The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Following only two years after the original, Swedish, adaptation of the book and it's ensuing wake of critical acclaim, this 2011 English-language version of Larsson's book had a lot to live up to.

The film follows a recently disgraced journalist (Daniel Craig) who is hired by a wealthy businessman to solve the 40 year old case of his niece’s murder, in exchange for information that will help him get his credibility back. Eventually, he enlists the help of a quite unconventional research assistant in the form of Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), the titular Girl.

Coming in at about two and a half hours, the film is quite a heavy experience, both in its manner of storytelling and in the way of content. There's an unusual structure at play here, with the first two acts (I'd say the film is split into 5 acts rather than three) having two almost completely separate stories, one of which is forgotten about and only tangentially referred to after the two main characters meet up. This serves as brilliant exposition though, if a bit long. You get a real insight into the multiple sides that make up Lisbeth: the strong and independent, take-no-prisoners badass, the lonely soul and the fragile and damaged young woman who stumbles from one f*cked-up situation to another. I've gotta say, Salander is one of the best written and portrayed characters I've seen in recent years in a big blockbuster movie like this.

I'm particularly happy with the casting of the two protagonists. Craig works well as Mikael Blomkvist, giving the role the much needed tact and a portrayal of genuine concern for the case and those around him. He's like a polite version of Kenneth Brannagh's Wallander (another Swedish-written detective played by a Brit). From what I've read, other people including Brad Pitt and George Clooney were considered for the role, but I think the former hit too close to another David Fincher film about a detective investigating a gruesome murder case with Brad Pitt in the lead (Se7en), and the latter wouldn't really fit in my opinion (plus, Lisbeth's boss looks exactly like a provincial Clooney). But the real masterstroke in casting is with Mara as Salander. Not exactly an unknown, Mara hasn't had many starring roles in larger productions, but has worked with Fincher in the past on The Social Network, and was probably a risky move considering some of the names that were banded around for the role (including Natalie Portman, who despite my adoration of would not have worked nearly as well, alongside Anne Hathaway, Ellen Page, Emma Watson and Scarlett Johansson). Mara delivers a near perfect performance though, and her willingness to commit everything, appearance-wise, to the role is endearing.

As for the film itself, it's beautifully executed, and is very much a David Fincher film. I can't nail down exactly what it is, maybe it's the humble grey, white and blue tones throughout, but the film just feels very Scandinavian. The atmosphere gives everything that clean, stoic manner with hints that just below the surface things aren't as well behaved as they appear. When you do see the underside, it's unforgiving. There are two scenes in particular with Salander and her government-appointed guardian that really cut close to the bone. The first of which triggered in me, for the first time in a long while, the response that I had to remind myself that they're just actors and it's not real. It's just a horrific scene. When we return to the situation though, there is somewhat of a shift in power, and although the same sort of terrible things happen again, a sense of justice makes it much more bearable. To show a similar situation twice and evoke such different reactions is a hallmark of good direction.

Just a final word on the styling of the film. Whoever did the costume design (and hair/make-up and all that jazz) for Salander, did a stellar job. She looks fantastic and her appearance fits the character phenomenally well. it would have been easy to just go the "goth it all up" route, but there's a much more nuanced and subtle approach taken here.

So in conclusion, it's a wonderful film. A little bit emotionally draining at times, so I wouldn't watch it after a particularly exhausting day, but brilliantly executed and beautifully constructed. David Fincher solidifies himself as one of my favourite directors even more with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

TL;DR: Film good. Go watch.

Office Space (1999)

There seems to be a theme in films I really enjoy these days. The whole young adult being dissatisfied with their life and doing something about it, whether it's wiping your memory, kicking the medication, or in this case, sticking it to the man. Office Space is the story of how rundown office drone Peter Gibbons comes to realise that there's more to life that spacing out in your cubicle and doing roughly 15 minutes of actual work in a week. Alongside this, the company he works for is going through a streamlining process and laying off staff left, right and centre, leaving many of Peter's friends either jobless or scared of becoming so.

The mundane office atmosphere is captured beautifully considering it's such a boring place. From the ever growing stacks of boxes in places, to the faulty printer, to the TPS report coversheets; everything is wonderfully tedious, sometimes to the point of absurdity. As the films inspired by a series of animated shorts it's easy to see that a lot of it was constructed like a series of standalone comic strips, a lot like a sketch show. But it works, and don't think I mean that there's little attention paid to the narrative, because there is, just that there are a lot of scenes that would work well by themselves.

To be honest, there isn't all that much to say about Office Space, except that it's great fun. Even if you've never worked in a cubicle farm, you'll have been in situations or dealt with people like the characters somewhere along the line and been infuriated by them, and a little comedic catharsis can be great for the soul. There's one scene in particular that I'm sure anyone who's ever printed a document in a school/library/office/university can live vicariously through.

Garden State (2004)

I'm a bit of a sucker for films like Garden State. Written, starring and directed by Zach Braff, it follows the personal journey of a mid-twenties actor who returns home for the first time in nearly a decade to go to his mother's funeral. Cue a lot of soul searching and self-discovery as he reconnects with people he used to know, attempts to fix broken relationships and falls in love.

With a general feeling of detachment and being lost, it deals with a lot of feelings that I imagine most people deal with when they first move away from home. There's one scene where Braff's character talks about how your idea of "home" changes after leaving the family house, where you've been away "home" long enough that it doesn't feel the same any more and the new place you live only feels like a place to keep your sh*t, it's a pretty relatable concept. I see a number of my friends from back home in some of the supporting cast too, as I imagine everyone will. You've got the guy who's pretty successful in terms of career/money but has no idea at all what he actually enjoys doing or wants to do, the guy who just seems locked in a time-freeze where nothing's changed for him since leaving school and the guy who's completely flipped in what everyone expected of them.

Then you get people like Sam, the kind of quirky eccentric who at first seems to have a unique world view and is enthralling but turns out to be a bit crazy. She reminds me a lot of Kate Winslet's character in Eternal Sunshine, the kind of girl that's a bit of an adorable oddball who's a rollercoaster of emotion. Actually, the film has a lot of parallels with Eternal Sunshine, with the lost, numb main character and the journey he goes on with one of those girls. It's probably why I liked it so much.

For a writing and directorial debut, Garden State's a triumph. Enjoyable and engaging for a relatively low-key affair, it's quite deserving of the ranking it received in Empire's Top 500 Films of All Time (393).

Leon (1994)

A film I've been meaning to watch for a while but have been putting off again and again. It's quite high up on IMDB's toplist (#31), despite being quite off the radar for most people, so I was quite intrigued by the film. It's directed by a frenchman, Luc Besson, and it's pretty noticeable. While being set entirely in NYC, there's a certain atmosphere throughout the movie, particularly in the set design, that makes it feel very continental. It's hard to pin down, but I'd put it down largely down to the colour palette. Lots of beiges and browns without coming off as overly dirty.

Anyway, the basic plot follows the relationship between a hitman (or "cleaner") and a young girl, whom he takes in after her family down the hall from him are killed by a bunch of corrupt cops. It's a strange relationship, between a very young girl who's in a rush to grow up and has had no real romantic role models in her life, and a psychologically scarred, much older, man who grows to love her but in a much different way than she does him. Apparently I watched the extended cut of the film which, according to wikipedia, includes a large number of scenes dealing with the relationship between the two. I imagine the original cut was actually pretty boring, even if a bit more uncomfortable (from what I gather, a lot of the scenes where it's established that Leon doesn't want the same thing as Mathilda aren't included in the original cut). There's a cut scene in a restaurant that was really powerful in conveying the distance between the two, and I can't believe it wasn't included. Even with the additional scenes, the whole dynamic still left me with a pretty uncomfortable feeling though, which I imagine was the intent.

I've been a hardcore Natalie Portman fan for quite a while, but still it shocked me how good she was in this. Seeing as she was so young I was expecting typical child-actor fare, but she delivered a great performance with all the hallmarks you can still see in her work today, I guess she's got a natural talent that she's just been honing from the get-go. I've never seen Jean Reno in anything before, at least not that I can remember, but that's probably because I don't watch too many foreign films. Regardless, he's probably the standout here, striking a good balance between the troubled, broken hearted lonely guy and the man who does what he has to do to get his money. not erring too close to either end of that spectrum creates a believable character in a not-so-believable situation. Gary Oldman, as corrupt DEA agent Stansfield, delivers the most over the top performance of the piece, painting the picture of a psychotic killer with a power complex. the character might be a bit ridiculous, but it's entertaining and isn't so out there that it feels out of place with everything else.

All in all, a very well crafted piece with a strange, and at (quite a number of) times, awkward dynamic between the two main characters.

Attack the Block (2011)

Joe Cornish's (of Adam and Joe Show fame) is a pretty interesting collision of the hoodrat film and the alien monster movie. The basic premise, for the unaware, is that a group of young hoodies are out being chavs one night when they mug Sam, a young undergraduate nurse. During the mugging, and alien crash lands next to the cast, and the film follows the unlikely team as they battle against the alien invasion. An alien invasion centred directly on their block of flats, no less.

So yeah, the premise is a little ridiculous: hoodies attempt to fight off alien invaders with council-estate standard weapons. Other than that though, the film's pretty grounded with respect to the central cast. You often get films where the cast has elements that are unlikely to work together, but they do so without any issue because of the crisis. Sam is quite understandably apprehensive to stick with the boys considering the circumstances in which they first meet. Of course, for the movie to work it is overcome, but it's nice that even a film that's arguably just harmless fun doesn't make its characters act like unemotional robots. Speaking of the central cast, pretty much everyone in the film is a relative unknown due to the indie style of production. Most of them are still straddling the line between child actors and legitimate actors in their own right, coming just down on the side of the latter. Regardless, great performances are given all around, particularly from John Boyega (as Moses) who lends his role enough subtlety that, towards the end of the film, he is much more than the one-dimensional character he is through the first two acts. Alex Esmail (as Pest) manages a convincing mugger with a heart of gold, too. The much more experienced Jodie Whittaker is the most believable though, as Sam, managing to create a strong and determined character going through a rollercoaster of emotions in a pretty hectic situation.

The film as a whole's really enjoyable. Striking a perfect balance between action and comedy, you get a well crafted piece of cinema with a good sense of pace. Considering that the film is the director's first feature film, the production values are remarkably high. It's apparently shot mostly on location as far as I can tell, and some of the shots are fantastic. There are two great scenes that play out in the corridors of the titular block that are really reminiscent of 80s/90s monster movies too. You can really tell that Cornish has made his name in the industry before this simply by absorbing so much media and analysing and critiquing it.

The aliens themselves are great too. They're relatively simple, but their two defining, and pretty much only, features (the jet black fur and the glowing teeth) create something quite iconic and instantly recognisable. They give off a real primal vibe, similar to the alien from the original Alien: strong, fast and born to tear you apart.

I'd definitely recommend it as a good comedy monster movie. It's an achievement for a budding director to have such a fun film so close to the start of their CV too.

Fight Club (1999)

This film is one of those that the internet seems to be in love with, one that most of the critic world actually agrees with for once (unlike V for Vendetta). On first watch, it does seem worthy of such praise, on the whole at least. Above all, I enjoyed it.

David Fincher's fast becoming one of my favourite directors. I'm only really just getting into films now, so I don't know much about the whole industry, but Fincher is someone who stands out as someone I like. I've also got Seven, his film before Fight Club, to watch on that list. The narration and the visual segments breaking the fourth wall, e.g. the scene establishing Tyler's backstory, work really well and aren't jarringly different to the overall feel, and Tyler's co-operation as well as the narrator talking in those scenes just adds to it. The constant "little things" throughout add up to make me want to call the film stylised, but it really isn't all that much. The little "subliminal" flashes of pornography and pictures of Tyler, the fact that the house is so dilapidated, everyone is so beat up. It all adds up to give the film that strange half-asleep feeling where things look real, but bubbling just below the surface is the twilight world of the not-quite-awake.

Obviously I knew the twist going in, the film's been out for more than two thirds of my life, it'd be hard to make it this far without knowing. That said, I don't think it took it that much out of the experience. Sure a bit of the confusion was lost once the clues start appearing about mid-way through, like the first interaction "Jack" has with Marla in the house but it was still enjoyable to see the character's try to work out what was going on. If anything, foreknowledge makes Tyler even more charismatic. You lose the question of "how could anybody actually be like that?" because he's just the delusion of a sleep deprived man going through a complete breakdown. The twist itself is well executed, in my opinion. Obviously it isn't exactly realistic, and makes great use of movie-logic, but as part of the narrative it works very well, it's foreshadowed especially well; stuff like the reason they cut off the balls as punishment in Project Mayhem stemming from the testicular cancer support group and Tyler's abusive relationship with Jack in that he doesn't let him talk about him, which is how a lot of mentally ill people treat themselves.

Of course, part of that comes from the performance too. The acting across the board is pretty much spot on. Edward Norton gives a performance that reminds me a lot of Neo from The Matrix, at least he does in the first act of the film. He gives a great portrayal of a man on a personal journey, from the man who literally has no idea how to change his life in the bgeinning, through a man with a real purpose, finally arriving at someone who is prepared to do what he has to to do what is right in the end. And Norton delivers at all points. Helena Bonham-Carter as Marla, despite the fact in all other circumstances the character would be a nutjob, actually grounds the film more in the real world during the final act. She is someone who is f*cked up, but in a not-creating-an-alter-ego-to-try-and-otherthrow-the-financial-system kind of way, which is a bit refreshing when you see all the other characters. She's just trying to deal with having a sh*tty life and caring about someone who's an asshole. But of course, the real star of the show is Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden. Pitt is just able to pull off that self-assuredness with such a slick approach that the result is someone who is hyperconfident without being just straight up arrogant. The man just oozes cool and charisma, which is Tyler to a tee because he was created to be everything "Jack" wanted to be. Even dressed in track pants, a hawaiian shirt and those ridiculous sunglasses he's still someone who you'd follow in a crisis.

As for the whole underlying message that people seem obsessed with in regard to the film, I think it's ridiculously simple. It's not advocating anarchy, or even satirising it in an attempt to discredit it. What I took from it, if anything, is that we should all be willing to step up our game a bit and have the balls to better our lives, but not to overreach yourself for fear of going to far. If there's one quote from the library of good lines that makes up the script that should actually be taken seriously it's that we should all aim to have "the ability to let that which does not matter truly slide". To me, that's as deep as it gets.

All in all, a deeply enjoyable film that I'm really glad I watched. One that actually lived up to the expectations I had going in, too. I can see why it's so highly lauded by so many people.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011)

Thanks to the power of DVDs I have, these past few months been catching up on the series. I got bored of reading the series about halfway through the fifth book and I couldn't be arsed actually reading the rest, so the films will have to do.

Something that does translate well from the books to the films is the strength of main cast, but even more impressively, the supporting cast. Thanks to being able to use eight feature-length films and ten years, pretty much everyone gets reasonably developed (at least, as far as they're going to get in what is, ultimately, a children's film). Over the series, watching Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson grow up and become proper actors is a pretty unique experience. Hell, I've f*cking grown up along the same time as them (I can still remember my class at primary school going to see the first film).

I digress, like I said, my favourite part of this film in particular is the supporting cast. Resolutions to minor arcs all over the shop: Malfoy's family finally being not terrible, Neville becoming a badass, why Snape is actually a good guy, Ron and Hermione finally getting their sh*t together and a lot that I'm probably forgetting. I'm also fairly certain that Helena Bonham Carter gives us one of my favourite secondary characters in film as Bellatrix Lestrange. It's probably just because I have a thing for HBC, but the scenes where she is playing Hermione masquerading as Bellatrix are particularly impressive. Apparently they had Emma Watson act out the scene herself (which they used the voice off) then had HBC do it for shooting, so you've got HBC acting like Emma Watson acting like Hermione acting like Bellatrix.

The film works great as a feel good film. I'm pretty sure you can guess that in the end the good guys win. If it weren't what it is, I'd say that it felt a little too neat of an ending. There was a lot of carnage in the final few set pieces that just gets glossed over a little bit, and a lot of things that one particular character should be bothered about at least (one of Ron's brothers is killed off, and he doesn't seem particularly shaken by it at all in the next scene). But I can accept that, even with the darker tone that the later films have taken the series would always have had a largely good ending. One thing I really couldn't enjoy was the epilogue, waaaayyyy too short. A two minute scene catching up with only the main characters is fine in a stand-alone film or anything up to a trilogy. But an eight film series? Come on, I've waited ten years and sat through something like 18+ hours to find out what these characters end up doing. I didn't even see any of the supporting cast (apart from Malfoy) in the background in that last scene. What the f*ck happened to them? I'm honestly considering going out to buy the book just to get the proper epilogue, and if it's just as bad in there I don't know how I'll handle it.

But yeah, all-in-all I love these films, particularly the later ones. It might be the rose tinted glasses of a childhood favourite, but they're really well produced and give you a lot of great moments between the main cast, even if they are so cliched they're signposted from outside the theatre.