The Girl Who Played With Fire

It was a toss-up, whether I'd go see The Girl Who Played With Fire or Inception last week, and Girl won the toss. Did I like it? Yes. was it depressing? Yes, but the middle one in a trilogy is almost always the depressing one. Am I now looking forward to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest? Oh yes.

This is a worthy sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo-not quite as violent, not quite and woman-hating, but just as intelligent, in that it does not always spell things out for you. My only issue with it was (as a friend pointed out) Salander seemed to be passive here-always sitting in her apartment, hiding out after she's kicked some ass. But in the book, she's never JUST sitting there-she's usually working on something, hacking something, investigating something-not just sitting there, smoking a cigarette while looking out at her great view. Still, it was well done and the action sequences were very well done, although Salander seems to be a bit of a cipher in the movie, whereas in the books, we come to know quite well why she does what she does. Still, I suppose they have to save something for the third movie. For a made-for-TV movie in Sweden, it's pretty good. Now where's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest?

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

This was actually a really good movie. I was not expecting much from it, and I ended up really liking it. It was helped along by George Clooney's charm, of course, I don't think anyone else could have pulled off this part. It's the story of three convicts on a chain gang in the 30's, who manage to escape to try and find the loot they stashed away before they got sent to the gang. It's also loosely based on The Odyssey. I enjoyed picking out the references that The Odyssey (fine, I'm a geek) but the whole thing was just fun. Everyone was enjoying what they were doing, it's shot beautifully and there's a good story there. But what really sealed the deal was the music. No, I've never been a bluegrass, let alone country, fan. But the music in this movie was amazing and I defy anyone to watch it and not be mesmerized by the scene with the Sirens and Allison Strauss, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch singing in the background. It's interesting-you bring a lot to this movie (a background in The Odyssey) or no knowledge at all of it, and I think you would have a perfectly good time either way. I liked it much more than I thought I would.