Weir, David Fincher, Terrence Malick, or Ridley Scott film, amongst the names of great directors that most non-fans don't know.

4.  I do relish intelligent film discussions, but not intelligent film competition, because when proving a point about a film, I definitely become obnoxious--and so does the person I'm talking with.  For example, when discussing a film, I actually use the word "film," not "movie."  Sounds elitist, I know, but the fact is that Schindler's List was a film, and Hangover was a movie.  Just because the point is obnoxious, that doesn't make it untrue.

5.  I understand the demographics, too--which is why I won't go see films geared towards demos I don't want to see movies with.  I mean that in the kindest of all possible ways.

6.  I definitely judge people by their favorite movies.  If your favorite film is one of the Hangovers, or one of the Saws (as good as the first one of each series was), and if you've never even seen (or heard of) 2001 or Schindler's List, then I'm out.

7.  I really appreciate movie memorabilia, but such things will just clutter up the house.  Or maybe I just don't decorate well.  Of course, should the actual real prop come my way, I'm all over it.  Who wouldn't want to have one of the rings actually used in the LOTR films?!?

8.  I complain about continuity issues and product placements all the time.  (But only after the movie, of course.  Belanger's rule #1 of seeing films at a theatre: You will not talk during the film.)  Drives people nuts.

9.  I don't remember dates or important things by films.  I'm a guy; I remember such things based on who I'm dating at the time.

10.  I haven't made out in theaters since I was a teenager.  Call me unromantic or lacking in spontaneity, but I'm not spending $11.50 per ticket just to miss most of the movie.  Hell, if I want to make out with a woman in the dark, I'll just invite her over after I've stopped paying the electric bill for a few months.

Lincoln

photo: Movie poster, from its Wikipedia page

A few comments about Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which you should go see:

--I was pleasantly surprised to find myself sitting in the second row from the front for this film.  Spielberg film or not, historical films or biopics do not draw huge crowds.  I got to this one twenty minutes early (pretty amazing for me) and almost had to see the next one, half an hour later.  The crowd, at a quick glance, was about 28 and older.  No teens; no kids.  (This will make for a better film experience.)

--Spielberg is usually the star of a Spielberg film.  This time he shared the billing with Daniel Day-Lewis, who was amazing.  But the film was so well-directed, with obvious Spielberg/Wellesian flourishes, that he doesn't let you forget who's sitting in the director's chair.

--This movie could've been a bore without Spielberg and Day-Lewis, as historical films and/or biopics can be.  Over 95% of the film is interiors and dialogue.  Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones often hold forth.

--This apparently isn't just movie theatrics, either, as characters throughout both cringe and anticipate Lincoln's long-ish stories.  Jones's character was also known to fillibuster, too, apparently.

--I'm betting $20 that most of the fires in the fireplaces were CGI.  I guarantee you the heat made by them would screw with the cameras, the lights, and who knows what else.  And it looked CGI most of the time to me.  If someone reading this happens to know whether this is so, please let me know.

--Who knew that Lincoln had a sense of humor?

--In case you're reading this: Uh-kay.

--The film (actually, Sally Fields' Mary Todd Lincoln herself) often mentions the First Lady's struggles with depression (she'd be classified bi-polar today, I'll bet), but the film does not mention Lincoln's own well-documented melancholia.  (Both had a lot to be depressed about.)

--One of the film's strongest moments is when Lincoln mentions her depression.  Her sadness.  Her anger.  The point being that she was so worried about her feelings that she ignored those of her husband and her other two sons.  From what I've read of her (and her sadness-drawn love of seances), this smacked of truth.

--Both Lincolns seemed like people you would not want to mess with--Lincoln on the political battlefront, Mary Todd at home.

--Speaking of home, the White House was apparently a pigsty when the Lincolns got there.  I'd known about this--the White House famously was ill-designed for heating and ventilation, and it was often in ruin because the Presidents then were, well, ill-kept themselves--but I had no idea it had gotten that bad.

--Obama and Lincoln are often compared, but I'll throw out another one: they were both either extremely well-loved, or extremely despised, with nothing in between.  Few people would think of either with a shrug of the shoulders.

--Someone mentioned that Bush Junior was the same way, but I was quick to point out that, though he was very heavily despised, he was not very well-loved, even by the dumbies who voted for him.  (I had to go back and delete a stronger word there.)

--Speaking of Dubya, make it a point to notice, in a VERY heavily researched and historically accurate film, that every table was filled with books, piled high.  Lincoln was mostly home-schooled and self-taught, and Bush went to Yale, but one has a Presidential Library that's known as a good place to research, with lotsa books.  The other hasn't opened yet, but when it does, to the tune of $250 million, the sound you'll hear is one hand clapping.

--And both Obama and Lincoln had a country at war with itself, socially.  Then and now, it is very evenly divided.  The south has not, apparently, changed all that much.  Perhaps we are two separate countries after all.

--David Strathairn is in a ton of films, and always does a quietly great job, and never gets any recognition at all for his work.  He's been doing this since the 80s.  For example, how many of you know who in the film I'm talking about?

--Daniel Day-Lewis will get the recognition he deserves (he already is), but the greatest thing about his work is that he made a revered American icon surprisingly and appreciably human.  Lincoln is almost as revered in the U.S. as many religious figures, then and now, and think for a moment if someone were to try to humanize one of them.  (::cough:: Martin Scorsese, 1988 ::cough::)

--Day-Lewis almost made me not wonder when Lincoln would pick up an axe and start swingin'.  Almost.  Two Lincolns at opposite ends of the spectrum in the same film year.  Weird.

--Back to the fireplaces again: Everyone's cold.  Sure, it's winter in D.C., which can be worse than winter in New England, but the White House seemed like nothing more than a big barn with one big fireplace in each room.  As I can assure you, one fireplace is not enough to warm a big room.  Everyone's wearing shawls, even the manly, well-dressed and -suited politicians.  Nice historical touch.

--Notice also that everyone wrote on small, wooden portable desks, sort of a take-it-with-you tiny podium.  I've got to get myself one of those.  What're they called?

--Spielberg said he didn't want to release this film until after the election because he didn't want to influence any votes.  You'll see why when you see it, but that tells you another very obvious comparison between Obama and Lincoln--in many ways, they're fighting the same issues.

--The same issues, about 147 years later.

--Thank goodness Lincoln was president during the Civil War.  Can you imagine Dubya or Mitt as President during the Civil War?  We'd still have slavery--and women still wouldn't be able to vote.

The Girl Who Played with Fire--Swedish Movie

photo: Noomi Rapace, about to terrify.  From rogerebert.com.

Overall this second film of the series was better than the very good first film, which makes sense, as the second novel in the series was superior to the first.  I suspect that the American version of the second book will stay as true to its original as the first did; this Swedish version kept more closely aligned to the source than did the first one, but still not too much.  And so there's little to say here that I didn't already say for the first movie, when I compared that to what I felt was a superior American version.  (You can read that here.  And you can read more of my blog entries about the movies and books here, here, and here.)  So I just have a few tidbits, some more relevant, I suppose, than others.

--The closing credits to this Swedish-language film play to an English-language song, Misen Groth's "Would Anybody Die."  The credits themselves, of course, were predominantly in Swedish, but every now and then you'll see "Worldwide Distribution," or "Collection Agent," or "Completion Bond."  There isn't a way to translate these last three into their Swedish equivalents?

--You'll be hard-pressed to find an American film, spoken in American English, with end credits that play to a foreign-language song.  Give the Swedes credit here.

--The film itself plays unlike American films.  I was surprised at the difference, but I don't know why.  It's just simpler, and I mean that in a good, stripped-down kind of way.  No flash, no substance.  The viewer is content to see the movie unfold at its own pace, which is slow compared to an American film of the violent, serial killer, suspense genre.  When the action does happen, it isn't glorified, which American movie violence so clearly is.  This last is maybe the biggest difference between the films of the two countries.

--Maybe it's the substance of Salander and Blomqvist, but the film seems to indicate that the average Swede in general is more advanced technologically.  There was a computer in every house of every character, even in the log cabin in the woods.  I haven't made it a point to notice, but I'm going to guess that this is not shown in American movies to this degree.  Is it the movie style, or is it that Americans aren't as connected?  And, if the latter is true, how in God's name is that possible?

--Michael Nyqvist and Lena Endre are almost completely naked in one scene.  There is no way they would be in an American movie, and I mean that in the kindest of all possible ways.  But here it fits--they're lovers, after all.  More than that, they play average--maybe slightly better than average--looking people in their, say, mid-40s, who do not work out or do anything that your average Swede in their 40s wouldn't do.  So he's hairy and a bit out of shape, and a tad flabby.  She's wrinkly and a little saggy.  And it's--normal.  Again, no glitz, no flash, no substance.  And they're known, for God's sake, for their brains and persistence, more than their sexiness.  Again, so much not an American movie, and I mean this in a good way.  It's more real.

--I'm thankful that not one character eats an open sandwich in any of the three Millennium films I've seen.  This happens maybe 5,000 times in the three books, to the point that you wonder about their cholesterol counts.

--Salander's half-brother doesn't see demons in this film.  Okay by me, but then you wonder why he just drops the bar he's holding and simply walks away at the end, when he clearly could've taken care of Blomqvist and finished off his father and half-sister, had he the desire.

--Lots of scenes where characters are sitting down and explaining things to other characters, usually while sipping coffee and/or smoking.  (Again, you wonder about the health of the average Swede.)  Anyway, this simply wouldn't happen in an American movie, as it would be considered too slow and boring.  I mean, it is slow, but that's real, right?  It works here because this sort of thing is consistent throughout the movie and series, and books.  I'm no sleuth, but I'll bet investigations really do unfold like that.  So why not show it that way?

--Speaking of smoking cigarettes, I hope Rapace smokes fake ones in the movies, like they do on Mad Men, because she's consumed about 25 cartons in the two films.  And is it okay that I say that Rapace looks prettier in this one, with her longer hair?

--Swedish cities look like pretty, happenin' places.  Swedish countryside, not so much.  Very, very blech.  I know it's countryside, and I know it doesn't really look like it does in The Wizard of Oz, but here it just looks drab and depressing.  And wet, splotchy and old.

--Ambulances in Sweden are canary yellow, and have an odd shape.  Not odd to the Swedes, though, of course.

--Swedish cities look clean.  Where are all the cigarette butts?

--Roger Ebert disagreed with my comparison to the first film, saying that they're both good, but the first one was better.  But what does he know about films?