Director:Niels Arden Oplev
Screenplay: Nikolaj Arcel, Rasmus Heisterberg (based on the novel by Stieg Larsson)
Producer: Søren Stærmose
Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Peter Haber, Sven-Bertil Taube
Year: 2009
Country: Sweden
MPAA Rating: Not Rated (would be R)
Duration: 152 min

(4.5/5)

There are a couple of things that I tend to find deadly dull in movies that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was in danger of falling into – mysteries that wallow in the detectives’ personal trauma to the exclusion of the mystery itself, and adaptations of best-selling books that feel the need to be so faithful there’s no room to breathe as a film. Thankfully, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo skirts both of these concerns deftly, managing to balance the mystery with the deep backstory of investigators Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, and also adapting the novel with a judicious eye for cuts and modifications, even improving it in some cases.

Mikael Blomkvist (played with both gravity and ease by veteran Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist) is an investigative journalist just convicted for libel after an expose-gone-wrong. He’s mysteriously summoned to a northern village by Henrik Vanger, 82-year-old former CEO of the Vanger Corporation and patriarch of the sprawling Vanger family. Henrik has a 40-year-old mystery that he’d like Blomkvist to take one last stab at before Henrik succumbs to his advanced age – the murder of his grand-niece Harriet in 1966. Intrigued, Blomkvist agrees and begins working his way through cold evidence and long-dead leads. Meanwhile, brilliant but eccentric researcher Lisbeth Salander, who had been hired by Vanger to do a background check on Blomkvist before Vanger contacted him, finds herself drawn into the mystery as well – but not before she takes care of some business of her own.

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Kiss Me Deadly, playing on TCM on Saturday

Two birthday marathons on TCM this week – Akira Kurosawa on Tuesday (one of a multiple mini-marathons leading up to his centennial birthday on the 23rd) with heavy hitters The Bad Sleep Well, High and Low and Red Beard and some lesser-known ones; then Ginger Rogers on Wednesday, mostly concentrating on her pre-code stuff, including 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933, as well as a bunch of other obscure ones that probably aren’t quite “good” in the strictest sense of the word. Other newly featured stuff includes Ealing’s The Lavender Hill Mob on Tuesday, Kiss Me Deadly and 12 Angry Men on Saturday, and the Billy Wilder-penned Midnight on Sunday.

I apologize for not getting this posted yesterday. I got distracted with other things, and then it got late, and then…OH, I FORGOT TO FINISH IT, OKAY? I’m sorry. There wasn’t really anything of interest on today anyway.

Tuesday, March 16

11:30am – TCM – The Lavender Hill Mob
Alec Guinness leads the Ealing Studios regulars in this delightful heist comedy, one of the greats among a bunch of great late ’40s, early ’50s Ealing films. Also look for a really young Audrey Hepburn in a walk-on (this is her first film, I believe).
1951 UK. Director: Charles Crichton. Starring: Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James, Marjorie Fielding.
Newly Featured!

1:00pm – TCM – The Great Escape
I expected to mildly enjoy or at least get through this POW escape film. What happened was I was completely enthralled with every second of it, from failed escape attempts to planning the ultimate escape to the dangers of carrying it out. It’s like a heist film in reverse, and extremely enjoyable in pretty much every way.
1963 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn, James Donald.
Must See

4:00pm – TCM – Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Musical tones and volcano images haunt Richard Dreyfuss, eventually leading to an encounter with some of the most strangely beuatiful and mysterious, yet apparently friendly, aliens ever put on film.
1977 USA. Director: Steven Spielberg. Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban.

8:00pm – TCM – Akira Kurosawa centennial marathon
So, TCM’s playing Kurosawa films because it would be his 100th birthday on the 23rd of March. Predictably, I haven’t seen any of the offerings tonight, though, also predictably, I’m hoping to change that. Tonight, they’ve got The Bad Sleep Well followed by High and Low, and Red Beard, and then on into the morning with I Live in Fear and Scandal.

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Clearly I’m getting behind on the New Hollywood marathon; I’ve actually been watching a good bit, but not finding the right things to say to write about them. So I’m just going to lump together some short thoughts on the films that didn’t inspire me to write a whole post about, or films that others reviewed or are planning to review.

The Graduate

(4/5)

This is one of the few films on this marathon’s master list that I’ve seen before, but I wanted to rewatch it because I was pretty sure I had missed something the first time around. That first time, I was just barely eighteen and was sure that college would sort out any remaining lack of certainty I had about my future career and life. Four years later, it hadn’t, and I found myself, like Benjamin Braddock, unsure what to do after graduation and drifting a bit, trying to find something to latch onto. I think when I first saw it, I had difficulty understanding Benjamin’s indecision and willingness to just float along after graduating, basically falling into an affair with Mrs. Robinson (the wife of his father’s business partner) because he didn’t have much else better to do. This time, it all worked and fit together much better for me.

The inclusion of Simon and Garfunkel songs was perfect, and made me think about how influential The Graduate, with its detached main character, soundtrack, and mood, has been on films since – especially Indiewood quirky coming-of-age stories. Half of R3 will strangle me for saying this, but there seems a strong connection to Garden State (though even I would agree that The Graduate is a stronger film). My only beef is that the Berkeley sequence, when Benjamin goes to try to win Elaine, loses some interest and waffles a bit too much. On the other hand, the very last shot that’s often berated (by some) is exactly right.

M*A*S*H and McCabe and Mrs. Miller after the jump.

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(4/5)

Based on my superficial knowledge of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice before watching it, I expected a swinger sex farce, taking advantage of the loosening mores and relaxed content restrictions of the late ’60s to portray two pairs of married friends who indulge in becoming something more. But it ended up being a lot more than that, to my pleased surprise.

Bob and Carol (Robert Culp and Natalie Wood) attend a self-discovery retreat, initially because Bob intends to make a film about it, but after a revelatory and emotional group counseling session, they become believers and want to share their new-found enlightenment with their best friends Ted and Alice (Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon). But Ted and Alice aren’t quite ready for their friends’ touchy-feely gospel and being told that they should live in total openness and truth makes them more uncomfortable than anything. Here I expected the film to side with Bob and Carol unequivocally and paint Ted and Alice as hopelessly old-fashioned and out of touch. But actually, the film is more balanced and thoughtful than that.

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Them!, playing on TCM late Friday, early Saturday

The Oscars are over for another year, but Film on TV continues apace, and it’s another quite good week with a bunch of quality films across the board. Among newly featured films, TCM has a Kurosawa mini-marathon on Tuesday night through Wednesday morning – I’ve only seen a few Kurosawa films myself, so I’m hoping to catch up on a few myself. We’ve also got the first film with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer and Ellen Page’s breakout film, Hard Candy – how’s that for a near-double feature? Friday’s got some real B-level treats, including The Collector (yes, the one recently featured on the Cinecast – see how awesome the Cinecast is? It affects TCM programming choices!), Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2, and one of my absolute favorite 1950s atomic creature-features, Them!.

Monday, March 8

4:00am – TCM – The Bad and the Beautiful
Vincente Minnelli directs Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Dick Powell, and Gloria Grahame in one of the best dark-side-of-Hollywood noirish films this side of Sunset Boulevard.
1952 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Dick Powell, Gloria Grahame.

6:15am – IFC – Broadway Danny Rose
It’s lesser Woody Allen, but it’s still Woody Allen. Danny Rose (Woody) is a theatrical agent whose clients always leave him when they start becoming successful. His current client, a has-been tenor trying to make a comeback, gives him further grief by having an affair with a young woman (Mia Farrow) with gangster connections. Not very substantial, but enjoyable.
1984 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte.
(repeats at 12:05pm and 5:30pm)

8:15am – TCM – The Band Wagon
There are many reasons to consider The Band Wagon among the best movie musicals ever made. The satirical plot involving a Shakespearean director who tries to turn a lighthearted musical into a doom-and-gloom version of Faust, the bright yet sardonic script and score by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who basically appear in the film as the characters played by Nanette Fabrey and Oscar Levant), the last really great role for Fred Astaire (maybe Funny Face is a contender, but barely), and of course, the never-surpassed beauty of dance numbers like “Dancing in the Dark” with Fred and Cyd Charisse. But even if it didn’t have all that, I’d still rank it among my favorites for the epic “Girl Hunt Ballet” number spoofing hard-boiled detective fiction.
1953 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Jack Buchanan, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabrey.
Must See

9:35am – IFC – Bride and Prejudice
Laugh at me if you must for recommending Chadha’s Bollywood-infused version of Pride and Prejudice, but I love it. It’s silly, it’s beautiful, it’s a fun exercise in adaptation of literary classics, and it’s only slightly weighed down by Martin Henderson’s woodenness.
2005 UK. Director: Gurinder Chadha. Starring: Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Naveen Andrews, Alexis Bledel.
(repeats at 3:30pm)

4:00pm – TCM – Silk Stockings
The musical version of Ninotchka, about a staid, repressed Communist woman who goes to Paris on a mission, only to get loosened up by a Western guy. You’re better off with Ninotchka, honestly. Silk Stocking substitutes Cyd Charisse (who’s really only ever convincing when she’s dancing), Fred Astaire (who’s fine, though a bit on the old side by 1957), and adds Cole Porter music, which is really the major reason to check this version out.
1957 USA. Director: Rouben Mamoulian. Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin, George Tobias.

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Thanks to the magic of the internets, I was able to locate and watch all of the animated shorts up for an Academy Award come Sunday, and there’s some great stuff here. I’m honestly not sure how to pick which one I like best. You’ve got everything from another great entry in the Wallace and Gromit series to the jaw-dropping virtuoso trademark-ripping-off of Logorama, and other more conventional but still excellent shorts in between.

I’ve embedded them all after the jump, so take a look and let us know what you think.

(Unfortunately, I was not as successful at locating the live-action shorts; most of them only have trailers available online, if that.)

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This morning while killing some time browsing around Vimeo, I ran across this gorgeously-shot short by director Ben Briand. Two people are on a first date at a cafe, and the man asks the woman about her first love, and we see her reminiscences in flashback as she speaks. The combination of solid acting from the two leads and the beautiful cinematography (crisp in the cafe scenes, ethereal and almost lomo-esque in the flashback) captured me immediately, and I wasted little time tracking down more info on Mr. Briand. Going through the samples on his website, looks like he’s done a fair bit of commercial work in Australia, everything from Westfield Shopping Centers to high-end fashion, as well as a number of shorts (including a documentary following Cate Blanchett and Joseph Fiennes on a live theatre production). All of the clips show a similar strong sense of style, no matter how mundane the subject. Here’s hoping for more from Ben Briand, maybe a feature film at some point.

(The film credits the actress as Laura Gordon – can anyone tell if it’s the same Laura Gordon who’s in Saw V? I have no interest in watching the Saw movies enough to figure it out myself, but her resume on IMDb does say she’s Australian. I thought she was excellent in Apricot; would like to keep an eye on her career.)

This is the second in a hopefully consistent series highlight what’s available off the beaten track for film lovers in LA. We had a really good February, and looks like it’s going to be at least as good a March. So if you’re in LA, skip the AMC and the Arclight a time or two this month and see some of the great stuff the repertory and indie theatres are working hard to bring us.

Cinefamily @ The Silent Movie Theatre

The way I’m formatting these updates, you may think I have a soft spot for Cinefamily. You’re right. There may be a lot of repertory opportunities in town, but Cinefamily is the most eclectic of the bunch, serving equally foreign film lovers who want to get beyond the standard film buff stuff and cult-film lovers always on the quest for more and more bizarre fare. They’re also the only place to consistently do series around really interesting and wide-ranging themes, much like we’ve tried to do in our marathons around here, pulling all sorts of films together around the Doomsday, Dirty Thirties, and other themes. It would’ve been nice if they’d timed this month’s Post-Apocalypse Now series of apocalyptic double-features to match our Doomsday marathon a little better, but hey. They didn’t consult me.

Cinefamily.org

SPECIAL EVENTS (selected)

Jerry Beck’s Animation Festival: Scope-a-Toons – March 2nd
This month Jerry Beck highlights cartoons of the ’50s in various widescreen formats – many of them haven’t been screened in their original aspect ratios for ages, so this will be, as always, a special program. This is tomorrow, so cancel whatever plans you’ve got now and get ready.

See more after the jump.

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Contempt, playing on TCM late Sunday/early Monday

Of the new ones this week, I’m most excited about catching Days of Heaven myself (Monday on TCM), since it’s part of the Easy Riders, Raging Bulls marathon. Don’t know if I’ll watch it right away, though; I’m trying to keep in somewhat chronological order watching those. Other notable newly features ones: West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause on Tuesday, Alien on Wednesday (I’m long overdue a rewatch on that one), All the President’s Men on Thursday, and Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt late Sunday/early Monday.

Monday, March 1

8:30am – IFC – American Splendor
Harvey Pekar is one of the more idiosyncratic graphic novelists there is (”comic book” doesn’t quite cover his very adult, neurotic art), and Paul Giamatti brings him to life perfectly.
2003 USA. Directors: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini. Starring: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis.
(repeats at 3:30pm)

10:15pm – TCM – Days of Heaven
Terrence Malick has made his reputation on only four films; this is his second, some five years after debut Badlands. I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s on the Easy Riders, Raging Bulls Marathon list, so I will be before long – and judging by the screencaps I’ve already seen, I’m expecting to love it.
1978 USA. Director: Terrence Malick. Starring: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard.
Newly Featured!

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We’re all about film (mostly) over here on Row Three, but we indulge our love of other areas of pop culture over on MorePop. Here’s some of the things we’ve been looking at over there recently.

It’s been longer than I intended since the last one of these, so there’s a bunch of stuff over there worth highlighting!

• Lost Season 6 Discussion Thread [the return of the most popular MorePop feature]
• Kirsten Dunst in Akihabara Majokko Princess [video]
• Music Video: St. Vincent – “Laughing With a Mouth of Blood” [video]
• First Tracks from Broken Social Scene and New Pornographers Albums [MP3s]
• Pop Electronica Band Lali Puna Prepares New Album [MP3s]
• New Radio Empire Album Drops [video]
• A Couple of Poignant Videos from The Eel’s New “End Times” [video]
• Vampire Weekend Live from La Blogotheque [video]
• Jane’s Addiction Gets a New Bassist – DUFF!
• TIFF Review: The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights
• Rolling Stone Picks the Top 15 Drummers of All Time
• Blogger: The Day the Music Died
• I’m on a horse. [video]
• Procrastination is… [video]
• Nostalgia – Collectible Pop Culture Glasses
• Image of the Day: Lines and Colors
• Image of the Day: Facebook
• Image of the Day: Coulrophobia
• What [Jonathan's] Been Reading – February Edition
• Literary Quote: “I’d cheat on her and she’d know it and keep silent in order to live in my house with my wealth.” – Charles Bukowski [excerpt]
• Literary Quote: “I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” – Neil Gaiman [excerpt]
• The Definitive Mario Timeline
• The History of Video Games in Ten Minutes [video]
• First Images from NASA’s WISE Camera

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(4.5/5)

Woodstock exists in cultural memory as the quintessential music festival – the festival that brought together the greatest musical acts of the late 1960s with the counter-cultural generation. Every musical festival since aspires to be Woodstock-like (though sadly, most achieve the comparison only by being doused in rain and becoming mudpits as Woodstock famously did). As a current music-lover and festival-goer who is admittedly under-informed about a lot of the history of rock music and its place in culture at that time, I feel very grateful to Michael Wadleigh and others for preserving the event so well on film.

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Director: Andrea Arnold (Red Road)
Screenplay: Andrea Arnold
Producers: Kees Kasander, Nick Laws
Starring: Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbinder, Kierston Wareing, Rebecca Griffiths, Harry Treadway, Sydney Mary Nash
Year: 2009
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 124min.

(4.5/5)

Three years ago, Andrea Arnold burst onto the scene with her first feature Red Road, a slowly-paced but incredibly rewarding thriller set at the edges of Britain’s working class. She has outdone herself with Fish Tank, in which she continues to find inspiration from the working class, this time focusing on teenaged Mia, struggling with school and a shrill, messy home life, keeping her head afloat only through her enjoyment of dance and possibly her relationship with an older man. If this sounds like the premise of a sappy, inspirational coming of age story, trust me, it doesn’t play like one. What I said above is basically the synopsis that appears everywhere for the film, and though it approximates what happens in the film, it’s wholly inadequate to describe it.

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