Before seeing the trailer for the new The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, starring Daniel Craig, I never heard of Stieg Larsson or the Millennium Trilogy books. My only exposure to Larsson comes from searching through the foreign film sections of Hastings and Movie Trading Company and repeatedly skipping over The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I considered buying the individual DVDs but $19.95 seems a bit much for something I’ve never seen and $59.99 for the set is just outrageous.
My plan, and this year is the perfect example of how life shits on me and my plans, was to watch all three of the original movies before the remake comes out in theaters on December 23rd. Luckily, I have (or had) a female “friend” with a sizeable TV, a Wii and Netflix. Dragon Tattoo then became my excuse to hang out at that friend’s house, who I un-affectionately refer to as “CT” for cock tease. Somehow, she ended up asleep in the other room and I ended up on the couch by myself watching Dragon Tattoo.
One of the first things that struck me was how unattractive Michael Nyqvist is as a leading man, and I couldn’t stop comparing Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth to Rooney Mara’s in my mind. Story wise, Dragon Tattoo was very slow. I felt every one of the152 minutes. I don’t know if it’s just in the European movies I watch, but I seem to come across a lot of them with gratuitous sex scenes. It’s usually an erotic plus, but this time the sex was little more than a distraction. You could tell the book was written by a man, both from the rape scene, the revenge penetration, and the sexual relationship that developed out of nowhere between the main character and his tattooed lesbian sidekick.
Eventually, I reached the point of no return and only sat through this borefest so I could finally see the end. And there was no way in hell I was going back over to CT’s house just to watch the end. When I arrived I was very disappointed with my final destination. The poor old man suffered through his later years in life all because his cunt of a niece wouldn’t tell him that she was alive and well. I’m sure that’s a shortcoming in the original material, but it didn’t make the journey any less of a waste of time. The Nazi torture reminded me of Hostel, but somehow more pointless. It also got me thinking about suicide by strangulation, but I didn’t put that puzzle together until after I watched Love & Other Drugs.
The Dragon Tattoo remake has a much better cast and, based on the trailers, appears to be an all-around better film. It wouldn’t be the first time I preferred a Hollywood bastardization of a film. I refused to watch Let Me In, even though I actually like actress Chloë Grace Moretz, because it was a remake of one of my favorite films of all time, Let the Right One in. However, The Departed, which stole entire scenes from Infernal Affairs, and The Ring, which started the trend of Japanese horror movie stealing, were both better than the originals.
I still want to see Hornet’s Nets and Played with Fire, but that will likely happen on iTunes on a 17” laptop and not at CT’s woman cave.
http://dragontattoofilm.com/
Love & Other Drugs
After I got home from CT’s house, which was some time around 1am, I made the mistake of searching for a mindless flick to fall asleep to. Love & Other Drugs just started playing on HBO and nothing says mindless like a rom-com. When I went to the theater to see 50/50 I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting in to. Love & Other Drugs caught me completely by surprise. I originally just saw it as a rentable Jake Gyllenhaal/Anne Hathaway movie that may be good to watch with a chick. Somehow, in all of the film’s promotion, I completely missed the part where one of the main characters has Parkinson’s.
A big theme in Love & Other Drugs was how Hathaway’s character didn’t want pity or Gyllenhaal’s character to feel like he had to take care of her. It hit me, like a ton of bricks, that one of the things I’ve been struggling with since I got out of the hospital is not wanting anyone to feel like they have to take care of me. I hate being taken care of, even when it’s with the best of intentions. Always have and always will.
Instead of falling asleep, I found myself crying again, this time at 4 in the morning. The part that really struck me was the convention scene in which Hathaway found a support structure and got to watch other people with various stages of Parkinson’s speak about their own Parkinson’s experiences. I avoid the monthly LVAD meetings at UT Southwestern like the plague. Hopefully, me having an LVAD isn’t a permanent thing, unlike Parkinson’s, which gets progressively worse, and going to the LVAD meetings to be around a bunch of older people whose hearts have no chance of regenerating is almost like admitting defeat.
My only real complaint with Love & Other Drugs is the typical Hollywood ending. If I stayed all night in my car, waiting for a chick who said she didn’t want to see me, I would be labeled a creeper. But when Gyllenhaal does it, it becomes romantic and they end up together in the end. I know everyone’s experience with a terminal or potentially terminal disease is different, but I’ve experienced a lot of isolation and self doubt. I can’t even imagine being involved in a passionate romance without it ending very badly.
Ending aside, I think Love & Other Drugs is worth the time investment. And Kudos to Hathaway for showing her breasts again and turning in a very solid acting performance.
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2329347609/
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