For those who either know me or have read me before know I am NOT a big fan of remakes whether they are remade from foreign movies or domestic, and I an NOT on the reboot bandwagon either. However, with that said, David Fincher’s version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is quite frankly one the best I have seen and is definitely my pick for the best of 2011.
As the movie opens we find that Mikael Blomkvist(Daniel Craig), publisher of the Swedish political magazine Millennium, has lost a libel case involving allegations about billionaire industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström (Ulf Friberg), and he is ordered to pay hefty damages and costs that clean out his bank account of savings and has put his magazine in financial straights as well. Blomkvist is then is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the retired CEO of the Vanger Corporation, to discover what happen to his niece Harriet some forty years earlier and is convinced that one of the family had murdered her and for what ever the reason is trying to drive him (Henrik) insane by sending him pictures of flowers on his birthday. The same gift that Harriet had always gave him. And with the way the Vanger family are towards one and another it could be anyone’s best guess on which family member it is.
An apprehensive Blomkvist then moves to the Vanger estate and under the guise of researching into the history of the Vanger family to write the memoirs of Henrik he begins to look into Harriet's disappearance. As the history unfolds, Blomkvist finds himself surround by former Nazis, anti-Semites, and sadists, one of which holds a secret so devastating that it could destroy the family and shake Sweden to it’s core.
Fincher’s version is much more fluid than the original and the only thing that really threw me was the Bondesque opening sequence -while very cool visually- didn’t really fit with the movie overall, especially since I was already trying to disentangle Craig from his Bond persona. (I know he supposedly put on weight for the role, but he still looks like 007 to me). The relationship between Blomkvist and Lisbeth -played by Rooney Mara- has more chemistry than the original between Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist.
With that said, Rooney Mara’s portrayal Lisbeth Salander, the tattooed, anti-social computer hacker and researcher is spot on. It is almost hard to believe that this is the same girl from the remake of “Nightmare on Elm Street”, and thankfully Fincher didn’t flinch when it came to more graphic scenes where Lisbeth is savagely raped. I found that scene in particular more disturbing than the original.
While the overall story remains the same (people kept telling me I either had to read the book or see the Swedish film to able to follow) Fincher’s version is, while not easy because of the layers, close to as the Swedish film as one can get. But there are little moments that really do define Fincher’s film that of Niels Arden Oplev’s. And one does not have to know the story to know what is going on.
The one main thing I found lacking in Fincher’s from Oplev’s is that of the set up with family. Oplev really made it seem that anyone could be the main villain in a family that is plagued by villains. Where as you now almost get a sense of who is behind it all. Also Fincher’s use of adding Blomkvist’s ex-wife and daughter into the mix. They really weren’t needed with the exception of one component of the film with the daughter which Oplev did slightly different.
My rating for this one is 5 out of 5. A definite must see.
As the much hyped and well reviewed movie “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” fails to live up to expectations (as did the Hollywood remake of another Swedish blockbuster “Let Me In“), people have been wondering how and why this movie somehow came in fourth place at the box office when the book sold over thirty million copies and the Swedish version of the film was box office gold in Europe. So we have to ask if America is starting to sour on remakes from across the pond.
I think the answer is simple enough. I think (or hope) that we finally are.
While I think mostly when it comes to “Dragon Tattoo” is that Sony, the studio behind the film, chose Christmas weekend to release it when this time of the year people are mostly looking for escapist films to loose themselves in and get away from the insanity that comes along with the holiday than the subject matter that “Dragon Tattoo” (rape and incest, along with murder) contains. However, other star-driven follow-ups to foreign-language hits have been flops as well.
When the trend first took hold of American audiences (mostly during the nineties) with Asian horror films and Action dramas, we as audience were looking for something fresh is a very stagnant market. I know that I, for one, were sick of the countless squeals to movie franchises like “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13th”, where the ideas were just getting plain stupid and dull. So when movies like the “Ring” and “Ju-On” hit the theaters I was excited, especially since I was already starting to watch the original Asia movies as it was. Now, however, it seems that just about everything these days are either foreign remakes or reboots of films that have already run past their prime -not to mention all the things being re-released in 3D. And it doesn’t just happen to be in the realm of the movie houses.
Television has been stealing ideas for some time now. Channels like SyFy and Showtime (just to name two, but they all seem to be doing it) are big in the foreign remake game with “original” shows like “Being Human” and “Shameless”. Both shows have had long runs (especially “Shameless” that has been on the air for eight seasons) on BBC. Even the much hyped and now cancelled Mtv “original” show “Skins” had a long run their as well.
Hopefully enough is enough when it comes to the remake game, but unfortunately I doubt it. Hollywood seems to be tanking more and more, wondering why they still seem to loose money. But I can not cry to the fact that they are since Hollywood continually raises the price to go to the movies and continue to turn out crappy film after crappy film. I had the unfortunate chance at seeing a few trailers to things on the horizon for 2012, and the movie landscape doesn’t look pretty.
My suggestion to though that be in power in Tinsel Town. Lets try something out of the box, try to recapture that magic that was going to the movies and stop remaking everything you can because there was once an audience for those films back in the day. There are plenty of “Indie” filmmakers out there turning out things that would be of a far better quality if they had some sort of budget, or maybe if you are keen on just using your crappy stock of writers that seem to be at your call try sending them to a bookstore and find something. Hell, it worked for you with “Harry Potter”.
But hey what do I know? I’m just your target audience.
What do you find today that differs from Raymond Loewy’s MAYA (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) principle?
One can hardly open a beer or a soft drink, to fix breakfast, to board a plane, buy gas, mail a letter or shop for an appliance without encountering a Loewy creation. Raymond Loewy believed that: “The adult public’s taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm.” So by finding and understanding the consumer’s sweet spot, Loewy ultimately claimed his place in history as the Father of Industrial Design.
Raymond Loewy spent over 50 years streamlining everything from postage stamps to spacecrafts, with a concept that he is credited with originating: MAYA or “Most Advanced Yet Acceptable” principle. Meaning that planned obsolescence is defined as that the designer needs to create a desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner as necessary. (a concept that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have made their, not only carriers on, but a fortune as well) But Loewy thought that the adult public's taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm. So a good “Trendmaster” has to know how to find the sweet spot on the trend curve…the place where new is exciting and attractive, yet understandable and acceptable. That’s where profits come from.
But what I see today over the what was the Loewy plan is that it seems like more and more designers are becoming more and more influenced by style, falling into the 1980s “Designer Clothes” syndrome of fashion over function. Meaning that designers today never think about their design and get to carried away over their fashion vision and think design is style when the opposite is the reality. Design is not style, about giving us just a shape and not the guts or the tools to use such items as Loewy had given us. Function is out and form is in seems to be the mantra of today’s designers. More design, more production, equal more sales is the philosophy of what to create over why we should and what are the uses for it. Never before in Industrial Design have designers seriously sat around the table thinking of what can go on the latest the toothbrush, or the shoe horn; drawing up elaborate plans to solely make and sell products just because they look good. Before the logic was use, then “how can I make this product more appealing to the eye”.
So, what is the point of good design? To create good experiences. Good design makes the objects, places, and interfaces we use every day pleasurable to interact with. It allows people to do the things they want or need to do, in ways that are (at least) painless, and (at best) delightful. Also good design does something else: it raises the bar for what people expect from their experiences, advancing the public high-water mark for “best user experience.” As the creator of a web or mobile application, yanking that bar upwards is the goal. It’s hard to find a better example of MAYA in action than Apple. One only has to look at the evolution of the iPod to see the interplay between “Advanced” and “Acceptable” ratcheting upward over time.
Some early iPod features were, in part, concessions to what was then familiar -such as buttons that were distinct from the scroll wheel. The first generation iPod was a groundbreaking product in its own right; as time broadened both cultural acceptance and technological possibilities, Apple’s iPod designers were able to push their product design farther and farther, losing the extra buttons and streamlining the interface. Taken to one extreme, the designers of the iPod Shuffle eventually eliminated the playback controls from the it entirely, placing them on the headphone cord instead. (In the next generation, the Shuffle’s designers reversed this decision—a sign that design innovations which force customers to use your proprietary headphones are unlikely to become Acceptable.) Now, in the time of the iPhone with a full touch screen, early iPods look quaint, almost archaic. But in 2001, the iPhone would likely have been too far outside the bounds of the familiar to make any sense to consumers. Only because of the progression of MAYA do we take for granted its sleek look and feel today.
Raymond Loewy’s MAYA is inseparable from the aesthetic he popularized: streamlined forms that evoke speed and modernity. In Loewy’s time, these were fresh innovations:L
1)Push the boundaries of design and technology beyond your users’ expectations, but keep enough familiar patterns to let them orient themselves.
2)Gradually advance your design over time, as technology and public sentiment evolve to support this advance.
3) Make it sexy where reasoned arguments fail, eye candy often succeeds. This applies both to the visual aesthetic, and the technology underneath it.
But, overall, make it functional first.
It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas.
No. Not because there is snow on the ground. As of right now there isn’t any -at least by me. No, what I’m talking about is the zombiefied asshole shoppers that seem to gravitate to where ever people are congregating, pawing at wares for sale as if they were fresh meat, fighting over the last morsel of whatever it is they think they want that is still on the shelf as if it were a chicken wing; those lovely festive holiday gatherings with family or friends or coworkers that always seem to end in one of two ways: drunken idiots that end up in fights, or drunken idiots that end up in some kind of compromised situation that they rather forget.
Myself I’m always up for the latter than the former. But I digress.
I was never one for the holiday season that seems to grow longer and longer with each year. Who thought it was a good idea -or okay even- to start putting up Christmas decorations when Halloween costumes are still on the shelves.
Christmas has never been my thing. I was never one to get excited about going over to where it was that we had to go. When I was a kid Christmas Eve was at my stepfather’s parents' house. That or his brother’s. It depended on who did Thanksgiving that year. Remember how I said that gatherings usually ended in one of two ways. That’s right. More times than not those drunken idiot fests usually ended in some kind of argument. Something that almost always carried over into the car for the ride home, and something I always had to listen too while I tried to pretend I was asleep. Those lovely times always made the next day (Christmas) awkward to say the least. My mother and her husband would still be pissed about whatever, so she would take my brother and I to her parents (my grandparents) for the day leaving him behind. The only real time that my stepfather had actually been at his wife’s parents' house for the holiday was when we lived with them. Then he had no choice BUT to be there. (I pretty much grew up at my grandparents (my mother’s parents). My parents were divorced so before she married I either lived with them or -since my mother worked- was where I went after school.) One of the best Christmases I can remember was when my father out of the blue stopped by unannounced in the morning before anyone was really up (except for my grandfather who always got up early and as you can probably tell my father wasn‘t much in the picture after the divorce) and brought me a TV. It was nothing special. Just a little twelve inch black and white. But it was mine and it brought me the freedom to watch whatever I wanted too when I wanted.
As I grew older the less I went to my mother’s in-laws. Opting (with an argument anyway) to either stay home alone or end up with my grandparents. But that soon came to an end as I started dating girls a tad more seriously. Then I found myself at the girlfriend’s house to celebrate with them. Something that I never pictured myself having to do, and was never much into. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them -whatever girl's family it was. It was more that I always thought myself to be somewhere else. Bar. Beach. Anywhere but were I was ending up. And sometimes that was exactly where I ended up. Usually at some bar. Was it better? I don’t know. Maybe.
But when I got married and had kids that all changed. The Eve was always spent with MY in-laws and their family (which wasn’t bad. They are a fun bunch) and the Day of at my grandparents with my family. These gatherings were and are far less problematic, unlike the days when I was a kid and spending that time with stepfamily. But it never seemed to fail that if we had a goodtime at one place that the other would always suck and be boring.
And now, as my kids are older and we have our own system of doing things for the holidays, I find that old forces and habits want to intercede and try to take over. Like the plans we have should be changed because certain people want to do something for whatever the day (Eve or Day), inviting themselves and the rest of the fam over. And it’s always the same argument: We'll bring things and help. But that’s never the case. It always seems to fall on mine and my wife’s shoulders of cleaning and cooking and shopping, while the rest do the bare minimum. Never helping with the cleaning before or after, and when they bring food it’s just finger food that is never enough and gone it seems in seconds.
Ah, ’Tis The Season.
The season where I’d rather be pretty much anywhere than where the hell I am.
Can't wait for it to be over and done with. Just 371 more days until the next family fun time. Hopefully I can just send a card or phone it in.
The Amityville Haunting is another sad attempt to bring this franchise back to life.
This rendition of the famed New York haunted house where in 1974, 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo murdered his entire family and then made famous again in 1975 by the Lutz story which was turned into the original “Amityville Horror” in 1979. Now this time around, the movie is shot entirely in POV style and of the “found foot-age” genre that has been a growing trend in the realm of horror films.
The movie starts out with a group of teenagers, doing what teenagers do best with empty and somewhat abandoned homes with beds: breaking in. Three of the four know the story and reputation of the house and as the movie opens one of the boys of the group lays down the story of what has supposedly gone on in the house.
As the teens stand in the front of the entrance their camera picks a partial silhouette at the top of the stairs that goes unnoticed except for one, but by the time everyone looks it’s gone.
The camera cuts and when it comes back we find that the teens have spit up. One pair is of course in the upstairs bathroom videoing themselves having sex while the other pair is in the kitchen.
As the camera videos the couple in the bathroom the camera starts to blur and cut out (a trick that will be WAY OVER USED through-out the movie whenever the ghosts appear)only to just capture as the boy is yanked out the door, blood spraying on the wall as the girl screams. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the other couple in the kitchen of what is taking place to their friends, we cut back to the kitchen as the couple is making out. The camera shows the girl look behind her boyfriend, and as a look of shock comes across her face the cuts to black with screams.
We next open on the house as the Benson family meets the realtor in charge of the property. The son, Tyler, who is making a documentary of his family, films them going through the home. (Immediately fans of the previous films can see that this isn’t the house or even the same style of home used before. Where the original kind of sat away from the road and neighbors this one your basic, run-of-the-mill suburban home) Here we find out that the Benson family is on hard times financially and emotionally. The father, Doug, is an ex-marine sergeant and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who has some issues with civilian life as he treats his family like they were serving in the corps. The mother is your basic doughy-eyed woman who most of the time seems to be on a valium cocktail, but she does pose reservations to moving into their new home. But the father is adamant on living there since it has the right number of bedrooms and he’s tired of moving his family place to place because (we later find out is eight times in fifteen months) because of the older daughter’s discipline problems that are, unfortunately, never truly addressed.
As the Benson tours the house with their realtor Tyler’s camera starts with that annoying cutting out because a ghostly presence that we can only really here as voices seem to float up from the vent when he is left on his own for a while.
The realtor leaves the Benson’s alone to discuss what they want to do, and goes outside. And when they family goes out to tell her that they will take the home they find her lying dead in the driveway. I don’t know about you, but I think at this point any reasonable person with a half of a brain cell would not be looking to buy the house anymore. But, needless-to-say the Benson’s do.
After they find the realtor in the drive, the camera cuts to the move in day. Tyler is once again filming the day’s proceedings as the movers take in their belongings. Tyler doing his documentary thing talks with the movers and asks them if they had ever heard of the Amityville house and that this was it. The movers have somehow have never heard of the story and laugh it off when Tyler tells them that the house is haunted. Also we find out the invisible friend is back -only this time his name is Jonathon- and he has befriended himself to the youngest daughter. (later we find out that Jonathon was a victim of the DeFeo killing spree) But as the movers finish up their day, Tyler catches on tape one them falling down the stairs and breaking his neck (again we have that annoying cutting and blurring of the camera). You would think that, again, would be reason enough not to live there, but Doug persists that it was no big deal.
The next day, Doug has found that the back door has been left open and he suspects the oldest daughter of sneaking out. After the two get into an argument, Doug seems to have a change of heart and tells the family that they should go to the movies, and that he and Tyler will stay behind and finish up the unpacking.
As the rest leave, Doug takes advantage of their absence and buys and installs a security camera in the living room that has a view of the front and back doors, and while they do we see a ghostly figure outside the window when the camera is left to operate on it’s own. Tyler also happens upon an iPhone that the kids in the beginning were using to video each other in the kitchen. And when Tyler is finally able to charge the battery and show them that something supernatural is going on the his parents can only focus on the couple and their relations. He also installs an alarm on the doors as well that goes off when the back door mysteriously opens by itself. Leading to yet another argument with the oldest daughter.
Through out the week the Benson’s stay in the house, Tyler makes little vignettes about the days events and the supernatural goings ons.
As the week continues, Doug starts to unravel mentally, his wife grow more adamant on leaving when she’s not valiumed out, and the growing dependency of the youngest daughter and her new friend. But when a chance real break-in of the local teenage stud and the oldest daughter trying to hook up with him gives Doug the excuse that what has been going on is in fact the daughter. And when he chases the boy out the door by gun point, Tyler follows him, only to catch him as he is being dragged off by an unseen force.
The police finally get involved when Doug can’t find trace of the boy after Tyler yells for him. The responding officer pretty much confirms Doug’s earlier thoughts of what is going on is real, telling him that they know all about this kid ands how he hooks up with all the girls on the block, but since he can’t find any trace of him in the dark that he’ll be back in the morning. Upon the officers arrival he discovers a large pool of blood but no body and enlists the help of a detective who lays out the larger story of the house and how nobody that has ever lived there has stayed more than two months.
At this point, Doug, not certain of anything anymore contacts a war buddy, (named) Cut, who comes over and installs more cameras through-out the house. While Cut is making sure that everything works he catches a brief glimpse of a ghost behind but when he turns around nothings there. But as Cut leaves via the backyard the power line above falls down on him, killing Cut. This begins to really drive a spike mentally into Doug as he now believes that there IS something supernatural going on and tries to find a way to combat it.
The last day begins where we finally see (via Cut’s security camera) Jonathon at the table with Tyler and his younger sister and that he wants her to stay with him forever and how she wishes she could as well. Later in the day Doug’s mental brake goes into high gear as he starts reliving moments from the service and waves around his pistol. And for what ever the reason his wife doesn’t just get up and leave with the children and instead says that they are going to her sisters in a couple of days. The night progress with a ramped supernatural problems leading most of the family to spend the night in the parents room. That is except for the oldest daughter who spends the night in hers.
As we watch her sleep via the camera her father had installed in her room we see as she awakes and then we see her get attacked by something unseen. The camera does it’s usual cut out stuff and when it comes back it shows only her legs on the bed and blood on the walls.
Somehow the rest of the family has failed to hear her screams, but after a while the mother awakes and heads down to the dinning room for no apparent reason other than to do so. But as she nears the kitchen she pulled away from the camera view. Her screams awaken Tyler who then follows her downstairs and into the kitchen. He sees nothing on his first pass through but when he goes to turn around he finds his mother on the floor dead and looks to have been burned. Something then grabs his attention off screen but as he turns around he gets grabbed himself and his camera goes dead. The youngest daughter at this point gets up out of bed, the camera cuts and then she standing next to her father who she then stabs in the heart as he is about to get up.
The camera cuts to black a final time but we are able to her the daughter talking to somebody and how she is happy with where she is going to go.
While Amityville Haunting had a decent idea (I’m also a fan of the found footage genre) it lacked quite a bit. The trailer had me sucked in but that was about it when it came to the movie which was a real let down. The parents constant assholeness and complaining and arguing was a real distraction especially when it was combined with the overly used camera flashes and cutting out which was more headache inducing as was scary. However, the old tried and true basic scares that have worked well with other films in thins genre worked here when used and in my opinion would worked far better if used more than the camera work. I would names of the people that played the characters, but IMDB has this movie not coming out until next year sometime and only listed one person in it.
I give Amityville Haunting one and half severed heads out five. Just take a pass on this one because it doesn’t really fulfill the wants of the fans of the franchise or that of the found footage genre.
